90% of Enterprise Businesses Benefiting from Virtual Collaboration, says Genesys Conferencing Survey

Growing use of multimedia collaboration tools companywide - ability to replace face-to-face meetings easily and effectively is key to increased usage – greater visibility of cost and environmental savings needed   

Croydon, UK, 19 June 2008: In the UK, an overwhelming nine out of ten large companies are using some form of virtual collaboration solution to enhance the quality of their communications, both within and beyond the business.  And, of these, nearly two thirds have incorporated an element of video and/or web collaboration, in addition to their established audio conferencing capability. 

So finds a survey of UK manufacturing and service businesses undertaken by Vanson Bourne on behalf of leading unified collaboration and communications services provider, Genesys Conferencing. 

Key findings

• 90% of businesses employing 1,000+ staff have adopted a conferencing/collaboration tool as part of their communications strategy.  For businesses with 3,000+ staff this rises to 96%.

•  74% of these use integrated multimedia conferencing tools to some degree, with only 26% exclusively using audio conferencing solutions.  This is especially strong in manufacturing businesses, with 81% of respondents using multimedia tools.

• Companies are also using virtual collaboration tools more frequently.  Nearly one third (29%) of respondent businesses are using virtual conferencing on a daily basis, with a further 45% every week.  Financial services businesses lead the field here, with 83% using conferencing tools weekly or more frequently.

• 30% of respondents confirmed they would use their conferencing solution more frequently, if it could more effectively replace face-to-face meetings, followed by 25% who pointed to the need for peer groups to use it more often.  The ability to see tangible evidence of cost savings and if it were easier to use were also seen as significant barriers to greater usage, by 22% and 14% respectively, with only 5% expressing an environmental concern in wanting to see tangible evidence of reduced carbon emissions.

• The above priorities were exactly mirrored by those businesses who have yet to implement a virtual collaboration solution, but who plan to within the foreseeable future.

Enterprise-wide use, enterprise-wide benefits

“Companies have long recognised the value of collaboration tools,” says Jerona Noonan, sales director, Genesys Conferencing, “yet historically, for many businesses usage was restricted to audio conferencing and a relatively small number of ‘power users’.

“Yet those businesses with easy-to-implement and easy-to-use multimedia tools such as Genesys Meeting Center typically achieve greater benefits - in terms of operational cost savings, lower carbon emissions and improved work/life balance for their employees - as a result of much higher take-up by staff across the whole enterprise.”