We’ve all been there. It’s Monday afternoon. You’re stacked up to your eyeballs with work and the last thing you want to do is brave the roads to meet your client. But despite your woes, you head out anyway, finger and toes crossed that it won’t be a wasted journey. After what feels like days sitting in traffic, you finally arrive, only to be greeted with a murky cup of coffee and polite niceties that could have been done over the phone or via video-conference. And this happens regularly. Meetings are becoming more frequent but staying in touch with clients is becoming harder. And employees have become counter-productive as they battle long commutes to and from various locations.
Isn’t that a myth?
Well actually, no. Research shows these types of commutes are associated with increased stress, higher blood pressure and reduced time for social activities. A study of 34,000 workers across the UK showed that those who travelled for under an hour a day gained an additional 7 DAYS worth of productive time each year, opposed to those who travelled for an hour or more. That’s a lot of wasted time. Time that is hard to come by and time that is worth it’s weight in gold. Imagine all of the extra bits and bobs you could get done in seven days.
But never fear! There is a sensible solution to end this pain. It’s 2019 and there’s a BIG trend hitting organisations up and down the country. The ever-changing landscape of the working environment has meant businesses needed to adapt and offer their employees a more flexible, mobile solution to their working day. The use of business mobile phones, hosted telephony and faster WiFi means you can now work anywhere without hassle. And as technology has evolved, businesses are making use of the genius invention that is video-conference.
It’s not a fad …
Video-conferencing is a tidy bit of kit. It offers features like screen-sharing and collaboration tools, to stay in touch with colleagues and clients at the click of a button. Technology has advanced so rapidly that with the introduction of HD and 4K video conference suites and collaboration systems, meetings can be held much more conveniently from literally anywhere. Whether that’s from the comfort of your workplace, at home, the local coffee shop – it doesn’t matter. That means less time spent travelling and more time spent doing business.
The list of companies offering sophisticated video conference and collaboration suites is growing by the day, so it’s easier than ever to get on board. The features included are savvy and not only do they save you time, they allow you to have better discussions. Imagine holding a video conference with a client. During the meeting, you could go through a proposal and have the ability to tweak the document in real time, then get it signed there and then. Pretty clever hey?
Surely it won’t last?
Although some trends come and go, it seems that the video-conference is here to stay, with almost 50% of businesses looking to implement it as a staple working option by 2020. And it’s easy to see why. That’s because there are endless things you can do with the right technology. You can file sharing, remote control, live edit, screen record and much, much more. These are proven to increase employee efficiency and productivity. And because most of these features are available as standard, the cost is relatively affordable in comparison to other solutions.
All indicators point towards an increased and insatiable need for remote working options. Even here, at Pure Cloud, we’ve got a slice of the action. We contacted key players like Zoom and Cisco because they both allow us to easily bring our team, clients and prospects together in a way that really has made a difference to how our employees operate. Zoom has been built into our UCA app to offer organisations a way of taking advantage of video-conferencing on one application. Whilst we use the Cisco Spark board at our offices when we host remote conferences with partners from all over the world.
This is not something that shows signs of slowing down or rapidly changing any time soon. And with that in mind, video-conferencing will become more and more prominent in our working days. It’s more a case of when, not if when it comes to implementing this as a solution. So the sooner you jump on the bandwagon, the sooner you’ll reap the rewards.
Need more information?
Find out how Pure Cloud could help you to maximise your collaboration through investment in video-conferencing. There are a number of options available to suit a range of business sizes an sectors. For more information, contact our team today!
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