While businesses enjoyed meeting face to face, 66% said that travel time was an inhibitor and 50% said that in-person meetings were a cost disadvantage. According to 32% of respondents, a lot of time is lost on small-talk or over-run meetings.
Audio conferencing is very time and cost efficient so it’s not surprising that 60% prefer to organise a conference call. Not surprisingly, 34% of businesses said it was much easier to bring together geographically dispersed individuals with conferencing. While audio conferences can be very effective, it’s not easy to tell if participants are always paying full attention. Nearly a fifth of those surveyed admitted they have taken calls in odd situations such as: while in pyjamas, outdoors or even in the bathroom.
When asked, 71% of businesses said they thought new technologies such as high-definition video meetings were preferable to audio conferencing as participants were more attentive and engaged in the meeting. Interestingly, it is the younger generation that is more open to embracing video conferencing, trialling and investing in new technology.
The over-riding conclusions were that HD video conferencing gives businesses the best of both worlds—engagement and interactivity of face to face meetings with the cost and time efficiency of audio conferencing.
[Survey conducted with UK senior business decision makers May 2014.]
Updated Aug 21, 2020
