5 Reasons Your Company Needs to Adopt Video Conferencing

In this business guide, you will discover the reasons and benefits of using video conferencing for your company.

Over the years, the Internet has become an integral part of our daily lives, with the ease and speed of communication, access to millions of people and free information and your fingertips, it’s not a surprise to see that most businesses have taken their operations online.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, to mention just a few, have become the new marketplace. The era of technological innovations is here and it’s only wise to flow with the trend.

Just imagine using an iPhone 4 in the year 2022? Sounds dumb right? When you can easily get the latest iPhone 13.

The same goes for video conferencing. Businesses now no longer need to hold face to face meetings.

Thereby cutting out travel expenses, speeding up the decision-making process and improving business relationships.

What is Video Conferencing?

Video conferencing is simply a type of online meeting that allows two or more people to communicate through both video and audio calls in real-time.

All you need is a strong network connection and a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Super easy and flexible especially for remote workers.

Why does your company need to embrace video conferencing?

Below are the vital reasons why your company needs video conferencing.

1. Reduced expenses

The travel cost for one employee outweighs the cost of a VC system that can be used by the whole company. Statistics show that companies save $11,000 annually per employee. Let’s say your company wants to organise a mid-year workshop for employees in every branch. You’ll have to consider flight/bus tickets, hotel bills, and feeding for each employee.

But with video conferencing, you eliminate these expenses. In addition to cutting out travel expenses, some video conferencing systems offer translation services for companies that might have meetings with people who speak different languages, as the Azure Speech translation services from Microsoft Team.

It can transcribe spoken words and translate them for attendees to view or hear in real-time. This feature supports more than 30 languages and automatically eliminates the extra expenses of hiring translators.

With the transcribing feature of VC software, which transcribes spoken words to text, the need for an administrative assistant to take notes of the meeting is eliminated, and any neutral party can capture the information on the screen.

2. Improved communication and faster decision making

You’ll agree with me that video is a more engaging means of communication than audio. Video conferencing gives a certain feel to online meetings, you can see other participants, make eye contact and read their body language and reactions, which are all essential for effective communication.

Video conferencing can bring people together. The sense of distance is removed because you can see and be seen.  So if your company has offices in multiple cities, VC is the quickest way to keep you connected.

You don’t need to get all your key personnel in one room before a decision can be made. By just setting up a video conference meeting, you can pass across critical information, set goals and deadlines, brainstorm on ideas and reach a conclusive agreement on the next step forward, all in less time than it would take to schedule a face to face meeting.

3. The efficiency of operations and Increased productivity

Video chatting is more efficient than face to face meetings. Due to the strict time constraints, a meeting scheduled to hold for just 40 minutes will end exactly when the time elapses so there will be fewer distractions and unnecessary chatter and more valuable contributions will be made. VC fosters collaboration. Employees can work together in real-time on a shared project with the screen sharing feature of most video conferencing software, you can share product designs, charts and get quick answers to tricky questions relating to the project at hand. Productivity is increased as there is swift and timely passing of directives.

4. Better work-life and employees satisfaction

One of the major advantages of video conferencing is its flexibility, especially for companies with remote workers. This means less time spent on telecommuting and more free time. This helps to balance work and personal life activities.

Essentially, Healthy and happy employees are productive employees. Replacing hours spent commuting to work with video calls will result in greater health and job satisfaction. This in turn boosts work performance and productivity, and ultimately increases the retention rate.

5. Competitive advantage

All the benefits of VC mentioned above enhance your company’s competitive edge. When teams communicate via VC, information is passed across very quickly and there is more efficiency in carrying out projects. Manufacturers can reach customers, reduce the time to market, establish personal customer relationships and also receive feedback on how to improve the quality of products, all these can be achieved via video conferencing.

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Factors To Consider When Choosing A VC Software/ System

Below are some small but vital things to consider when choosing a VC software/system

1. Cost

Cost is a crucial factor to consider when choosing VC software. Do not make the mistake of wasting money on an expensive solution with sophisticated features that you end up not utilizing.

Although there are very cheap options available and some software even offer free packages, depending on what you want and the size of your company. You also do not want to go for the cheapest solution, then later struggle to meet your goals due to a lack of features.

The best VC software will be one that meets your company’s needs without breaking the bank.

2. Number Of Attendees

How many people do you expect to attend the online meetings? You need to be certain, knowing this will help you in choosing the right VC tool. If you run a small-medium size company, then most video tools will work for you.

But if you need something that will allow you to host hundreds and thousands of attendees all at once, you’ll need to do more research and look for other options that support larger conferences.

This will help you to be prepared. You wouldn’t want to host a meeting that ends up crashing down halfway, it will be very unprofessional.

3. Features

You might also want to consider if the same software has certain features such as chatting, recording, screen sharing, background images, use of emojis etc. Each of these features has a beneficial role in enhancing the quality of the meetings. So think through and tick the features you’d like to access on your video conferencing system.

4. Support

Lastly, you need to make sure you have a backup when there’s a problem with the software. If you go for a free service, you probably might not have access to customer support.

So to avoid skipping important meetings, it’s best to go for options with excellent customer support. You can do a bit of research on their ratings and reviews from other users to help you decide.

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Why Video Conferencing Is the Future

Since the Covid 19 pandemic, most organizations have been forced to run their operations remotely, this has led to a significant increase in teleconferencing. Zoom recorded a 300% increase in profits in the year 2020.

Presently, there is even more demand by employees to continue working remotely. Face to face conversations and brick wall offices are slowly becoming a thing of the past.

If you want to gain an edge over your competitors and increase overall efficiency and productivity, then you should consider leveraging the benefits of video conferencing.

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Conclusion: 5 Reasons Your Company Needs to Adopt Video Conferencing

Conclusively, the advent of video conferencing has provided an opportunity for business owners to communicate through both video and audio calls in real-time.

All you need is a good internet connection and a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Super easy and flexible especially for remote workers.

What are your thoughts on these 5 reasons your company needs to adopt video conferencing? Let’s discuss in the comments