Worried about ballooning overhead costs, possible economic downturns, and the future? There’s nothing like building a business from the ground up to give you sleepless nights and an endless stream of things to worry about. So why not give video conferencing a try? Here’s a lowdown on the many advantages you can look forward to with video conferencing solutions:  

Cost
That’s the first thing on the list and it’s certainly the most significant. According to the Business Matters Magazine, London has one of the highest living expenses in the world. Running a remote business, then, can mean a lot of cost-savings. By hiring offsite employees who are equally qualified for the job and have lower expectations in terms of salary, you can grow and build a business much faster and easier. That’s because you’ve eliminated the costs of pricey office lodgings and local talents from your books. 

Connectivity
One of the ways video conferencing helps your business survive is the way it gives your team better connectivity options. With video conferencing, it’s easy to manage and keep in touch with your offsite teams, says Startups. Check in with your team in Costa Rica, hold a meeting with your staff in Japan, and update your offsite team in London about recent changes in a project. You can do all that without having to require your teams to be in the same room, continent or time zone. Tip: just remember to schedule the meetings in advance. That way, everyone can clear a space in their schedule for you. 

Face to Face
Among the best advantages of video conferencing systems offered by Blue Jeans, for one, is HD clarity. Since video conferencing already allows everyone in a meeting to review files together as well as take control of the content feed easily enough, remote teams have an even better time at it by being able to see who they’re talking to. While face to face interaction still trumps a lot of things, in the case of remote teams, seeing the person they’ve been chatting with for months now or talking to via email allows them to develop a stronger connection with each other. That’s crucial if you want to build a strong team. They’ve got to be able to count on other, discuss ideas freely, and be invested in helping each other succeed.  That’s the kind of environment you want. It has to be supportive of trust, growth, and collaboration and putting an efficient communication in place makes that possible. Everyone knows things are easy when people work with those they trust and enabling your offsite teams to see each other regularly contributes to building that trust. Also, face to face contact makes it easier for teams to communicate ideas, leading to faster data dissemination. The faster people get the message, the quicker they decide.  

Hiring
With video conferencing making it easy to build businesses with offsite workers, a lot of small companies can now afford to go toe-to-toe with big companies as they vie for top talents in the industry. One such example, according to The Guardian, is the digital marketing agency Serps Invaders. The company offers incredible flexibility in its work arrangements: from duvet days where staff can take a holiday on short notice to remote work and work weeks of only four days, staff have stupendous control over their own time and schedule. That’s a hiring advantage for the business since employees who prefer a freer lifestyle often choose flexibility over a big company. That’s because a lot of big companies are still slow to adapt policies that encourage flexibility in the workplace. Faced with the prospect of being tied down to a desk from nine to five every day, for five days a week, it’s enough to send talents running for the hills, in search of work opportunities that allow them to enjoy better work-life balance. And by using video conferencing systems, small businesses are able to scoop them up. 

The Future
Of course, one can’t talk about remote working advantages without taking access to high-quality Internet into account. According to Total Jobs, while the UK bags the top place out of the five EU economies, that doesn’t mean there’s room for complacency. After all, other nations are already leaps ahead. Netherlands, for instance, has an average download speed of 12.5Mbits/sec, quite a few points more than UK’s 9.1Mbits/sec. With the launch of high-speed fiber optic broadband in many parts of the country, especially in rural areas, there’s a chance that these changes are expected to have a massive impact on the economy, possibly adding an estimated £17 billion worth of earnings as the infrastructure improves business efficiency and opportunities across the UK. 
So if worrying about rising overhead costs and expenses are keeping you up at night, maybe it’s about time you did more than consider the possibility of making video conferencing a part of your long-term communication strategy. Maybe it’s about time you made a move. 

Source: www.businessworld.ie