How Conference Phones Can Cut Costs
17/07/2008
Conference Calls Can Help Cut Congestion
Road congestion already costs the British economy more than £15 billion1 whilst at the same time the cost of motoring is increasing. Congestion charging, motorway tolls, rising fuel prices and the spectre of local Workplace Parking Levies are all adding to the bill.
Staff are still sent to queue on gridlocked roads, enduring journeys which could last two, three or more times longer than the meeting they attend. It’s nuts really isn’t it? It’s particularly crazy when you consider that technology allows those meetings to be conducted professionally and efficiently - but without costly, environment damaging, time consuming travel. The solution? Audio Conferencing.
Conference Calls Cut Costs
No wonder then that Phone conference calls are increasingly utilised, although still only 30 percent of British businesses are enjoying the competitive edge conferencing’s benefits bring. Are you among those losing out? Conferencing not only cuts costs but it enables increased responsiveness. Meetings can be arranged and conducted far more quickly and participants immediately back at their desks to action points raised. Of course face-to-face meetings remain necessary, but not their frequency. A survey of BT staff found 67% of conferencing users said their last call had definitely or probably replaced a meeting, with 53% believing it had saved at least three hours and 288 miles of travelling. Each replaced meeting avoided travel and subsistence costs of £271 with the research reporting the overall benefits were at least 10-15 times greater than the costs of providing conferencing services.2
Improved Audio Conferencing Quality
The latest generation of audio conferencing system phones make the proposition even more attractive. Call quality has been enhanced by technology which reduces background noise and improves microphone sensitivity, giving exceptional clarity. With cost-saving Internet Protocol telephony fast gaining ground in corporate environments IP enabled kit is increasingly popular too. With the EC predicting that road traffic may increase by 50% within 50 years and the cost of congestion doubling between 2005-2015, surely the time to dial in to the conferencing concept is now?
See our range of Audio Conferencing.
Glossary - Internet Protocol
1. Source: Transport Policy: How Should Road Congestion be Managed? Professor Tony May OBE FREng, University of Leeds, March 2005
2. Source: Conferencing at BT: Results of a Survey on its Economic, Environmental & Social Impacts. Professor Peter James & Dr. Peter Hopkinson, University of Bradford and SustainIT, July 2006.