In today's worsening economic conditions - with a failed housing market and an unprecedented amount of job losses - the need to "save a buck" whenever possible is becoming necessary for just about everyone.
Conference calls have become especially important during this time and are being used by an increasing number of businesses and consumers as a much lower cost alternative to long distance calling and travel.
One study from Access Markets International (AMI) finds that SMBs, who have become especially mobile and have a growing dispersed workforce, will spend more on conferencing solutions including audio, Web and video. This increase will in $26 billion spent by 2012 - a compound annual growth rate of 5.9 percent from 2006 - when $1.8 billion was spent on conferencing solutions.
With a conference call, it's possible to communicate with more than one person at the same time, and when video is included, also speak face-to-face.
In offices around the globe and in educational institutions, conference calls are making it possible to learn, train and meet with contacts without ever needing to travel.
Not only are the savings on calling and long distance costs beneficial, but by removing the need to travel, conference calls also help in improving the environment and cutting the cost needed to send employees to meetings from a businesses spending.
In addition, friends and families can stay connected with love ones located in other countries even soldiers fighting overseas have been able to leverage conferencing sessions to stay in touch with loved ones back home.
A recent report from Frost & Sullivan notes these solutions are viable during economic downturn as well as key for when the up-turn occurs.
According to the research firm, earlier recessions have shown that companies who invest in their IT and communications during the crisis have been in a stronger position when the storm passes – even having the ability to grab market share from their competitors.
"For companies able and willing to continuing their IT investments during the recession, visual communications and collaboration products and services should become a central part of their strategy for survival – and for creating a dominant position for themselves, come the upturn," said Dominic Dodd, Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) Principal Analyst.
Eagle Teleconferencing is a provider of conference call solutions for today's competitive business environments and organizations around the world to get the most of their meetings. The company offers a worldwide network connection infrastructure, a capacity of over 10 Billion Minutes and a variety of conference call options for productivity and reliability.
With Eagle's Conference Call solutions, businesses can more easily, safely and cost effectively collaborate with co-workers, partners, and customers anytime and anywhere around the world.
For more, check out the Conference Call channel on TMCnet
Stefania Viscusi is an assignment editor for TMCnet, covering VoIP, CRM, call center and wireless technologies. To read more of Stefania’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi