Benefits of Audio Conferencing Important for Collaboration Planning
Posted by Kathleen S on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 @ 02:12 PM
As companies in the United States and other industrialized nations have implemented telecommuting platforms and distributed workforces, there is an increased need for collaboration across geographic barriers. The two challenges that immediately come to mind with such scenarios are distance and time. How are these challenges overcome to facilitate collaboration and teamwork among colleagues?
Value of Face-to-Face Challenged
Company officials must ask themselves how important it is to have face-to-face collaboration among team members. If this is an absolute must, then significant budgets should be set aside to support the funding for travel and the cost associated with time taken away from core, revenue-generating activities.
If face-to-face is not as important as simply communication, one very powerful tool to drive productivity and teamwork is audio conferencing. While this technology has been around for a while now – and is facing fierce competition from Web conferencing solutions – solutions available on such a platform have come a long way since their inception.
New Controls Enhance Effectiveness of the Call
One very notable advantage to audio conferencing today is the amount of control a mediator has in facilitating the call. Not only can this individual invite specific callers to participate in the call, he or she can use software that has been integrated with such applications as Outlook to automatically add the scheduled call to participant calendars, ensuring an important call is not missed.
Audio conferencing today is also designed to keep the call moving forward, even if problems arise in the process. It isn’t unusual for an individual who is using a cell phone to participate in the call to drop a line. When this happens, they can easily be added back into the conversation, missing only seconds of the call itself.
Call Capture and Archiving
The ability to record the call and make it accessible for all participants later is also an important feature. Key points during a conversation can be missed if too many people are talking or one person continues to dominate the conversation. The ability to go back and review the information ensures the call was beneficial for all.
Of course the most obvious benefit to audio conferencing is the cost savings associated with the elimination of travel time. The company can cut the cost of covering employee travel cost and employees no longer must take time away from other initiatives in order to travel to a meeting. Audio conferencing allows the organization to maximize the benefit of the meeting while sacrificing very little to make this collaboration possible.
