Introduction

Web conferencing is not new, but tightening corporate budgets are the latest in a string of factors helping web conferencing to come of age. Certainly, web conferencing solutions may be a timely answer for a budget crunch, but once adopted they can also turn out to be a long-term enhancer of productivity.

Beginning with the constraints on travel in the current economic recession, a series of trends has prompted businesses to take a serious look at web conferencing. Oil prices have risen over the past decade, increasing the cost of travel. Global trade has blossomed, broadening the geographic scope of doing business. Meanwhile, demand for home-based jobs has created the need for new communications solutions. In late 2008, a global liquidity crisis has required managers to take a sharp pencil to their travel budgets.

Each of these trends has created challenges for businesses. The most successful companies don't just survive challenges, they look for ways to turn them into opportunities. Against the backdrop of reasons for businesses to find substitutes for travel and commuting, the technology of web conferencing has made tremendous strides. This creates the opportunity for businesses to address these challenges in a way that will have long-term benefits.

What is Web Conferencing?

Web conferencing can be thought of as the natural successor to video conferencing, but with a level of capability and availability that video conferencing never achieved. The use of the internet as the conferencing platform has removed the need for purchase and installation of entire systems of special equipment, and instead has made conferencing available to virtually anyone's computer.

As the name suggests, web conferencing includes meetings among multiple participants over the web, but it can also entail targeted broadcasts of information in more of a one-way format, often accompanied by extensive use of charts and other media. These broadcasts can be made live at a scheduled time, or can be recorded for viewing at the user's convenience. While in most cases web conferencing will be restricted to a selected audience, there may be situations where a wider audience is permitted. To encompass the possibilities of web conferencing as fully as possible, this white paper will consider all the above forms of usage under the definition of web conferencing.

Web Conferencing Uses

What are the uses of web conferencing? Broadly speaking, it can be used either to facilitate discussion among parties in multiple locations, or to communicate detailed information across any distance.

Examples include the following:

• Staff meetings and briefings between supervisors and one or more staff members.
• Collaborative meetings or discussions among colleagues in different locations.
• Sales presentations.
• Training sessions.
• Periodic reports, such as reporting financial results to shareholders or directors.

Web Conferencing Benefits

Naturally, the specific benefits of web conferencing depend on the type of usage, but broadly speaking, the following are some of the benefits of web conferencing.

• Web conferencing services allow a company to connect with people who would be too busy for an in-person meeting. For companies whose target audience is high-level executives or professionals, this can be the most effective way of getting in front of hard-to-reach people.
• A web conferencing solution can save money by drastically reducing the need to travel. In the wake of the global financial crisis in the fall of 2008, some 61 percent of travel executives identified cost control as their number one travel priority. Such savings can be significant. Proctor & Gamble was able to slash its global travel budget by 20 percent through the use of web conferencing.
• Besides saving on the direct costs of corporate travel, web conferencing is a more productive use of employee time than physical travel. Even the most fully-wired executive finds that travel involves some downtime and inconvenience. In contrast, with web conferencing, once the meeting is over employees can get back to work immediately.
• Web conferencing also allows an executive to reach out to multiple locations at the same time. Even if the expense and downtime of travel weren't issues, nobody can be in two or more locations at once--unless they use web conferencing to do it.
• Web conferencing facilitates the presentation of complex materials to large, multi-location organizations. Selling to such organizations can require the approval of multiple offices. This could entail a time-consuming series of presentations to repeat the same material to each different group, or it could be done by reaching all the decision-makers with a single presentation, regardless of location.
• Web conferencing services can also include recording of a presentation, so it can be rebroadcast at a later date or made available on a Web site.
• Web conferencing solutions are tailor-made for at-home workforces. Not only is employee demand for these arrangements growing, but businesses are finding that having workers stay at home can save on real estate costs and other office expenses.

The pattern that emerges from this list of benefits is that web conferencing services not only save costs, but they can enhance productivity as well. Thus, they can have both a top-line and bottom-line impact.

Important Web Conferencing Attributes

One of the advantages of web conferencing over video conferencing is that it is much more flexible, meaning that users do not have to commit to one particular system. However, users will find that their web conferencing experiences will go much more smoothly if they identify a provider that has the right capabilities. To help make this choice, here are seven critical attributes that should be discussed in a search for web conferencing services:

1. Live support: especially critical with audiences from multiple organizations.
2. Billing arrangements: depending on usage, a per-minute or per-user charge might be more cost effective.
3. Multimedia Integration: seamless incorporation of charts and video can be critical for presentations and training sessions.
4. Recording and Playback: allows repeated use of a presentation.
5. Tracking and reporting: provides information on who joined a meeting.
6. Security: the ability to keep unwanted participants out.

Conclusion

Budget concerns may well provide the impetus for greater use of web conferencing, as the benefit of reduced travel costs can be realized almost immediately. What companies may find when they apply this solution is that they have also opened the door to a more productive way of doing business. By eliminating travel downtime, reducing the duplication of effort involved in repeating a message to multiple audiences, and enabling more flexible working relationships, web conferencing can have a positive effect on productivity. In combination with the cost-cutting benefit, this effect on productivity can give web conferencing a lasting impact on return-on-investment.

Before you select a vendor, compare web conferencing prices from leading web conferencing companies.