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'Web Conferencing Offers Virtual Meeting Environment At Low Cost'
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With the market flooded with a multitude of conferencing tools, it may indeed seem like a challenge to most businesses to narrow down on an option that integrates with its core management processes, is economical, and most importantly, that offers a wholesome communication experience. Is that asking for too much? Certainly not, says, Kiran Datar, managing director, Cisco Webex. In conversation with Vandana Sharma of BenefIT Bureau, Datar enumerates the reasons why Web conferencing could prove to be a smart alternative to conducting face-to-face meetings in many situations. While demystifying the different features and advantages of the service, he also explains the best practices that can help organisations to make the most of such tools.
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Wednesday, September 02, 2009:
What is Web conferencing? How is it different from video conferencing?
From a layman's perspective, if you think about virtual meetings, you'd typically imagine video conferencing, at one end of the spectrum. This is a real live interaction where you see the person and you are able to converse using this TV format.
And then at the other end of the spectrum is teleconferencing, which basically means talking over the phone, while many people are involved and contribute to the conversation. Web Conferencing lies somewhere in between.
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It brings the best of both worlds over the Internet, where you can do rich media collaboration. By rich media, I mean voice, video and data -- all of these elements can be exchanged through the same platform. So you are able to do the voice conferencing, teleconferencing and can even share/show the data residing on your desktop, which may be in the form of presentations, spreadsheets or in certain cases, even software, demos, programs or movie files.
Through this medium, it becomes possible to share just about any type of information that's available at your end, in any format, with your customer, prospect, partners or even your employees.
What presents a case for Web conferencing?
Let's try and understand this by way of an example. Take the case of a firm with 50 people, where 10 to 15 are located in the head office and the rest are spread across the country at different offices/locations. In case they have to coordinate with each other, they would either need to travel from one place to another or do it, most often, over phone or e-mails. However, by using Web conferencing tools, you can significantly improve your ability to connect and conduct meetings communicating effectively with the people at your branch offices, remotely. So, the connectivity and cost-effectiveness of this tool is great. But what really presents a case for adopting this tool is that it helps you keep in touch much more effectively with your partners and customers.
Can you explain this using a typical scenario in a small organisation, where communicating via Web conferencing may prove a value-add?
Sure. Let's take the example of an automobile component manufacturer who may be manufacturing a small component and is a part of a long supply chain. The firm may be taking raw material inputs from some vendors and then supplying the component to another company in the supply chain. In such scenarios, keeping in contact with the others in the eco-system may require a lot of travel and in many cases, a lot of communication over the phone or through e-mails.
But the entire review system that the firm may be doing over the phone or through employee visits, can be conducted through Web meetings. Using a Web conferencing tool, two or more parties can join the discussion and effectively share data, production spreadsheets, etc, and connect easily with people, both backward and forward in the supply chain.
You may even take the case of an accounting firm. A task like auditing the records of a client may involve several visits to the client's office. However, using a Web conferencing service, the accountants can view many of the documents online and discuss them with the client, simultaneously. Subsequently, with just one or two visits, the critical doubts can be verified. It can save a lot of time and money, which the firm may have otherwise spent in someone visiting the customer and reading through the documents in person.
Also, when you have done the preliminary work over a series of Web meetings, you become more efficient when you visit the client and can wrap up the remaining issues quickly. So, if there is a need to visit a client 10 times, then you can conduct the preliminary conversations online and the more important decisions, face-to-face.
How can organisations make the most of this service?
Any technology can be best utilised when you integrate it to your business processes. It serves best when you look at your overall business processes and then decide which process or function can be done most effectively by adopting a technological tool.
So, organisations need to ascertain which communication requirements can be addressed through a platform like this and what kind of situations would require a personal interaction. Even if you are saving 30 per cent of your travel costs by conducting meetings online, at the end of the year that will amount to significant savings.
What other benefits does Web conferencing bring to the table, especially in the current economic crisis?
Web conferencing is an effective communication tool for all times. However, in this time of recession, customers are expecting price cuts and manufacturers are wondering how they can deliver the same quality of products at lesser costs. One of the areas where people are trying to cut costs is in travel. A lot of business is being conducted through the Web. In such a scenario, Web conferencing offers a virtual meeting environment at a low cost. This is helping firms enhance productivity and save money.
When one opts for a Web conferencing tool, is there an option to either go only for the video component or the telephony component? Or does everything come bundled in the application?
As I said earlier, Web conferencing is all about the power of having an integrated communication experience where you have data, voice and video sharing. All these functionalities are available in one bundle. But you can use the elements as you want. If you want a basic video conferencing using a webcam, you can do that. You can also do a tele-conference, a functionality that comes integrated with the service. In other words, you can use any one element as a standalone function.
For voice sharing through this service, does one require a VoIP (Voice over Internet Telephony) phone?
No. The application integrates with the usual PSTN/public switched telephone network that usually exists in most offices. The service offers users a toll-free number to call. Users can even have a callback feature, in case they want.
What kind of a set-up does a firm require, to get started with this tool?
Actually, the requirements are very simple. As far as the Cisco WebEx platform is concerned, we are a fully hosted service. Which means that all our services are delivered on-demand, through a pay-as-you-go model, with users taking a monthly subscription. You really need to buy nothing. You can get started with it by deploying a simple Internet broadband connection, which today one can get for Rs 500 to Rs 1,000.
You need to have no software installation or hardware capabilities beyond a PC and an Internet connection. And all your services are hosted. The fixed cost for subscriptions can range between Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,000 per month/per user, where users can have unlimited meetings and can add an altogether different dimension to their communications.
What kind of Internet connection is required for Web conferencing?
If you want to do simple data sharing and voice sharing, you can do it with a connection as low as 64 KBps. If you want to add the video element, we suggest that you use at least a 128 KBps. So it is within the normal broadband capability.
Doesn't the video element require 256 KBps or a higher speed broadband connection?
No. The video element works even with a low-speed broadband connection. It is similar to using a webcam with a chat program on a desktop. The clarity of the video however, will depend on the kind of bandwidth that you have -- the higher the bandwidth, the better the quality of the video and so with the data transfer speed.
Are there some free Web conferencing tools also available? If yes, how are they different from the paid ones?
There are plenty of free services available but these have limitations when it comes to being used as organisational communication tools. If I were chatting with my friends, then I would not mind using it as I may not want to spend money and may even not mind the jitters, delays and ads run in between. Nor would I worry about system failures or the absence of any support for troubleshooting.
But while conducting business online, firms don't wish to experience any such issues. Besides, when one is conducting official Web meetings on any unsecured platform that is subject to viruses, intrusions, etc, an organisation's confidential information is at stake. So, businesses rather like to opt for a service that offers them security, scalability, and an uninterrupted communication experience.
Those are the elements that prompt people to have a business conversation on a paid platform. The free service doesn't guarantee a reliable experience.
Do you think Indian firms are aware of such a modern-day communication tool? If not, what will it take to spread the word? What is the rate of adoption of Web conferencing tools by businesses in India?
India is one of the fastest-growing markets, especially when it comes to deploying Cisco WebEx services. Both large and small businesses are looking at this tool. Yes, awareness was an issue earlier. But the economic crisis has forced people to look for alternatives to the traditional way of traveling vast distances to communicate. So more and more people are going online and searching for cost-effective services that enable them to communicate without shelling out money on travels.
How different are the requirements of a small business firm from a large one, when it comes to using a Web conferencing service?
Conducting business online has nothing to do with the size of the organisation. The size of the business doesn't change the way you conduct meetings. That's why even WebEx has not customised any service based on the size of a firm. However, there are variations in the service available for different kinds of business activities like those involved with online-marketing, online-support, online-training, etc. Many large firms have these processes as separate units, departments or profit centres.
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