Benefits of Active Collaboration Technology
There are hard and soft benefits to be had through the effective deployment of the active conferencing technologies. The hard benefits will more than often pay for the deployment of the technology, but the soft benefits are where an organization can strike gold through enhanced problem solving, accelerated innovation and nothing less than transforming the corporate workplace and the corporate work.
Reduced Travel Costs
The low hanging fruit of active collaboration technologies is undoubtedly reduced travel costs. The savings that can be had by reducing travel have more than paid for many implementations of web, video and whiteboard conferencing. The richer and more accessible the technologies, the greater will be the reduction in travel, as the need for “face-to-face” can completely vanish.
Reduced travel also has spin off benefits the two most significant being:
- The further Greening of the organization (a reduction in an organization’s carbon footprint)
- An enhancement of the work-life balance for employees
Moving Beyond Hard ROI
Many companies who “rolled out video” and other collaboration technologies to reduce the need for travel are discovering that not only are they saving travel costs but:
- Travel is no longer a bottleneck in carrying out their projects
- Projects are completing faster
- People are less stressed
- People are getting more work done and are happier about what they are doing
- The company is innovating more and it is picking up speed
Prof Gary Hamel from the London School of Business states, “Innovation is not a side show, it is the only show.”
This is the real ROI that is harder to measure but more substantial in payback. These results happen when you have the right tools, properly integrated and supported with the right management structure. These technologies, combined with proper education and the right workplace attitude and aptitude foster collaboration, creativity and innovation. This is the lifeblood of a company’s future.
In Room Collaboration
The 4 active conferencing technologies: audio, web, video and interactive whiteboard all help foster collaboration over distances. But in a meeting where everyone is in the same room and there is no need to bridge distance, only one of the technologies continues to enhance the collaborative experience – the interactive whiteboard. This is a very significant statement and one that should be seriously considered. Up to 90% of meetings, depending on the company, are still non-connected meetings. Investing in IWBs in those meeting rooms helps collaboration for the non-connected meeting by:
- Capturing the meeting collaboration notes instantly
- Distributing those notes instantly
- Giving participants new tools to do more
- Providing new tools that fosters meeting creativity
- Spawns innovation
