Will video conferencing render business travel obsolete?
 

I took part in a video meeting yesterday that was simply amazing. No picture delays, everything was in sync. It was not my first video conference but this provider's product was top notch. Technology has certainly come a long way since my first virtual meeting about 5 years or so ago.

Each participant was in their own home or office, not in a corporate meeting room especially designed for video. A webcam, microphone, speakers, fast internet and software was all that was needed at each site. Any decent laptop has the hardware built in but the app was cloud based. There were six participants in all and everyone followed proper etiquette so no one was being talked over. It was a really pleasant experience which makes me wonder if business travel will eventually be obsolete. What will happen to sales reps like me who tend to sell best face to face?

We have a 80" flat screen at our office and do some video conferencing. We also do some traveling. It seems, for us, it depends on who we are dealing with and if they are comfortable with video conferencing. I'm in IT and our company prides itself on being cutting edge. With all the web based services (gomeeting.com, etc), it's so much easier now than what it used to be.

It's hard to beat face to face contact but I'm from the old school.

We use web-based tools quite a bit for routine meetings, introductory meetings, etc.

For important, really read the room stuff (share holder meetings, signing BD agreements, contracts, etc.) we meet face-to-face.

We learned the hard way: The company I am the CEO of was in the final stages of completing a deal with a major Midwest semi-tractor manufacturer. Near the end game we decided on a web-ex since one of the NYC guys wanted to participate.

Disaster. The NYC guy is a really great person but you couldn't read that over the video stream. His manner really annoyed the Midwest gents. It took me three months to fix: we are just back to where we were. We are very small and this boo-boo has been a real burden for us.

Live and learn.

For government customers in the DC area we always meet in person: they seem to expect it.

You can't wine n dine a client over a video feed.

But your competitor who is local to the client.........

It'll never replace entirely but it will help. I can't stand traveling to meetings and I do it a lot. Makes things less productive more often than not.

This.

It already is a great tool. Especially for simple training or technical support. There is no replacing getting face to face with a client or vendor. The face to face time will tell you and them a lot about the intangibles that just don't transmit on video.

I am sure as corporate America see a way to save money airline travel will diminish. No one in the right mind enjoys airline travel. First class may not be as bad but the cattle car airline sucks.

I find it to be of great value for internal meetings but much prefer f2f for customer interaction. The only exception would be in cases where I've already build rapport with a customer and need a 'housekeeping' discussion. As noted, you just can't build relationships via video.

Will video conferencing render business travel obsolete?

I certainly hope so.
It will get all those cranky, knee defender using pelicans off the damn airplane.

This.

It isn't so much the actual meeting, it is the pre/post meeting schmoozing on the golf course, in the bar, whatever/wherever

OP, what brand was the system?

Aside from a myriad of other things, I offer video conferencing solutions for clients. It does do a lot in terms of inter business travel elimination (exec going to and from China from US once a month for a meeting now does it from his living room), but long distance f2f relational/sales meetings cannot be replaced. Another issue people find is document sharing and manipulation can be limited by the software of the offering.

High end systems all start around $25k and unless the company wants to directly replace employee travel with it, the ROI discussion is a lot of "what-ifs"

Not to mention the commodity end and all other lesser products, like G2M and Skype that people will deal with.

It's an intermediate step, but you absolutely cannot beat first hand interaction. In my prior aerospace life we were struggling with a supplier partner. They were missing deadlines, not communicating, not meeting our technical requirements, etc. I finally broke down and took a team to meet with them at their facility. One day of in-person meetings relived months of issues. Further, it greased the skids for the relationship going forward, which improved exponentially. The most productive part of that visit was our lunch at an excellent seafood joint. Don't underestimate the importance of building rapport.

Communication is easier and more accurate face-to-face. Especially if you know someone and you're using video conferencing to arrive at a modest decision or communicate some simple, direct forms of information, video conferencing is fine.

Face-to-face is better for first meetings, when you need to build understanding and trust, make more complicated decisions or times when the nuance or tone of the meeting is particularly important.

That has been the promise for around 15 years it seams. It keeps getting better, but the progress seems to be at a crawl compared to other IT and video progress.

I think alot of times travel for meetings is a scenario where everybody loses. In my work we have a traditional "expensive" dinner to close out the meetings. Im pretty sure neither the hosts or the guests want to be there.

I doubt it. Part of business travel is the travel part- they could've done this years ago with the advent of high speed internet- but they didn't. People still prefer face-to-face for serious decisions.

rjp

Video conferencing is great for established relationships, inter-company communication, and making sure the other guy (or you) is not surfing the net when you are talking.

Serious conversations, initial meetings, big presentations, seeing your team -> that's why we travel around the world. To shake hands and build long-lasting relationships. Video won't replace that.

We do a lot of research and development in the broad area of "telepresence." Basically, what is needed to make a person feel like they are somewhere else, and how can a person then communicate and collaborate in that virtual or mixed environment. Systems have gotten better, but there are some fundamental obstacles that still are hard research problems. We have tech that can automatically track and judge engagement, mood, etc - they can work well, but still not a substitute for a good human "reader." The head mounted displays (e.g. Oculus) probably will be another leap forward, but there still is a lot of research to be done on how to best represent information in those and other displays.

There is no substitute for face to face, but that partially may be somewhat of a vestigial preference as new generations who have been born with screens become part of the business landscape.

Funny thing, at Boeing we have probably the best video conference technology I've ever seen, but no one uses it. We're expected to fly for meetings, it's just the culture I suppose.

I don't think so. I do a fair bit of conference calls with webex and video. The facilities are great when you are in the office, but with larger and larger segments of the workforce working from home, those same facilities you used dont exist. We have them in all our offices and use them for internal meetings.

When you're trying to close a multi-million dollar contract, people want to Shake hands and meet the people they are buying from. I want to meet them and let them know who they are buying from.

Big +1

I work for a cutting edge tech giant, and we have the best of the best for video conferencing and collaboration. We use that stuff all the time because the company is spread all over the globe, and it is great for syncing on projects etc.

But... I still travel in person to visit my teams in India, China, France, Ireland etc. It's about building relationships and trust with people, and its difficult at best to build that rapport when you are not face to face, experiencing the world where that person lives and does business. Moreover it is a form of sincerity that is hard to beat. Nothing can top being there.