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As Travel Costs Rise, More Meetings Go Virtual

July 23rd, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

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Peter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times

Jill Smart, in foreground, in a videoconference from her office in Chicago with colleagues in Atlanta and London.

Jill Smart, an Accenture executive, was skeptical the first time she stepped into her firm’s new videoconferencing room in Chicago for a meeting with a group of colleagues in London. But the videoconferencing technology, known as telepresence, delivered an experience so lifelike, Ms. Smart recalled, that “10 minutes into it, you forget you are not in the room with them.”

Accenture, a technology consulting firm, has installed 13 of the videoconferencing rooms at its offices around the world and plans to have an additional 22 operating before the end of the year.

Accenture figures its consultants used virtual meetings to avoid 240 international trips and 120 domestic flights in May alone, for an annual saving of millions of dollars and countless hours of wearying travel for its workers.

As travel costs rise and airlines cut service, companies large and small are rethinking the face-to-face meeting — and business travel as well. At the same time, the technology has matured to the point where it is often practical, affordable and more productive to move digital bits instead of bodies.

The emerging trend, analysts say, goes well beyond a reaction to rising travel costs and a weakening economy. “These technology tools are going to change the way corporations think about travel and work in the long run,” an analyst at Forrester Research, Claire Schooley, said.

Past predictions that technology could replace travel have been frequent and premature. The main difference today, analysts say, is that the technology is finally catching up to its promise. No single breakthrough explains the progress, but rather a series of step-by-step advances — and steady investment — in telecommunications networks, software and computer processing.

The results can be seen not only in the expensive new telepresence systems like those from Cisco Systems or Hewlett-Packard, but also in more mainstream collaboration technologies — Web conferencing, online document sharing, wikis and Internet telephony. The audio and desktop presentations in Web-based meetings, for example, are now more likely to be in sync and interactive.

Companies of all sizes are beginning to shift to Web-based meetings for training and sales presentations. “Only in the last two years has the technology gotten to point where it really makes sense to use it,” said Alan Minton, vice president for marketing at Cornerstone Information Systems, a 60-person business software company in Bloomington, Ind.

With his sales force doing many product demonstrations online, Mr. Minton estimates the group’s travel costs of have been cut by 60 percent and the average time to close a new sale has been reduced by 30 percent.

No one suggests that the face-to-face meeting is becoming obsolete, or that it is time for a requiem for the road warrior. Companies talk about using digital tools mainly as a way of making business travel more selective and more productive.

Still, the potential for digital displacement of business travel is substantial. A report last month by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, a group of technology companies, and the Climate Group, an environmental organization, estimated that up to 20 percent of business travel worldwide could be replaced by Web-based and conventional videoconferencing technology.

The most dedicated business travelers tend to be management consultants, investment bankers, accountants, lawyers and technology services consultants. Much of their work has to be done in person with clients. But these professionals are increasingly using online collaboration tools for work within their firms.

At I.B.M., Michael Littlejohn, a work force and technology expert in the company’s global services unit, said two years ago, he was on the road 13 to 15 days a month. These days, he says, he travels 8 or 10 days a month. “But my time spent with clients is not less,” he said. “To really understand a client’s problems or to close a deal, you need face to face.”

Corporate training and education is a field many companies are moving online, in part to trim travel costs. Darryl Draper, the national manager of customer service training for Subaru of America, used to travel four days a week, nine months of the year, presenting educational programs at dealers nationwide. Today, Ms. Draper rarely travels and nearly all of her training is done online.

Previously, Ms. Draper estimated, in six months she would reach about 220 people at a cost of $300 a person. She said she now reaches 2,500 people every six months at a cost of 75 cents a person.

A range of companies offer the mainstream online communications and collaboration tools, including WebEx, Citrix, Microsoft, I.B.M. and others. The most rarefied offering, though, is telepresence videoconferencing. Today, it is an elite product supplied by a few companies, including Cisco, H.P. and Polycom.

Completed telepresence rooms, typically with three huge curved screens (and a fourth screen above for shared work), custom lighting and acoustics, cost up to $350,000 — though that is down from $500,000, when H.P. sold its first system in early 2006.

The resolution on telepresence screens is even sharper than on high-definition televisions, and images can be magnified to inspect products. Engineers at the far-flung labs of Advanced Micro Devices, for example, scrutinize the microcircuitry on new chip designs using the company’s telepresence systems. And the images of people on screen are life-size.

Cisco, which has more than 200 telepresence rooms, figures it is avoiding $100 million in yearly travel costs, and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions from air travel by 10 percent. H.P. says air travel among its offices with telepresence rooms is down 25 percent.

When used regularly, the rooms pay for themselves within a year, analysts estimate. Sales of telepresence systems will more than double this year to 627, estimates the market research firm IDC, and reach more than 8,000 by 2012.

There is a certain paradox in telepresence, in that it is all to simulate the richest form of human interaction: people talking to each other, face to face.

And it is not a perfect substitute. Ms. Smart, the chief of human resources for Accenture, still travels about 10 days a month. “You don’t learn about other cultures in telepresence,” she said. “You get things from being there, over breakfast and dinner, building relationships face to face.”

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What is Telepresence? How Does it Compare With High Definition Video Conferencing?

June 2nd, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

A new catchphrase that is coming up over and over again is “Telepresence”. What is it? Is it better than High Definition Video Conferencing?

Telepresence is an experience. Telepresence today and for the relatively long-term future is an enterprise solution. Telepresence is a sophisticated form of robotic remote control in which a human operator has a sense of being on location so that the experience resembles virtual reality (VR). The remotely-controlled robot (or telechir ) and the human operator can be up to hundreds of kilometers apart. Telepresence is really a phone call, believe it or not .

Telepresence is the ultimate meeting experience for executives in any organization, linking sites across the globe. Telepresence is an extension and improved solution for videoconferencing. The Telepresence solution has an improved quality of sound and image. Telepresence is not only being positioned for sedentary executives. This AlwaysOn piece describes the value?of telepresence for first responders.

TelePresence is a next-generation video-conferencing offering from Polycom and to call TelePresence “technology” minimizes its scope. TelePresence includes television monitors, desks, chairs, and everything you need for connectivity. Telepresence is the concept that a physician is able to look and feel real to those in the ICU and to interact in a human way with the environment. This involves the use of a robot that projects the image of the physician in real-time onto a flat screen mounted at the head of the robot.

Telepresence is currently a tool used by CEOs or high level managers who focus primarily on face to face interactions. Employees deeper in a country would benefit more from solutions that enable sharing applications or products. Telepresence is unquestionably reshaping the Asia Pacific conferencing industry to an advanced level of virtual communications, at the same time, changing the way people interact with each other. While it is slowly breaking off the Asian culture of building relationship through physical presence, it offers the closest proximity to face-to-face meeting that one could ever experience.

So, the question arises…how does it stack up against a High Definition Video Conference system?

Telepresence systems are the next generation of video or visual conference systems. They are suppirior in both picture clarity and sound. Unfortunetly the cost can be prohibitive. With modern high definition video conference systems picture clarity and sound can be excellent at a fraction of the price of telepresence systems.

For example, Lifesize currently states that their HD video conferencing is only achievable at a bandwidth of at least 1Mbps. How many video conferencing calls are actually made at 1MB per site using H264? LifeSize Team MP makes high definition multipoint video calls easy and affordable. Bring colleagues together from up to four locations without needing any extra equipment, advance scheduling or a technician. LifeSize? Conference lets you accelerate your global business by creating an immersive, high definition telepresence experience that is realistic and authentic. It lets you do more and travel less and pay less. A complete solution.

LifeSize Room includes embedded 4-way HD multipoint capabilities to connect several participants. LifeSize designed video communications with absolute user simplicity in mind. Connect your PC to share multimedia or documents clearly.

Supported by an open architecture, they integrate seamlessly with leading telephony and presence-based networks. With its market driving technologies, best-in-class products, alliance partnerships, and world-class service, Polycom is the smart choice for organizations seeking proven solutions and a competitive advantage in real-time communications and collaboration. Supported by an open architecture, they integrate seamlessly with leading telephony, workplace wireless telephony, and presence-based networks. With its market-driving technologies, best-in-class products, alliance partnerships, and world-class service, Polycom is the smart choice for organizations seeking proven solutions and a competitive advantage from on-demand communications and collaboration.

With the expansion of the global economy and energy prices increasing, both high definition video conferencing and telepresence offer a face to face experience truly is effective in its ultimate goal, communication and collaboration. HD video conferencing offers a higher value when it is integrated and installed as a complete custom audio visual solution.

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High Definition Video Conferencing And Your Business

April 21st, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

High definition video conferencing has since become very common with the technology advancing and transforming from analog to digital format the world over.High definition video conferencing offers an experience that is life-like in resolution. Today, Polycom VSX systems can deliver TV-like quality at rates of 30 frames-per-second and 60 fields of interlaced video, known as Polycom ProMotion™ video. High definition video conferencing also provides cost effective, powerful new camera designs, spatial audio, and improved user interfaces.

Polycom’s existing Vortex line of installed audio solutions will continue to be available and supported. Polycom’s high quality, standards-based conferencing and collaboration solutions are easy to deploy and manage, as well as intuitive to use. Supported by an open architecture, they integrate seamlessly with leading telephony and presence-based networks.

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