Travel savings are as high as 80% for some companies.

The internal numbers of our customers and white papers from our vendors all point to huge increases in productivity.

Lets just point out ONE area of productivity increases related to travel.

No more lost time traveling. A single business trip avoided can add two days or more of productive time for 1 or more employees that would be lost getting to and from the airport, on the plane, checking into hotels, etc… Even a short hop flight (LA to SF) can kill an entire day of productivity.

A typical travel arrangement takes hours of time for multiple employees to get the trip scheduled, booked and preparation in terms of logistics & materials shipping.

With a video conferencing system built to fit your particular needs now you send an invitation to a meeting via email,Outlook/Google Calendar, etc… then sit down in your conference room or office and have your meeting.

We have not even addressed benefits such as increased meaningful contact with clients and vendors, document sharing, and other collaboration benefits.

Universities around the world have done studies on the benefits of increased business collaboration and true video conferencing facilitates that collaboration.

LifeSize, Polycom, Cisco all report similar numbers from their customers.

The benefits include increased sales, increased customer & vendor contact, lowered personnel and travel costs.

Does the research pertain to both teleconference and video conference tools?

1st, There is a huge difference between video chat, which is what you do on your cell phone or skype, and video conferencing and collaboration as its used with TRUE HD video conferencing systems like LifeSize, Cisco & Polycom.

2nd, Its not video conferencing that is what the employees are resistant to, its change period.

The types of meeting you have using HD Video Conferencing systems are not the type you would be muti-tasking in the middle of anyway.

In a sales presentation or in person meeting or a collaboration meeting with a vendor or client (of the type that you are replacing with true video conferencing session) you would rarely multi-task.

So those arguments are truly off base.

When a system is designed that dovetails with existing procedures and training is implemented to show employees HOW to use it effectively within existing procedures then it is a huge boost to productivity.

Far too many companies are buying video conferencing HARDWARE without working with a company that will help develop a program to fit it into existing procedures or to write new procedures that are easy to use.

Just having a piece of hardware does not mean it will be used.

Companies with a well thought out and implemented procedures for video conferencing are seeing up to 80% savings in travel costs and improvements in overall productivity of 20% or more.

If they are not then maybe they should be calling us for their video conferencing system and implementation.

Video Calling is great and all but before we get to desktop (or mobile, Facetime etc.), mobile VoIP in the enterprise, would likely be more valuable to a larger audience.

That being said, we would also need a simple (& free) way to deploy & manage mobile VoIP (IOS, Android, PC, Mac) endpoints in the enterprise, without having to actually license endpoint software and erect provisioning servers. (full disclosure, I am working on that concept now :)

However, the flipside is that the effective use of videoconferencing could reduce the number of meetings that you actually have to travel to.