Tag Archives: employee productivity
2011
Benefits of Video Conferencing When Managing a Remote Work Force
Geographically-diverse work forces are becoming more and more common in the modern business world, and a greater percentage of companies are turning towards video conferencing as an effective tool for managing these types of remote employment arrangements. Organizations looking to expand their work arrangements outside the confines of a conventional office are seeing the benefits of video conferencing and telepresence technology.
There are certain positions which have traditionally demanded that workers spend a substantial amount of time away from their desks. Sales personnel, for example, are often called upon to meet with clients at far-flung locations, in some cases traveling halfway around the world in order to make connections and demonstrate products. Offering a video link to the home office not only provides a regular two-way communications channel between traveling employees and management, but it also allows for the continuation of a sense of community by enabling the participation in group meetings on a face-to-face basis, which represents a significant upgrade over a less personal conference call from a distant hotel room.
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2011
Telepresence As A Business Continuity Strategy
Few events are as jarring to a business as losing communication with its key decision-makers – an eventuality that more and more companies are preparing for by turning toward telepresence. In an era where even the smallest hesitation can result in a costly missed opportunity, organizations are bolstering their executive and management communications strategies with a larger telepresence element designed to maintain business continuity in the face of extenuating circumstances.
Mobile video conferencing offers companies the opportunity to maintain contact with their most important employees, including C-level executives, should an emergency situation occur. The threat posed by a natural disaster or disruptive local or even global event that interferes with the ability of workers to access an important facility is one which all companies must plan for. Whether it’s a local flood that renders a satellite office inaccessible or whether a volcano erupting in Iceland grinds worldwide air travel to a halt, business continuity in the event of such a scenario depends on establishing the best possible communication between key members of an organization.
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2011
Telepresence Adoption Continues to Grow in the Legal Profession
Previously on the KBZ blog, we have touched on the use of telepresence in courtroom situations, but the topic is attracting more attention as the role of video communications in a legal setting continues to expand. Not only is telepresence helping courts to gain access to witnesses without exposing them to the hardship of travel or the risk of harm, but the technology is also starting to reshape the practices of the legal profession itself.
Global competition for elite attorneys has forced many law firms to get creative in attracting and retaining top legal talent. Chief amongst the expectations of lawyers being courted by world class firms is the ability to take advantage of flexible hours in order to achieve a better work-life balance. The reduction in travel time introduced by the adoption of a telepresence solution can go a long way towards achieving this particular perk, especially in the legal professions where consultations have traditionally required extensive time out of the office.
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2011
Cisco Publishes “Extending Telepresence Beyond the Boardroom” White Paper
Until recent years, the costs associated with telepresence technology have kept it largely oriented towards executive use, suitable for meetings, conferences, and high-level summits between upper-management employees. The dramatic drop in video conferencing pricing and the greater affordability of the level of bandwidth required to facilitate high-quality telepresence sessions have opened up a new realm of collaborative communications use.
Cisco has released a white paper that explores several methods that companies can use to help take better advantage of video conferencing across the entire enterprise. Called “Extending Telepresence Beyond the Boardroom,” the free, downloadable report offers useful advice for organizations looking for a communications edge.
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2011
Cisco Video Collaboration Guide: Four Steps to Understanding the Possibilities of Video for Your Organization
Many businesses are interested in adopting a telepresence strategy or expanding the role of the video conferencing technology that they are already using within the organization. It is not always clear, however, what the best course forward is in selecting which areas of a business can benefit the most from video communications. To help provide decision makers with a resource that they can turn to when pondering these questions, Cisco has published a white paper entitled “Cisco Video Collaboration Guide: Four Steps to Understanding the Possibilities of Video for Your Organization.”
The “Cisco Video Collaboration Guide” starts out with a brief overview of the impact that video conferencing technology can have on a business’s practices and bottom line. It then quickly delves into the benefits offered by telepresence, including the ability to move faster and make decisions more quickly across an organization, the opportunity to more readily access experts within a company regardless of where they might be located geographically, and the way that video communications can create a tighter-knit group of co-workers and allow those employees to achieve a better work-life balance. Each positive aspect of video conferencing technology is backed up by a real world mini-case study.
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2011
Cisco TelePresence Advantage Calculator Debuts Online
Businesses interested in evaluating the impact that a telepresence or video conferencing system could have on their operations gained a new tool from Cisco this week with the launch of the Cisco TelePresence Advantage Calculator. Capable of providing a custom profile of a company’s cost reductions, as well as productivity benefits and reduction in travel-related greenhouse gases, this Cisco utility is freely available on the web for use by any organization.
Also known as the Business Advantage Calculator, the evaluation tool starts out by asking companies to register with some basic information about their industry segment. This includes the location of the business and how many employees are involved in operations, as well as how many of those employees work within the borders of the country that serves as the organization’s base. The TelePresence Advantage Calculator also gathers details about the leadership structure of a business, such as how many members the home country’s leadership team has, general information concerning the distribution of employees across different management levels and the amount of travel associated with each. Finally, the Calculator determines the type of videoconferencing infrastructure – if any – currently employed by a company.
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2011
New Cisco Study On Video Conferencing and Collaboration – Key Findings and Takeaways (Part 2)
Last week, we took a look at the findings of a video collaboration and telepresence study that was commissioned by Cisco in order to sample the opinions and experiences of 6,000 global professionals regarding video conferencing technology. This post continues our examination of the Ipsos Mori study (The Benefits and Barriers to Video Collaboration Adoption) with a more detailed parsing of how telepresence is impacting the lives of workers around the world, and, in turn, the companies that they work for.
There is no question that once past the initial investment required to install a corporate video conferencing infrastructure there are significant savings to be had through the use of this technology. Two of the top three perceived benefits that emerged from the Cisco study were saving money (69 percent of respondents) and reduced business travel (77 percent of respondents).
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2011
New Cisco Study On Video Conferencing and Collaboration – Key Findings and Takeaways (Part 1)
Cisco, the leading video conferencing and telepresence systems manufacturer, has released the results of a new study that takes a closer look at global video collaboration. Specifically, Cisco hired Ipsos Mori to poll 6,000 business professionals in 12 of the world’s most important markets in order to put their finger on the pulse of how video communications are perceived.
The results of the study – entitled “The Benefits and Barriers to Video Collaboration Adoption” – were illuminating. A key finding was that perception of the utility of video conferencing in a business environment is directly tied to the level of experience that workers have with that type of collaborative communications. Simply put, in countries such as China, where 56 percent of those involved in the study are familiar with video conferencing, its perceived benefits are high. In fact, 90 percent of frequent telepresence and collaborative video communications users around the world stated that this technology saves them at least two hours of work time per week, and one-third of those respondents indicated that their personal time savings were as high as one day of work per week.
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2011
Video Conferencing Spending On The Rise, According To Study
Video conferencing and telepresence spending is increasing at a rapid rate in the corporate sector, and all projections point to a continuation of this trend for the foreseeable future. A study by Infonetics has pegged the 2010 investment by businesses in this type of communications technology at $2.2 billion, which is an increase of almost 20 percent when compared to 2009.
Infonetics analyst Matthias Machowinski was very clear in his statements regarding what the study means for the telecommunications industry. “Communicating via video continues to be one of the top trends in telecom, as evidenced by strong growth in the enterprise video market,” he said in a statement that accompanied the results of the study. Machowinski also spoke of the ways that video conferencing has complemented its initial promise of reducing travel costs related to meetings, pointing to its utility in the troubleshooting realm as well as its ability to foster a common workplace culture in virtual corporations and geographically diverse organizations. These additional benefits of growing telepresence adoption helped the technology to avoid the drop-off in business spending suffered by other telecommunications sectors during the recent recession.
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2010
Will Telepresence’s Growth Mean the End of the Office?
Through the years, the workplace has shifted from home to factory to the office, and is now poised to revert back to the home. A Cisco survey found that 60% of workers no longer believe that they need to be in the office in order to be productive. By relying on telepresence technology, they find themselves at least as productive (and sometimes much more) than their cubicle-bound counterparts.
The Cisco Connected World Report survey questioned 2,600 workers and IT professionals in 13 countries and was conducted by InsightExpress, a third-party market research firm based in the United States. The survey found that network connectivity has become an expectation rather than a perk. Two out every three workers expect the company to allow them to use any device – personal or company-issued – to access corporate information from anywhere at any time.
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