Meeting room news
The advantages of video conferencing, and how best to organise it
Looking at the business world today, as companies strive to balance increasing financial pressures, and time and productivity issues with ever-demanding corporate responsibility and environmental agendas, it is not surprising to see that the use of video conferencing in the business place has grown rapidly in recent years.
With business life today stretched almost to breaking point, people the world over are now searching for new ways of improving productivity, cost-efficiency, their own work-life balance and their impact on the environment. And while video conferencing, in itself, is not new, its quality, reliability, ease of use and cost effectiveness are all aspects of it that any business manager would do well to keep an eye on.
External providers offer state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities
As a consequence of its growing sophistication, many companies – rather than carrying the overhead for owning and managing their own video conferencing systems - are now turning to external providers. This is a trend which the serviced office sector has been quick to recognise, and after some major investment in the area, is now able to offer highly advanced video conferencing facilities at business centres throughout the UK.
The advantages to this approach are clear, as the serviced office provider will not only supply the meeting rooms and all, up-to-date, state-of-the-art video conferencing systems (which it will maintain), it will also provide all the network connections, billing and helpdesk support. In other words, an organisation that uses an outside service provider for video conferencing will be able to avoid the heavy investment required to purchase, maintain and operate a video communications network, and simply ‘book in’ its conferencing requirements with the outside provider.
Why video conference?
Of course, in many situations, there can be no substitute for the face-to-face meeting. But the arguments for video conferencing are undoubtedly growing in strength. Not only is it capable of increasing an organisation’s productivity through better communications, but it can save potentially huge expenditure and executive time on business travel.
In addition, by allowing companies to communicate regularly, and at minimal cost, it can serve to open up not just effective internal communications, but international commercial opportunities and close business relationships that span the globe. This is particularly important where companies are developing overseas supplier relationships or new affiliates or representatives.
The cost imperative, on the other hand, speaks for itself.
Cost of overnight business trip to New York
Return premium economy flights = £1804
4 Star hotel = £278
Additional travel and sustenance costs = £150
Total cost = £2232
Cost of 2 hour video conference call to New York
Room hire and equipment rental = £280
Network charge = £176.40 @ rate of £1.47 per minute for 128kbps (only applies if call is dialled out)
Scheduling and testing = £50 (only applies if call is dialled out)
Total cost for incoming call = £280
Total cost for outgoing call = £506.40
Recruitment – a major user
Not surprisingly, some areas of business have been quicker than others to spot the potential of video conferencing. One such area is that of recruitment, which, as it has grown more global, with job candidates now likely to be approached from literally, anywhere in the world, is now relying heavily on video conferencing as a means of screening and carrying out first round interviews.
The financial services sector, accountancy and legal professions are particularly active in global recruitment campaigns, and have used video conferencing to interview several applicants for a role, flying only the final-round candidates out for face-to-face meetings. They all report that video conferencing gives a good and accurate impression of the potential employee, and of course, are more than happy with the joint advantages of saving (increasingly expensive) travel costs and operating within a truly environmentally-friendly agenda.
So in conclusion, it would seem that the growth in video conferencing is only likely to increase. To put this in another context, it was not so long ago that e-mail was viewed as a corporate luxury, with letters, fax machines and internal memo systems forming the mainstay of business communication. Today, however, it’s a very different picture, with e-mail regarded, quite simply, as an essential. With the growing financial, environmental and time pressures of business today, the probability must be that the future for video conferencing will follow a similar path, and that it will not be long before it, too, is a business “must”.
