“Thanks to globalisation, partners, suppliers and colleagues can be spread across the world. But despite their distance, you need a close and effective working relationship with everyone in your circle. Yes – it’s good to visit them from time to time. In between, though, you need an effective and efficient alternative – something more personal and interactive than email.
Conferencing is also good for the bottom line. Time that would have been spent travelling can be put to better use, and conference calls are much cheaper than plane tickets – even if you travel on budget airlines.
The problem for many companies, though, is that the costs of travel and conferencing fall in different areas or budgets. While one manager smiles at the savings, another winces as phone bills escalate, apparently out of control.
However, one thing is needed to maximise the benefits of conferencing – having it embedded it in a company’s culture.
If a managed or hosted conferencing service has been invested in, it makes sense to get as much use from it as possible. Additional calls make little difference to the cost of providing the service, but can reduce travel bills and improve employee productivity.
There should be little difficulty in convincing about 10-15 per cent of staff to use the service but the main issue is convincing the rest of the organisation. Unless someone is telling people why it is beneficial to change, showing them how to do it, training them in the technology and monitoring their usage, it won’t happen.
Where a supplier like BT Conferencing can make a big difference is by bringing a wealth of practical experience and understanding to the table. Armed with this, they can help enterprises introduce conferencing cultures quickly and painlessly, bringing forward ROI.
Because of extensive experience in this area, global conferencing service providers are good at these types of education programmes. As a result, an organisation’s culture can be changed from face-to-face to conferencing much more quickly than might otherwise be possible. And with the continual pressure on organisations to reduce costs and improve efficiency, that’s got to be a good thing.”