Has your company replaced travelling with video conferencing?
Hi, I'm a journalist working on an article about video conferencing/telepresence in the business setting.
For those whose company has replaced--or tried to replace--business travelling with video conferencing? How was your experience?
For those whose company has yet to do so, do you think video conferencing is a good replacement of travelling for a meeting? Why so?
Good Answers (2)
Randell J.
Principal Software Engineer at Mozilla Corporation
Best Answers in: Travel Tools (1), Telecommunications (1)
My company has offices and employees scattered all across the globe, and teams often are equally scattered. While we do get together in person a few times a year, we interact in meetings multiple times per week with people all over the place, in ways we could never reasonably do on a phone conference.
I have weekly meetings where we go through lists of bugs with 1 person in Florida, one somewhere else on the east coast, two in CA, and one in Australia. My manager is in Auckland, NZ, and I'm PA, and we do our 1-on-1's by video - phone would most certainly not work as well.
It doesn't replace all travel, and it doesn't replace the synergy of getting a bunch of people in a room or conference occasionally, and initial meetings can be useful in person (especially when interacting with people outside the company) - though many of the people I see and work with I've never met in person. But many follow-up contacts can be so much more efficient that you can keep in closer contact with people external to your company while also developing a better personal relationship, instead of spending 2 days of travel (and airfare, and hotel, etc) to spend 2 hours actually talking to someone, having to schedule it long in advance (or really pay through the nose), etc.
We haven't replaced travel entirely, but we have significantly embraced video conferencing.
In our experience, an initial face-to-face meeting is mandatory to establish the trust and understanding needed to start a business relationship. After that meeting, most (75%?) of the follow-up works extremely well through video conferencing.
Video conferencing allows us to ensure eye contact and evaluate facial expressions, while eliminating the inefficiency of travel time and pre/post-meeting waiting. It's been a great tool to reduce costs, but also MUCH better than the telephone to maintain personal contact.
It's still necessary to physically meet with clients and vendors from time to time, especially if there has been turnover in personnel.
Hope that helps!
Jeff
More Answers (6)
Atleast .. it has reduced domestic traveling a lot.. Traveling abroad is mandatory.
Mihir N.
Owner of Mitaroy Suites Goa, a boutique Hotel for Couples! www.mitaroygoahotel.com
Best Answers in: Hotels (1)
For my Hotel Business, I tried to replace travelling with emails and video conferencing. But it just didnt work.
Which is why I am off to the ITB Berlin in March to meet up with people face to face.
Cheers
Mihir
Michael R.
Owner & Consultant at Horizons Aloft
Best Answers in: Car and Train Travel (2), Air Travel (1), Business Dining and Entertainment (1), Mentoring (1), Work-life Balance (1), Social Enterpreneurship (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
We have leveraged video conferencing to reduce our traveling requirements. However, we also have a private plane that facilitates company travel as needed - faster and cheaper than the airlines for domestic travel (and a lot fewer hassles).
Ian C.
Experienced Product Manager; enabling communications solutions; specialist on SS7 to SIP Gateways
Best Answers in: Telecommunications (4), Market Research and Definition (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
This isn't a considered answer, but my impromptu thought was: what's better for the global economy as a whole, lots of folks spending on travelling and keeping lots of other folks (from pilots to ground crew to immigration to hotel staff &etc.) in a job or video conferencing?
We have just started using video conferencing and we love it. We can do webinars with people all over the world with out the travel either us or them. We still get people interested in what we do. I think everything is moving this way and as connection speeds get faster it only gets better.
