In previous generations, companies had regional offices that serviced, by today’s standards, reasonably small geographic areas. Once or twice a year, the key personnel from each of these offices would all travel to a single location for a “Sales Meeting” or “Budget Meeting.” In today’s global economy an employee of a company may have a territory that encompasses an entire country, continent or beyond.
Management personnel may have to support and interact with a sales force all across the globe. Creative and development staff from great distances often must collaborate and meet regularly to share ideas and discuss challenges that come up. Not to mention a sales force that needs “Face Time” with their regular and prospective clients.
Unintended costs
The need for these regular meetings spawned the “Road Warrior” mentality of sales and management personnel. Many days each week were spent driving countless kilometres in rental cars, sitting out delays in airports and sleeping in hotels. Not to mention the enormous number of restaurant meals and cab rides all adding to the cost of doing business.
The outright costs of this travel were obvious and staggering, but necessary. The hidden costs were equally large but not so apparent. There was the loss of productivity for the person making all the travel arrangements, booking hotels, flights, rental cars, etc. There was all of the frustrating time spent by others in the office to stamp out fires for the travelling employees while they were out of the office. There was the time cost of each employee filling out forms and copying receipts for their expenses. And the all-important bookkeepers and accountants to audit those travel expenses and allocate them to the appropriate categories.
Additionally, as many “Road Warriors” had families, there was a personal cost at home. In order to make the time away from home worth undertaking by the employee, they often demanded greater salaries, wages or commissions.
Cloud Video Conferencing in Sydney
Thanks to eVideo, those days are over! We offer Cloud video conferencing in Sydney. Now, rather than having a number of employees all travel to the same place at great expense and plenty of lost productivity during travel time, each can merely walk down the hall to a conference room in their office, and in minutes they are video conferencing. They can share documents and ideas, and give immediate input and offer suggestions to solve problems. While nothing is quite as effective as face to face contact, most situations and conferences can be extremely productive by video.
Suppose your company has a number of key personnel in offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne that are working on an important project that will take approximately one year to complete. Let’s also assume they must meet to discuss progress and concerns on a bi-weekly basis. Rather than two-thirds of them travelling to one of the offices twenty-six times, they could use cloud video conferencing. Some employees would use cloud video conferencing in Sydney. Some would use cloud video conferencing in Brisbane, and the rest would use cloud video conferencing in Melbourne. No travel! No hotel! No expense reports! And most importantly, very little cost!
Contact eVideo Communications to start using cloud video conferencing today. Free trial availalble now.