7 Ways Video Conferencing Can Save Your Startup

Keeping costs low is a constant concern for many businesses. For startups, it’s vital. Young companies need to keep their teams lean, slashing unnecessary expenses, left and right. Video conferencing offers startups numerous ways to achieve operational efficiency and drive down costs at the same time:

All About Flexibility
According to Inc. 80 percent of people find telecommuting a great advantage and won’t have a problem giving the arrangement a shot. In a similar manner, a piece posted on B2B Marketing shows that a toss-up between a salary raise and a chance to work from home had 36 percent of employees choosing the second one. And based on a piece from the Entrepreneur, a ZDNET study showed a 20 percent increase in employees who work from home at least once a week.

What the numbers all point to a growing demand for flexible work solutions. Your startup can leverage this by offering your teams with telecommuting opportunities.In a piece from Harvard Business Review, the company JetBlue was able to hire high-skilled mothers by offering them flexible work solutions.

Your Team, Your Asset
Video conferencing doesn’t just offer remote employees witha reliable way to stay connected throughout the day. In addition, it helps your startup attract and hire the right talent. In “The No Asshole Rule” by Robert Sutton, one of the basic ideas in the book is about how a single negative person can have the power to undermine your entire team’s performance. It’s a concern for large corporations. For startups that typically have only 2-3 people on a team, the damage would be much more extensive and could be the deciding factor on whether the company fails or succeeds. That’s how crucial it is for your startup to find and hire the right person. And by offering the right incentives, you’re doing something ensure that the right talent, the people you want on your team, get hired.

The BYOD Culture
According to Startups, the growing trend of “Bring Your Own Device” or BYOD allows startups to save money instead of spending them on office equipment. Results of a study, done by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association or CTIA, point out that about 55 percent of U.S. businesses give employees free rein in terms of bringing their own devices to work. Similarly, 70 percent of these businesses rely on mobile solutions. With these two elements, startups won’t have to spend so much on acquiring traditionaloffice equipment. With a cloud-based video conferencing system, they won’t have to spend anything on hardware either. To get performance that’s worthy of the best video conference, Blue Jeans is one of the most well-known providers of cloud-based video solutions. With a slew of features aimed at improving communication and the degree and ease with which teams collaborate, its video conferencing product is ideal for startups.

Fewer Misunderstandings
It’s easy to mistake someone’s tone in an email. The lack of face to face interaction makes it difficult for parties on both ends to get an accurate gauge on what the other person feels. This often leads to plenty of misunderstandings among employees. Some often misinterpret or blow a word or two out of proportion. It’s easy to resolve, if not exactly prevent misunderstandings of this sort with video conferencing. With face to face meetings, employees are able to work with facial expressions and body language to get an accurate gauge on what the team on the other end of the camera is feeling, leading to fewer misunderstandings and less need to clarify instructions or details. At large corporations, thismight not amount to much. But in a startup, doing away with these time-wasters helps you make yourlean teams much more efficient.

Less Travel, Less Downtime
Need to meet a client or hold a management meeting? Traveling to the meeting place takes time out of your workday so that means productivity takes a hit. However, with video conferencing solutions, you can do away with the travel time it takes to get to and from a meeting. This is especially cost-effective if most of the people on your team work under different time zones. No need to spend on costly flights just to get the entire team together. By setting up a video conference call, you save yourself—and your startup—time and money.

Faster, More Structure Meetings
With video meetings, a predetermined schedule helps eliminate small talk and idle chit-chat because people start and end on time. The less time your team spends on meetings, the longer they can work. That means less time wasted so productivity stays high.

More Business Opportunities
Startups need funding. With video conferencing, you can get in touch with a global audience of angel investors who might just be the big break your business is waiting for. With that much at stake—the company folding or you being able to round up the cash to help the company survive for the next six months to a year—the choice should be obvious. This won’t just save you time and money, it’ll save your company from becoming another statistic. So set up your video conferencing system and start connecting to the rest of the world.