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Why Businesses are Abandoning Travel and Turning to Video

Reduced travel is one of the biggest benefits of video conferencing. Less travel to conferences means that businesses do not have to spend enormous amounts of time and money on travel. However, less travel is not the only advantage of using a video conferencing app to speak to your colleagues, clients and partners.

There are a number of benefits of speaking virtually to your coworkers, including increased productivity and efficiency, better communications, enhanced business opportunities and advantage over your competitors. Read on to learn more about the advantages of turning to video for your business needs.

  1. Your business will see increased productivity and efficiency.         

According to Life Size, video conferencing is one of the best ways to increase your business’ productivity. While a reduction in travel costs is an obvious plus to using video conferencing to liaise with long distance partners and colleagues, you will also save time by using video conferencing rather than traveling, which in turn will increase productivity. You will have reduced travel risk, less unproductive travel time and more productive time spent in the office working on projects, whether alone or in groups video digital video communications.

In addition to the reduction in travel costs and time, your business will also have shorter, more structured meetings and participation from more colleagues and partners, because more people are able to dial into a video call than travel physical long distances to meet you. You will therefore optimize the attendance at your video meetings and receive a more immediate exchange of information. With faster response times, quicker access to experts and speedier decision making, your business will boost its productivity and efficiency in no time!           

  1. Your business will improve its management communications.

In addition to increasing your productivity, you will also be able to improve communication with your coworkers, colleagues, partners and clients and reinforce those relationships, according to Mashable.

When you’re speaking with long-distance colleagues and partners over the phone, much of the body language that indicates how the other person is feeling about the conversation is lost. During a video conference, you can easily see your coworkers’ facial expressions and body language, which improves communication over a basic phone call.

If you are the owner of your business, you might consider holding a company-wide meeting with remote offices across the world to help remote employees feel closer to home. Of course, you will save plenty of time and money being able to communicate with your Chinese colleagues via video conference rather than making a trip there or having them come to your office. You can instead liaise from the comfort of your own computer.

  1. Your business will see enhanced opportunities.

You will also see enhanced opportunities by maintaining a competitive advantage when you communicate with your team members over video, because you are able to share knowledge faster and therefore be more informed. Interacting over video conference reduces the time needed to deliver a new product or service to your customer base. Customer support departments can also establish better and more personal relationships with customers, because they are able to read the customer’s facial expressions and body language. This improved communication in turn leads to deeper customer loyalty.

When creating your company’s product, you need to be able to quickly and efficiently communicate with your manufacturer to verify that product quality is excellent, make any necessary changes and ensure and improve accuracy throughout the cycle of your product’s life. When you are able to video conference with your manufacturing team, you save time and quickly verify the quality and make changes in 1 percent of the time it takes your competitors to do so when shipping the product for review.

  1. You can improve your employees’ work-life balance.

Before video conferences, telecommuting was much more difficult and less accessible to employees. Now, with a video conference system like BlueJeans, it’s much easier for employees to work remotely and they can travel less as well. Excessive travel time used to burn out employees of the corporate world. Now that your business has reduced the need for frequent travel through video conferencing, your employees can be more productive and focus on the important projects rather than burning out on travel. They can also easily work from home and improve their overall work-life balance, reducing commute times and giving them more time to dedicate to both work and their social lives.

So there you have it! Reduced travel is clearly a huge benefit of video conferencing with your colleagues, partners and clients, but it’s certainly not the only benefit. Video conferencing also gives your business increased productivity and efficiency, improved management communications, enhanced opportunities, an advantage over competitors and a better work-life balance for employees.

 

 

 

 

By Ethan Theo

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles, has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982 and has spoken at many venues including the Shakespeare Globe Theater in London.