As more companies leverage a global workforce employees are changing the way they do their jobs with advanced collaboration tools, according to a new report. And with the growing interest in technology such as HD Conference and VoIP, the concept of so-called “virtual meetings” is gaining ground.

 

The Frost & Sullivan report, “Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course of Advanced Collaboration,” found that about 61 percent of organization said they see collaboration technologies as a way to reduce business travel. The study also found that more than half think using conferencing tools - such as an audio conferencing, Web conferencing or video conferencing - is a good alternative than in-person meetings.

 

Mark Child, director, product marketing for ClearOne, an HD conference manufacturing company, said confidence in virtual meetings is on the rise because more businesses are deploying IP telephony. And increased enterprise VoIP usage leads to demand for more powerful collaboration tools.

 

 “Conferencing has been a key collaboration tool for many years,” Child told TMCnet in an interview. “But those systems had always been independent of the other collaboration tools also in use, such as e-mail, video, white-boarding, desktop sharing and Web conferencing. With the advent of VoIP, those applications have become part of a converged telephony system, along with powerful new tools such as presence, document sharing and unified communications. Once an organization makes the leap to a converged IP network, the roadblocks to a full-scale deployment of these collaboration tools disappear.”

 

Child said that in the past the tools were carefully guarded resources generally only used by upper management, but now they are widely available to anyone on the network. And as the tools have had time to mature and become more robust, demand has increased.

 

“It means that more people have access to virtual meetings and are using them more often,” he said.

 

The Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) study, which was sponsored by Verizon Business and Cisco, measured the impact of using collaboration technology on business performance and established a model to measure a return on collaboration. The report identified emerging business technology adoption trends, as well as global attitudes. The research found that collaboration tools play a key role in work life today. It also revealed that attitudes about the technology vary by region.

 

Nearly half of survey respondents – 47 percent – said they have a formal telecommuting policy in place. But less than a third telecommute at least once a week, and 22 percent telecommute on a daily basis. Another 61 percent of respondents said they like to work from anywhere, the report found.

 

According to the report, India is the most telecommuting friendly country, with 59 percent of its organizations having a formal policy, and 48 percent telecommute daily, followed by Hong Kong with 54 percent of its businesses having a formal policy, and 26 percent of workers using the technology daily. Meanwhile, in the U.S., 47 percent of organizations have a formal telecommuting policy and 25 percent of U.S. workers telecommuting daily.

 

The rise in telecommuting is a likely direct correlation to growing adoption of IP networks.

 

“Once an organization has a converged IP network, the basic infrastructure is already in place to easily support remote workers,” Child said. “And, that remote worker can now collaborate with anyone, regardless of location, easily and inexpensively.

 

ClearOne (News - Alert) products have traditionally been strong in large venues such as boardrooms, conference rooms, distant learning environments and courtrooms. But as

organizations’ need to support remote workers increased, the desire for smaller, personal conferencing devices has also grown, Child said.

 

For example, ClearOne’s CHAT products are designed for an individual or a small group and are connected via USB to a PC or laptop for hands-free audio. The speakerphones are robust and cost effective and have experienced a dramatic increase in demand, according to Child.

 

“The downturn in the economy forced many organizations to take a hard look at their “brick and mortar” costs and how they could trim their expenses,” Child said. “Naturally, the first item to receive attention was business travel. At the same time, management needed to find ways to maintain revenue and keep people productive while not traveling as much. This meant that some employees were spending more time working remotely, usually from home offices.”

 

Beyond the cost savings, companies are using teleconferencing solutions is to decrease their impact on the environment. Some 53 percent of respondents said reducing an organization's carbon footprint was a top factor in determining collaborative technology requirements. China was the most prevalent, followed by India and Sweden, the survey said.

 

Green initiatives are important to companies, but they just aren’t driving top line policies.

 

“Just because companies are struggling with the effects of economic conditions doesn’t mean they are abandoning these initiatives,” Child said. “These same companies see VoIP and UC deployments as supporting their green initiatives by reducing their carbon footprint.  It’s not a driving factor, but it’s definitely a supporting one.”