As remote conferencing tools become easier to use and more reliable, corporate meeting buyers increasingly are giving the technology a new look, not only for cutting costs, but also to save travel time for nonstrategic meetings.
Though some buyers report more acceptance of remote conferencing, which once drew little but disdain from corporate travelers frustrated by the tools' technological limitations and undependability, only a few have reached the point where they will mandate its use, instead preferring to let employees examine available options and decide for themselves.
While Austin, Texas-based Sematech does not have a mandate to use its internal conferencing capabilities in lieu of nonstrategic travel, its internal Web site does have a chart that determines the best method of holding a meeting—in person or virtually—based on its strategic goals and objectives, said Bill Davidson, manager of corporate travel and meeting services.
"It gives people a starting point," said Davidson, adding that Sematech offers not only training services for the technology itself, but also such tips as which to color of clothing to wear for a videoconference. "We were big proponents of videoconferencing for a long time," Davidson said, adding that Sematech now uses Webconferencing "a lot," not just for quick meetings but full-day events.
Like Sematech, Xerox Corp. also uses matrixes on its internal Web page dedicated to remote conferencing issues to inform employees of the various options for holding a meeting.
"We do try to help employees to be constantly thinking about, 'Do I need to be there in person?' " said Gary Foley, Rochester, N.Y.-based manager of global conferencing and travel services for Xerox.
Also like Sematech, Xerox does not enforce the use of remote conferencing with a mandate. "We feel that the employees, being empowered with the knowledge of what choices are available to them and what business they need to accomplish, can make the best decision for the business," Foley said, adding that links to the remote conferencing Web page pop up when an employee books travel.
Foley said that a number of factors lead people to be more cognizant of using remote conferencing rather than a face-to-face meeting, such a work-life balance, green initiatives and cost savings. While travel for Xerox has remained steady, the use of remote conferencing "has continued to grow, year over year."
Outgoing Association of Corporate Travel Executives president Greeley Koch during the association's annual conference pointed to remote conferencing as a potential part of the corporate demand-management initiatives he urged buyers to undertake
(BTN, May 21)."Companies are estimating 40 percent of their travel is for nonstrategic travel. In other words, 40 percent of the time, it's administrative travel," Koch said during the May conference. "We don't see that this is going to eliminate business travel. If anything, it will make the business travel that takes place more important since it's focusing on revenue-generating business travel. What we're hearing from companies is they have a set budget for travel. It's up to the division to figure out how to allocate. If they can reduce an administrative trip, they'll be sure to put in a revenue-generating trip."
ACTE also is in the midst of a survey, sent out to see which remote conferencing systems companies are using, and the various definitions used for the term "remote conferencing," said executive director Susan Gurley. ACTE plans to release the results at the end of the month.
Corbin Ball, president of Bellingham, Wash.-based meetings technology consulting firm Corbin Ball Associates, said that while remote conferencing will continue to be popular, it will not replace the value of an in-person meeting.
"Virtual meetings will not replace face-to-face meetings, but they will be a viable alternate distribution method," he said. "You're going to see these tools increasingly used for the inefficient meetings, the ones where somebody flies across the country for four hours for a business meeting and flies right back."
Remote conferencing also is good for meetings that distribute "short, targeted bits of information and employee updates of a large corporation or shareholders meeting," Ball said.
Even with the need for face-to-face meetings, increased security measures, flight delays and cancellations can make the prospect of holding a virtual meeting more appealing, Ball said. "It's not nearly as reliable or as fun as it used to be to travel," he said.
"There are certain critical things that are always best done in person," said ACTE's Gurley. "There's certain times it takes a lot more effort to go somewhere, and sometimes you need to make the effort to go somewhere for the benefit of the overall project. It's a fine line and every company has to make that decision of what makes sense based on the issues at hand."
Some travelers, though, undoubtedly would need a bit of persuasion to avoid the airport. For years, many corporations have dabbled in remote conferencing issues, and many users have emerged with a deep dislike of the technology. As Gurley said during the ACTE conference in May, "A lot of international law firms started this 10 to 15 years ago and decided it was the worst investment ever," noting that the machinery was "clunky" and ineffective. "The technology is now such that it's becoming more efficient. If it's not perfect today, it will be tomorrow."
Suppliers all noted the technological progress of their products. "It's becoming more ubiquitous and easy to use. Why would you not use it?" said Tony Terranova, vice president of product marketing for Vienna, Va.-based remote conferencing supplier Genesys Conferencing. The Genesys Meeting Center 4.0, launched last September, has a per-minute pricing model that "resonates really well with the large enterprise market that we serve." Genesys is focusing on integrating the software with mobile devices, such as BlackBerrys and cell phones, said Denise Perrson, executive vice president of global marketing.
Although many customers come to Cisco's TelePresence, a lifelike virtual videoconferencing system, initially to save travel and meeting costs, "once they start to experience it, they start to think literally of new ways of doing business to improve their competitiveness," said David Hsieh, senior director of emerging technologies marketing for Cisco Systems Inc. Cisco in March rolled out Cisco TelePresence Multipoint Switch, which allows up to 36 Tele-Presence screens to be connected at once.
"The pace of business is just much, much faster," said Rick Faulk, chief marketing officer for remote conferencing company Cisco WebEx. "As a result, it's hard to be everywhere these days. Web meetings allow you to be everywhere without getting on a plane, so that makes it more efficient." WebEx last September rolled out WebEx Connect, in which the company has brought in partners to "integrate the best technologies out there into a single solution."
"WebEx is definitely what's changing things, because the costs are much more contained and it's easier to plan and project what the costs will be," Davidson said.
Saving time on business travel was a consideration for Michael Santo, CEO of RembrandtAdvantage, a human resources management company based in Palm Springs, Calif.
"Business travel is not only expensive, but if I were to have a meeting in New York, it would take me two days of travel time just to have a one-day meeting, which triples the cost of that meeting," he said, adding that since half of his staff works remotely, he finds conferencing "to be an effective way to have on-the-spot meetings."