Top Three Advantages of Video-Conferencing

The business world thrives off of communication. In many instances, a failure of a business can be traced back to a lack of communication between its different divisions, and an inability to execute its mission effectively. Businesses, small or big, need to find an effective option when it comes to communicating with different levels of management. A popular format that many businesses are turning to is video-conferencing.

Video conferencing has been a staple of the corporate since the 1980s, and its use has slowly perfused into small business across America. If you are convinced that video-conferencing is right for you, the reasons below will help persuade you to make the switch.

Advantage #1: Reduced Travel Costs

A significant advantage of video-conferencing for businesses is that it serves as an easy mode of communication without having to leave the office. This allows a greater number of employees to spend their time at work rather than meeting face-to-face with clients; this has the dual benefit of increasing productivity and reducing travel costs for your business.

Although nothing can truly replace face-to-face customer and colleague interactions, the advantages of video-conferencing in terms of quality, availability and easy usage have made this mode of communication a compelling alternative for many businesses. Keep in mind – the costs undertaken annually to keep in touch with a store or office located in another city can be considerable. Factoring in transportation, air fair, and lodging, the cost can become quite considerable. If you work in a business that is dispersed all across the country, video-conferencing is an attractive alternative indeed.

Advantage #2: Increased Productivity

In today’s market, communication with colleagues and business partners mostly takes place via email, calls, or instant messaging. In some situations, these methods are perfectly suitable. But in cases where a face-to-face interaction between the parties involved is required, video-conferencing can serve as the perfect medium in which to conduct business. In these cases, video-conferencing is the same as having a face to face meeting, with the added bonus that nobody has to move more than a few rooms over.

Advantage #3: Improves Communication & Reinforces Relationships

Participating in a video-conference can lead to more effective and faster collaboration between the parties involved. Why, you might ask? The reason is simple: there’s no real difference between a face to face meeting and a video-conference in real time.

Additionally, video-conferences also allow CEOs of companies to hold meetings with several important members of the company, scattered in different parts of the world, at any time. This not only saves a lot of time, but also provides convenience to all the parties involved. In this case, the only difficulty is in coordinating all of the different time zones people are in!

Once you take into consideration these advantages, it becomes plainly obvious as to why small businesses are increasingly adopting this format of communication. The cost to set up a video conferencing system can be somewhat steep initially, but these systems will frequently pay for themselves within the first few months of use. As more companies adopt this technology, it makes increasingly less sense to keep yourself behind the technological curve by failing to do so yourself.