Last week’s travel statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that 593,000 people came to Australia on business in the year to Feburary, 7% down on the previous 12 months. The GFC has clearly hit business travel hard.

It’s a similar story with Aussies heading overseas on business. Travel was 5% down on the previous 12 months despite the economy avoiding recession and the Australian dollar being worth more than ever in those struggling economies overseas.

And there’s not much sign of those figures bouncing back in a hurry. Despite heightened business confidence travel in February was still lower than it was in 2009, and well below the pre GFC levels. Could this be the turning of the tide?

Perhaps the economic downturn has brought sense to how business deals with travel. Sure you need to see colleagues and customers in the flesh occasionally, but perhaps not at the regular expense of travel costs and time out of the office.

Being away from the office is a key factor. The ABS released the latest employment data last week, showing a slight rise in employment, but there’s a trend towards part time work that is hiding the real numbers. Companies are still working on skeleton full time staff, so time spent travelling is becoming an unaffordable luxury.

All this points to a healthy future for conferencing products like IP Visuals that can connect workers and enable face to face meetings without checking in baggage or spending lonely nights in hotel rooms.

What’s more, the ease and convenience of any to any visual communications solutions means dialogue can be ongoing, rather than being rushed through in meetings that are cut short because you’re running late and your taxi has just arrived to take you back to the airport!

A 5-7% drop in business travel is a big hit for one year, but perhaps it’s just the beginning.

Read other IP Visuals blog entries here

The video conferencing industry has a lot to thank British Airways for. They have proven once again how unreliable travel can be. As BA cabin crew walks off the job we have seen more than half of all their flights cancelled, including some long haul flights to Australia.

Of course, you don’t need a major strike like this to be reminded of how detrimental business travel can be, on your time and on your budget.  It’s not uncommon to find yourself circling over Sydney or Melbourne waiting for your landing slot. Add a touch of frost or fog and your flight could be re-routed. With the airlines working on lower margins it’s not uncommon for a flight to be cancelled if all the passengers can be accommodated on the next one.

Add up those hours of waiting, waiting and waiting, to the cost of the ticket, taxis and parking and you’re presented with the real cost of business travel. Sydney travelers also have the dubious honour of travelling through the airport badged the worst in the country recently by the ACCC.

IP Visuals keeps track of some of the costs associated with travel, so you can see how much you save when a face to face meeting in person is changed to a face to face meeting online. What isn’t factored in is the removal of uncertainty and the associated stress that goes hand in hand with air travel these days. Instead, click the icon and connect.

So, on behalf of all businesses, we say “thank you British Airways”. Thank you for reminding us what an old fashioned notion air travel is. Sure we need it from time to time, for annual conventions and major client pitches, but less so for those internal meetings that drag us across the country. Instead, today I’d just like to make it home on time.  Of course, with IP Visuals' on-demand conferencing, I can still hold a meeting even when I’m at home. And my bed is fully reclined, the food’s great and I don’t care where the exit doors are located. Good night. 

Read other IP Visuals blog entries here.

It’s fascinating how the consumer space often drives demand for business applications. This is certainly becoming the case in visual communications. Skype and other instant messaging products are becoming rich in functionality, although some might suffer in terms of reliability and quality.

Apparently a third of Skype-to-Skype calls now include video. It’s likely, with more ubiquity in high speed broadband connections, that ratio will increase, to a point where visual communication in the home just becomes a fact of life. When that happens the plain old, vanilla, low-quality, voice only phone will become a bit of a disappointment.

The more we use services at home to talk to Aunty Madge in New Zealand (she’s doing well by the way) the more people will expect these services in the workplace. We’ll expect the same rich functionality and ease of use, but we’ll demand more reliability and far greater picture quality.

IP Visuals recognizes the business community is on the cusp of embracing any to any video calling, driven largely by the acceptance in the consumer space.  What was once a “nice to have” is about to become the accepted way of working.  

More IP Visuals blog entries here.

2010 saw in a new raft of employee obligations as part of the government’s Fair Work legislation.  Key to these changes is the need for flexible working arrangements. Put simply, you must be shown to consider any requests for flexible working hours or requests to work for home.

Some might see this as a heavy handed approach by the government, but it shows that the nature of work is changing.  The days when everyone comes to work, sits at their desk, then does home are long behind us. You might be breaking the law if you argue otherwise.

So if you haven’t already embraced the idea of telecommuting for your team, 2010 might be the year to do it. Not because the government tells you that you must embrace flexible working, but because there’s every reason to believe it will improve the productivity of your team.

In the past the expression “working from home” might have been taken to mean “looking after the kids” or “a round of golf”, but visual communications is changing all that. Now you can work from a home office and be as connected to your fellow workers as if you were sitting at work. Perhaps more so if your company is split across multiple locations.

IPVisuals is an example of how telecommuting can be easily applied, at relatively low cost.  Under the new legislation, if an employee requests the ability to work from home you have 21 days to grant or refuse the request. Just make sure you consider the advantages of visual communications solutions when reaching your verdict.

Find out more about the Fair Work legislation here.

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