Meeting News - September 21, 2009 - (Page 9)

News Harvard Study Shows Face-To-Face Meeting Value, Rising Virtual Interest By Jay Boehmer Business Execs Maintain Positive Attitude Toward In-Person Meetings A Harvard Business Review study of 2,300 Percentage who agree: business leaders in the United States, Europe and Asia released last month confirmed that face-toIn-person meetings are key to the success of long-term relationships . . . . . . . 95% face meetings remain essential to doing business and are preferred by executives over remote alterIn-person meetings allow me to build stronger business relationships . . . . . . . 95% natives for many business interactions. Despite In-person meetings are helpful when negotiating those sentiments, however, a couple of recent studies show companies increasingly making use with people from different languages and cultural backgrounds . . . . . . . . . . . . 93% of remote conferencing technologies and other In-person meetings are essential for “sealing the deal” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89% communications tools. Although the study found that 79 percent of Traveling to meet in person offers value beyond the meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81% respondents claim that “in-person meetings are the most effective way to meet new clients to sell Virtual meetings and teleconferences are business” and 89 percent said such face-to-face more time-efficient than face-to-face meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71% interaction is “essential for ‘sealing the deal,’ ” about 60 percent also use virtual meetings techBusiness relationships have suffered because of travel budget cuts . . . . . . . . . 60% nologies “very frequently.” In a survey of 61 travel managers for large You can achieve the same results with virtual meetings market companies, UBS found that about threeas you can with in-person meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20% quarters of the respondents have “moved to replace air travel with alternatives such as videoSource: Harvard Business Review survey of 2,300 business leaders in the U.S., Europe and Asia released last month conferencing in an effort to reduce future air travel spend.” The Harvard Business Review study also shows companies are trending toward were the preferred method. ings a shorter-term phenomenon. “It will be remote options, as 60 percent of the respondents “Our survey revealed that what most business- back,” he said. “I’m a believer that, in the short reported “frequent” use of teleconference and 44 people really want is solid human connections,” run, people will cut back on groups, people will percent expect to up remote conferencing in the Herrin said. “Technology serves as an effective cut back on meetings, people will say they’re next year, though about 55 percent “rarely or supplement, but face-to-face communication is going to teleconference more. We had a meeting never” deploy videoconferencing. the broadest bandwidth communication you can with a bunch of our big corporate customers and Releasing the study, sponsored by British Air- have in professional life, helping to cement long- we had a debate. A number of guys said corpoways, during a press conference at the National term relationships and drive business growth.” rate travel would never come back to the level it Business Travel Association Still, it remains unclear to was and that they were using videoconferencing. convention in San Diego last what extent travel volumes Before I could even respond, another guy said, month, Harvard Business will return to allow for the ‘No, no. We tried that three years ago and at the Review research editor Angela face-to-face interactions busi- end of the day, while it seems like fun, so much Herrin noted that while many ness executives deem so happens in the bar, over dinner, at the golf companies had seen cuts to important. Only 34 percent of course. That’s where the ideas ferment.’” travel and meetings, “there UBS survey respondents said Kellner said remote conferencing can help was not as much videoconferthere was “pent-up demand with formal decisions, but misses out on the encing as we thought we for air travel.” Though many dynamic that only in-person meetings can crewould see.” companies expect to increase ate. “There’s an awful lot of work that happens She said the research shows travel spending next year over one on one. Just think about any group dynamharvard business review that “face to face wins in every what is expected to remain a ic you’ve been in where you’re having a meeting research editor angela herrin category” but one: managing craterous 2009, some industry and someone says, ‘Let’s go out in the hallway suppliers, a task business leaders said could be players are convinced it will be years before they and talk about this for a minute, have a sidebar.’ conducted by phone, e-mail and other remote resume pre-recession levels. You can’t have a sidebar in a videoconference. options. For interacting with clients, negotiating Continental Airlines CEO Larry Kellner, how- What the guy described beautifully was that it’s deals and understanding customers, most ever, was more optimistic on the return of face- a tool you could use, it made the company run respondents agreed that in-person meetings to-face meetings, calling cuts to travel and meet- better, but it didn’t cut their travel.” H Face-to-face “the broadest is bandwidth communication that you can have. ” www.meetingnews.com September 21, 2009 MeetingNews 9 http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - September 21, 2009

Meeting News - September 21, 2009

Contents
Pricing Forecast
Newsmaker
Meetings Spotlight
Event Profile

Meeting News - September 21, 2009

Meeting News - September 21, 2009 -

Meeting News - September 21, 2009

(Page Cover1)
Meeting News - September 21, 2009 -

Meeting News - September 21, 2009