Business
Businesses have always been on the cutting edge of telecommunications. With the rapid advances in technology, businesses, especially large multinationals, have been often right after the government in adopting these technologies in order to gain a competitive edge. This trend is even more apparent in terms of telecommunications since the rapid transfer of information from one place to another translates into real profits that businesses can make by exploiting changing market conditions faster than their competition. Hence, when the technology of teleconferencing came into the picture, businesses were among the first to put the technology into place within their multinational fields of operation. Let us take a look at how businesses effectively leverage teleconferencing to their advantage.
Savings of cost
Meetings are often a large and necessary part of the work for management. Collective decision making is essential for proper functioning of the businesses. If in order to conduct these meetings everyone had to physically travel to one location, it would be extremely expensive, especially for multinationals with offices in many countries. Just the cost of international travel for one person can easily reach several thousands of dollars. Scale this for multiple people in the meeting, and the costs quickly get huge. Teleconferencing helps business drastically cut down this cost while continuing to hold regular meetings.
Time savings
If every regional manager had to travel to the company headquarters for meetings, it would mean several weeks per year lost in travelling time. Much of this time is spent sitting in some transport mode or in hotel rooms, completely unproductive. This cost can be cut down to just the time spent in meetings, freeing up the managers to be much more productive.
Increasing accessibility
The teleconferencing protocols have come a long way since the earlier days of the technology. In the earlier days, it was an expensive service available only to big corporations with deep pockets. However, the technology since has gotten a lot cheaper and accessible. Today most telecommunication service providers have been offering basic teleconferencing feature even on their consumer offerings, with advanced options available for corporates. It is also to be noted that today teleconferencing can be conducted cross-platform, with people joining via their office phones, mobile phones and computers via VOIP on the same conference, thus allowing limitless flexibility.