Video Conferencing – a useful tool in business communication

It goes without saying, communication is critical to the success of any organisation. And, video conferencing can be monitored to be the best option to usher in effective communication.

With many businesses having offices scattered around the globe, video conferencing is the closest thing to face-to-face interaction. For it allows you to see, hear and talk to people, who are placed in another location.

Video conferencing – used effectively in internal communication

For MNCs and organisations that are cross-regional, it is often very difficult to make business communication effective. And, it is seen they resort to video conferencing specially in internal communications. With video communication, organisations can connect with employees anywhere across the globe; and they can also come face-to-face in real time.

We all know that communication is critical for organisational growth. Good communication helps enhance the power of teams and improve employees’ work performance; it also improves the way the organisation appears to the world vis-a-vis competition too. That’s why we see today, many organisations make an effort to improve internal and external business communication.

Whatever it is, one thing is clear – video conferencing can convey large chunks of information, more than telephone calls and email. The video conference experience does provide numerous benefits – and top of the list is the fact that it reinforces relationships, often eliminating misunderstandings. Having a video conference allows all stakeholders to work together timely and efficiently

What are the advantages of video conferencing?

• It is face-to-face communication

Bringing in the human element, video conferencing makes remote business communication much more lively and vivid. You get to face a group of employees in a virtual meeting room, where you can see them and listen to them, just as you are in the same meeting room. Since body language is important you can easily observe body language, like expressions and gestures – thus helping you better understand.

• Creates efficient business communication

Sometimes, when you gather employees together in one place and make a presentation, it can result in inefficient business communication. You can avoid such situations with video conferencing. Here, the different roles are clearly marked out – the host, presenter, and audience. When the presenter speaks, you can easily mute others to ensure a good business environment. Plus, it empowers you to lock the virtual meeting room – to make sure no one will barge in!

• Enhances employee-relationships spread across the world

Thanks to video conferencing, cross-regional and multinational enterprises can strengthen relationships. It’s not an easy thing to build a good relationship between employees that are scattered around the world. And, long distance makes frequent face-to-face communication not very easy.

• Allows to interact with content sharing

Another advantage in business communication is that it enables you to share content with employees, like desktop, documents, files, software and more information, which will help in better understanding. This makes it easier to work in virtual teams. In this way, business communication becomes much more productive and effective.

• It saves cost

Apart from the above, there are other advantages to video conferencing, most notably cost and convenience. Organisations may spend a lot on business travel every year for internal meetings. If they switch to video conferencing instead, there will be many positives. The biggest advantage of video conferencing is the cost and convenience – attendees can take part from anywhere in the world, which significantly reduces travel costs as well as time needed for travelling.

This means it can be far easier to arrange meetings held via video conferencing than those which require everyone to be physically present in the same place at the same time.

However, taking a reality check, there are also some disadvantages. Sometimes, it can be harder to engage with someone via a video screen, making concentration difficult. Another big downside of video conferencing is that it puts you completely at the mercy of technology, which may come to a halt halfway through your meeting! Sometimes not everyone is comfortable using this format. And, not everyone likes appearing on camera!

But, overall we can say that video conferencing is an excellent medium, but a lot of attention to detail must be taken for both the user and the audience – to ensure easy, productive use.

Shree Lahiri

Shree is the Senior Editor at Reputation Today and hopes to move from one focus area to another in the editions that will be released this year. Having worked in Corporate Communications teams, she has experience of advertising, public relations, investor and employee communications, after which she moved to the other side – journalism. She enjoys writing and believes the power of the pen is indeed mighty. Covering the entertainment beat and the media business, she has been involved in a wide range of activities that have thrown open storytelling opportunities.

She can be reached at: @shree_la on twitter