SMBs discover the new promise and affordability of multimedia collaboration.
Global entities, virtual project teams, mobile workforces, international reach… doing business is a more networked and far-flung process than ever before. Even small businesses need to communicate and collaborate with remote customers, colleagues and suppliers.
In the past, SMBs had limited options for remote collaboration. Audio-conferencing on the company’s phone system was clunky. Multimedia conferencing generally only worked inside the company network. Internet-based, third-party meeting services put an onus on every meeting: a price.
Now SMBs with IP-based phone systems can afford their own, full-featured multimedia conferencing system. This is not just audio-conferencing. You can also blend other communication types to work more as you would face-to-face, such as:
- Document sharing—Share and present Windows documents, such as Word files, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and PDFs.
- Web sharing—Co-browse Web pages with participants, navigate back and forth among Web pages, or synchronize everybody to the same page.
- Chat—Contribute ideas and comments in a public chat session, with all participants’ messages displayed in a running dialog, or engage in private chat with selected participants.
- Whiteboarding—Brainstorm conceptual ideas, process flows, organizational charts and more with interactive drawing and text tools.
Look for a system that doesn’t require participants to have special software or hardware, just an Internet-connected PC with standard Web browser, maybe a simple plug-in. You shouldn’t need much in the equipment closet either, perhaps just a server connected to your existing IP PBX.
Does your organization use this type of multimedia collaboration? What types of interactions does it enable, and what results have you seen from it? If your organization doesn’t do this, what is holding it back?
