Turn to video conferencing as new ash cloud threatens business travel plans

With the risk to air travel around Europe currently under threat, many business trips may fail to get off the ground.

Iceland has just raised its risk level for an eruption of its Bardarbunga volcano to orange, the second-highest level. The country’s met office has detected ongoing movement inside the volcano following an earthquake on Monday - the strongest quake in nearly 20 years. If the Bardarbunga volcano does erupt, there may be an impact on European air travel. Four years ago, an ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano shut down much of Europe’s airspace for around a week with some 100,000 flights being cancelled. The 2011 eruption from Grimsvotn volcano caused many hundreds of flights to be cancelled in Germany, the UK, Norway and Denmark.

Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based organisation responsible for European air safety, said in a statement that it was following the situation closely.

Such unexpected natural occurrences mean crucial business meetings across the world have to be cancelled leaving all parties frustrated and many critical decisions left unmade. However, it does not always take a dramatic volcanic eruption for business meetings to be disrupted. Flooding, traffic accidents, transport worker strikes, etc can all take their toll, so investing in an alternative means of holding a multi-party, face-to-face meeting is a sensible, cost-effective decision for all businesses.

Video conferencing is an effective answer to these disruptions using HD technology to achieve faster decision making to ensure you bring your products and services to market quicker and stay ahead of the competition.

Benefits of video conferencing:

• Return on investment – while video conferencing will never fully replace a face to face meeting, it will undoubtedly provide a rapid return on your investment with travel costs substantially reduced by means of lower fuel costs, hotel bills and other associated travel expenses
• Increased productivity – your workforce will have more time to spend on important tasks rather than spending time behind the wheel of a car, in a train or on a plane. This has the added benefit of improving the work/life balance for many in terms of less time travelling and less time away from home
• Meet green objectives – by cutting down travel time and reducing your corporate carbon footprint.
• Strengthen bonds - with remote clients and colleagues using more personal links

For further advice on video conferencing and other unified communications tools, please do not hesitate to contact us.