Travel industry should be afraid, very afraid, of telepresence

Stuart Corner
Monday, 21 January 2008 10:28

Opinion and Analysis

Recent advances in videoconferencing making virtual meetings a much closer approximation for face-to-face meetings - so called 'telepresence' is starting to have a very significant impact on corporate travel budgets, not to mention the redirection of staff travel time to more productive activities. The travel industry should be worried. Cisco Australia installed its telepresence technology in its Sydney and Melbourne offices in early 2007 and then CEO of Cisco Australia, Ross Fowler, said that "our CEO John Chambers has cut travel budgets by 20 percent and is installing 52 of these systems in Cisco facilities around the world." But it seems that Cisco staff didn't need the stick of reduced budgets to embrace telepresence. Cisco executives says the challenge now is getting access to the technology which is booked up 95 percent of the time.

However for some really impressive figures on what a large business can save by making extensive use of telepresence, take a look at BT. Its international arm, BT Global Services, has installed 20 Cisco telepresence suites around the world and its CEO, Francois Barrault, has been reported at a roundtable event in London saying that the use of these and other videoconferencing technologies cut travel and other associated costs by and estimated £135 million in 2007, reduced CO2 emissions by some 97,000 tonnes and freed up employee time for more productive activities to the value of £103 million. 

Also travel isn't the most healthy of activities and Barrault added that increased use of videoconferencing, combined with BT's commitment to encouraging home working, had contributed to 21 percent reduction in the number of days lost to sick leave.

With gains like this BT is not surprisingly looking to extend its use of telepresence across its operations. "We have made this investment in 20 telepresence suites globally and people will have to justify why they need travel," Barrault was reported as saying. That's a very big step beyond simply cutting travel budgets by 20 percent as Cisco did.