How to save money using online meetings.

If you are an executive of a company, the owner of a company, or a company or office manager, then you need to know how you can save money using online meetings.That's right: online meetings.Some experts have estimated that an online meeting can save your business around $2,000 per year per person who is involved in the meetings on a regular basis.How is this possible?Well, think about all of the costs involved in having physical meetings with other executives or other employees.First of all, there's the time involved.You are paying not only for the time spent in the meeting, but also for the time spent traveling to the meeting, and leaving the meeting.The cost is even more if the meeting is held away from the office, in another city, in another branch, or at corporate headquarters.Then there is the price of fuel.If you have to drive a fair distance to get to the meeting, that's a lot of fuel for everyone who is driving there.And what if some people have to fly?That's a whole lot of money spent on just getting to and from a meeting-a lot of money that you could avoid spending by just having your meeting online.
There are a number of web conferencing software applications that are available to help you entirely transform the way that your company does business, and that will save you a ton of money by doing so.It used to be that online meetings were basically a waste of time because the video and audio capabilities were so pathetic.Well, now that everybody basically is using broadband connections, online meetings have reached an entirely new potential.You can use instant messaging, you can share applications, you can use real time video, real time audio, and more, so that you can all be working on the exact same document when you are online while talking to each other.This is a whole lot better than the conference call.The best thing about it is that all you need is an internet connection, and headset, and maybe a webcam if you'd all like to see each other, which is not actually all that necessary.

If you prefer, you can go the even more sophisticated route by using laptops, 3G phones, or different facilities that are specifically designed for video conferencing online.There is also no longer a need to worry about your security and the confidentiality of your meetings.It used to be that open networks caused a lot of worry to people because who knows who could simply hack in to your meeting.Well, fortunately, now those concerns have been taken care of by the people who are developing better and better software to enable you to have your meetings online.Companies like Microsoft are recognizing the enormous potential of moving meetings to the Internet, and are developing software to make your online meetings as productive and as secure as possible.Because there is so much competition among those who make the software for online meetings, the price for online meeting software is going down so that even if you are just a small business, you can afford to have online meetings better than you can afford to have people drive in from all over the place, pay for catering, pay for electricity, and more.
Before you get involved in online meetings, however, you need to sit down and decide what exactly you want to get from your online meetings.Do you really, really need to all see each other during the meeting?If not, then don't bother with video conferencing.You'll have to spend money on webcams if you do, and video is really not all that important.It would probably be more beneficial to you if you if you stick with instant messaging and VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and maybe application sharing.Make sure that all of the computers that are being used and all of the media that is being used is encrypted by the encryption application and facilities that you are using.Otherwise your privacy and security will not be quite what you think that they are.