The scene is all too familiar: you arrive home after a week’s travelling late on Friday night. You spend Saturday tired, tetchy, opening the week’s post, paying bills and trying to catch up on the family’s news. On Sunday, you’ve barely got time for a glance at the papers before it’s off to the airport again.

Now, though, there is an alternative to facing the drudgery of check-in queues and inevitable delays whiled away in soulless coffee shops: you can hold productive meetings with colleagues across the globe with not a plane, train or automobile in sight.

According to analysts Frost and Sullivan, the video conferencing or ‘telepresence’ market will grow to  $1.49 billion by 2009, from a market worth $569 million today. Why? Because it is no longer about fuzzy, distorted robotic images on a television screen. 

Instead, it’s a life-like high definition meeting environment, with outstanding visuals and sound, run from contemporary, state of the art suites. It replaces meetings but retains the face-to-face contact so critical to successful business relationships.

The cost savings are significant: travel costs are one of the most predominant burdens on a company’s bottom line. These vast costs are no longer necessary to a successful operation. Instead, virtual meeting suites can be used for staff interviews, team meetings, board meetings, sales presentations – all removing the need for travel and therefore instantly reducing expenditure.

Another resource saving with virtual meetings is that rather than having to train staff to understand and manage the service, fully managed solutions are available.

Businesses benefit from the skills, security and convenience of a concierge-style managed service whilst saving internal resource. Delegates just walk into the suite, and the meeting is already set up with colleagues in other suites already seated, and viewed clearly on the high definition screen. The meeting can begin with valuable knowledge-sharing applications already set up, presentations, designs and graphics ready to view on screens in the suite.

Improved collaboration is a clear and immediate benefit. Presented with the ability to leave their desks and walk to a suite in the office, rather than having to cross continents, teams can get together quickly and efficiently. There is no ‘per meeting’ fee so teams can convene more frequently for improved communication.

Reducing travel time increases productivity, removing wasted time spent hanging around airports or waiting for connections. And reduced travel time has a positive impact on environmental policy, improving a business’ green credentials.

At Easynet, we’re a carbon-neutral business with a strong commitment to the environment. Rolling out Managed Virtual Meeting suites across our international organisation has been one of the single most significant contributors to our environmental policy.  

Managed Virtual Meeting solutions require investment from the finance director in terms of time and budget, but the FD will be one of the first in the business to reap the benefits: you can, at last, have your weekends back. 

*Gerard Smith is Easynet’s group finance director

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Tags: virtual meeting suites, reduced travel time, virtual meetings, board meetings, fd, managed virtual meeting, gerard smith, carbon neutral business, environmental policy, easynet, frost and sullivan, video conferencing, business relationships, finance director,

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