Saving time and money, boosting collaboration and cutting emissions – these are just a few of the reasons behind the growing popularity of videoconferencing. Here's a quick look at the many business benefits.
Benefits of videoconferencing
While your travel agent might not like it, videoconferencing can lead to a huge reduction in business travel time and cost while increasing productivity. A study by the Carbon Disclosure Project found that businesses could achieve a return on investment in as little as 15 months, while also curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
Other benefits include a faster decision-making process, maximizing the input of key employees and lowering stress on staff, resulting in improved morale and better work practices, such as allowing for telecommuting.
Strategically, videoconferencing can help firms get to market faster and improve customer responsiveness, while speeding response time to crisis events.
Gigoam Research found that 87 percent of remote users “feel more connected to their team and process when using videoconferencing.” When your colleague in another city is suddenly right on your screen, staff discussions become a lot more engaging – although telecommuters will need to ditch those pyjamas for office clothes.
How do these systems operate?
A variety of software and hardware applications have been developed to facilitate videoconferencing.
Common bundles allow you to conduct interactive videoconference calls while collaborating on individual projects. Depending on the bundle, these services may include new telecommunication devices or computer workstations which operate in unison with advanced software.
These systems allow businesses to converse with their colleagues in rural locations or overseas while working on the same report or file, allowing for document sharing and storage.
How can these systems cut costs?
First-class executive travel is a thing of the past with videoconferencing, since the only travel required is moving to the conference facility in the office, or to your desktop computer or smartphone.
In addition to the savings in business travel time and cost, the elevated quality of collaboration allows businesses to avoid project double-ups and the time-consuming process of back-and-forth file exchanges.
Videoconferencing can unlock considerable cost savings for any organization while delivering productivity gains through enhanced collaboration, along with improved morale and environmental benefits. For businesses that embrace the trend, global communication is now just a screen away.