4 Reasons Video Conferencing is Good for Business
1. Reduced Costs
It’s no secret that travel costs are through the roof – petrol costs, train and plane tickets are making it much less cost effective to send salesmen out on the road or to keep in touch with clients in person. However, all these can be accomplished with video conferencing. There are some initial costs to be sure, but you’ll find that they are quickly recouped in your travel savings. And it’s not only savings for you: studies have shown that 1000 hours of video meetings uses no more power than a one hour drive to a meeting. It’s a great way to reduce your company’s carbon footprint. It’s good for your business balance, good for the environment and impressive to clients.
2. Keeping Employees Connected
Recent polls of workers nationwide have shown that almost 80% would prefer telecommuting to working in the office. Pluses for employees include savings in both money and time. Benefits on the company side are several. It’s no longer necessary to replace an employee who is relocating, meaning you save on expensive employee recruiting and training for replacements, and employees who work from home are no longer using valuable office space. What’s more, using telecommuting with remote employees you can help them keep up with what’s going on in the company operations and discuss progress to help them stay on track. Found the perfect hire, but they don’t want to relocate? Geography is no longer an issue. And teleconferencing isn’t just for long distance! Teams from different departments in your office can easily get together to make decisions on projects or to go over new data without needing to schedule a full-blown meeting that can often end up taking over a whole afternoon.
3. Keeping Your Friends Close
While a telephone conference call is the business standard, having video can take your long distance meetings to a whole new level. Being able to have face to face conversations with distant clients can make relationships more ‘real’, and allows you to pick up on body language and facial expressions you would miss over the phone. Meetings are more personal and that creates trust – whether between co-workers or the between the company and its clients.
4. Balancing Work and Life
Employees that have to spend lots of time on the road tend to burn out quickly. And if you’re the owner of a small business or a freelance consultant, you may find yourself burning out trying to keep in touch with clients. Video conferencing can reduce (if not eliminate) the amount of time spent traveling, and frees up your employees for more important tasks. Meeting a client on the other coast can eat up 2 days; a video conference with the same client can take less than two hours – and you don’t have to worry about getting stranded by bad weather or flat tires! With web conferencing, you spend less time and energy on work so you have more time for your life.
John is a videoconferencing specialist working for Reflex Audio Visual. He loves all the new types of videoconferencing opened up by home and mobile broadband, and spends his time trying to keep up to date!
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