How Virtual Meetings & Conferencing Improve Communication

Written by Janine Germinario | Jun 19, 2020 6:00:33 AM

The Necessity Of Online Meetings

Video, voice, and web conferencing to power enterprise communications despite geographical boundaries

In 1999, the concept of an online meeting introduced itself into the business world. While most companies at that point had not yet embraced the slowly growing idea, many early adopters started understanding the benefits of implementing online meetings into their operational model. From remote work flexibility to cross-departmental collaboration for multi-site organizations, online meetings represented a future where efficiency and productivity spread beyond the walls of an office building.

As the concept continued to pick up steam, online meetings began to bring together colleagues, partners, shareholders, board members, and even customers, despite geographic restrictions – ultimately simplifying the way businesses operated. It was from there that the now globally accepted way of collaborating took the world by storm.

Cloud service providers realized the endless potential online meetings presented to companies and dedicated more resources to developing more comprehensive online meeting solutions.

It was then that online meetings became only a stepping stone on a much greater journey, a journey that has led us to what we now call “virtual conferencing.”

What Is Virtual Conferencing?

A virtual conference is a fully immersive online gathering that brings people together on any device, regardless of geographic location. At its core, it is a meeting or a role-based event that allows remote participants to access the sharing of knowledge, hosted entirely over the internet via voice, video, and web chat, all in one virtual environment. The need to gather in a conference room is eliminated, and mission-critical discussions, networking opportunities, and decision-making events can all occur without the need for onsite attendees.

Types Of Virtual Conferencing

Teleconference

A teleconference is perhaps one of the most basic and, traditionally, one of the most utilized forms of virtual conferences. Essentially, teleconferencing connects meeting participants over phone lines, either through landlines, cell phones, or business desk phones. Allowing many people to connect at once, teleconferencing has long been a preferred method to connect when decisions need to be made, but major stakeholders cannot gather in person.

However, teleconferencing has phased itself out as new forms of conferencing have emerged.

Video Conference

Video conferencing takes teleconferencing a step further and allows participants to not only hear each other but also see each other with a computer camera and microphone or the built-in camera on a smartphone. While this has always offered a much more in-person feel to a conversation, businesses only now understand that video conferencing can lead to improved decision-making processes.

Video conferencing wasn’t always popular in the business world. Video conferencing has usually been reserved for casual/personal use in recent history. Though, that has certainly changed, especially at the turn of the decade.

Web Conferencing

A web conference is a general term used to discuss individuals and/or groups of people in remote locations using a web browser to connect. Generally, these events are reserved for much larger audiences, like a webinar or LIVE presentations in which there are only one or two speakers, but many are listening/watching.

In essence, web conferencing is a way of disseminating information to a large audience despite geographical boundaries. And it’s because of this notion that web conferences like webinars have become a staple in the business world for many years now.

Key Differences Between Virtual Meetings & Virtual Conferencing

1. Scale & Audience

Virtual Meetings: Typically involve a smaller group, such as teams, departments, or project stakeholders. The attendees are often from the same organization or part of a close-knit group collaborating on shared tasks. Virtual meetings are ideal for brainstorming sessions, check-ins, project updates, and daily communication within teams.
Virtual Conferencing: Built to accommodate a large audience, virtual conferences often include participants from different organizations, industries, or global locations. They can host hundreds or even thousands of attendees, making them suitable for webinars, multi-session events, corporate summits, and industry-wide conferences.

2. Purpose & Interaction Style

Virtual Meetings: These focus on collaborative discussions where all participants have opportunities to speak, ask questions, and contribute. They are often informal and highly interactive, fostering real-time engagement between participants.
Virtual Conferencing: A virtual conference is more structured, with specific roles such as presenters, panelists, and attendees. Interaction is often moderated, with features like Q&A, polls, or chat to manage larger audiences. While virtual conferences may allow breakout sessions for smaller group interactions, the primary format typically includes presentations, keynote speeches, or panel discussions where a few lead the conversation.

3. Feature Set

Virtual Meetings: Generally include essential features such as video/audio calls, screen sharing, file sharing, and chat functions. The tools focus on immediate and accessible collaboration, often without the need for advanced options.
Virtual Conferencing: Offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to support large-scale events. These may include:
- Registration & Ticketing: Allows for pre-event attendee registration.
- Breakout Rooms: Smaller, separate sessions for targeted discussions.
- Live Streaming & Recording: Streams sessions in real-time and records them for later viewing.
- Analytics & Reporting: Provides data on attendee engagement, session popularity, and more.
- Customization & Branding: Allows companies to customize the platform’s appearance with logos, themes, and colors to enhance brand presence.

4. Duration & Frequency

Virtual Meetings: Tend to be shorter and more frequent, often scheduled on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to keep teams aligned and updated on tasks.
Virtual Conferencing: Typically organized less frequently due to their larger scale, often held quarterly or annually. Conferences can span multiple hours or days, encompassing several sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities.

5. User Experience & Support Requirements

Virtual Meetings: Since they are less complex, virtual meetings require minimal setup and technical support, and most platforms are user-friendly for everyday use.
Virtual Conferencing: Due to the larger audience and complexity, virtual conferences often require dedicated support. Event organizers may rely on tech support teams to handle setup, monitor sessions, assist attendees, and troubleshoot issues as they arise.

Unified Communications & Collaboration: Work Is No Longer A Physical Place

Setting The Stage For Virtual Conferencing

To dive deeply into virtual conferencing, we must first take a step back and discuss unified communications and the role they play in setting the stage for virtual conferencing as we know it.

Do you remember the day when people used to say, “I’m going to work”? Okay, you’re right. People still say that.

What you should understand, though, is that work used to always be a “place,” an actual location with an address, a front door, and most likely a key fob to a building with several stories. It was rare that anyone could say their work was anywhere they wanted it to be (except for a very small minority).

In 1972, the term “telecommuting” was first coined by a man named Jack Nilles, who was working remotely for NASA. Let’s just say he was probably one of a handful of telecommuters in that decade.

Let’s fast forward to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the world started to see a rise in telecommuting. It was still new, and the ability to be connected, productive, and efficient from anywhere, but the office was still questionable.

It wasn’t until around 2009-2015 that the world saw the telecommuting boom. In its early days, it was a small boom, but a boom nonetheless, and it was then that cloud service providers started to take off with their unified communications and collaboration technology.

It was then that the world started to see that work was not a “place” but an action that could occur from anywhere. It was at that point that people were starting to see innovative technology coming out of unified communications service providers that not only accommodated the remote work trend but empowered it.

It was unified communications that gave the highly sought-after work-from-anywhere arrangement the fuel it needed to create the impact it has on today’s workforce culture.

“About 50% of employees worldwide are expected to telecommute within the decade.” ⁽¹⁾

The Rise Of Virtual Conferences

So, after looking at the three formats of communication involved in virtual conferencing, it’s easy to assume that virtual conferencing has been around for a long time. Sure, it’s true. You would be right in assuming that the idea of virtual conferencing is not new.

The millennial generation spent countless hours in middle and high school on 3-way calls with their friends (a.k.a teleconferencing). It’s also true that Skype, at the turn of the century, followed by FaceTime almost a decade later, made video conferencing a norm in our society. Also to mention, ActiveTouch rolled out the first webinar service in 1999. Yes, 1999, and even more so true is that “web seminars” (as they called it back in the day) were starting to play a big role in corporate culture as early as 2005.

With all of that said, virtual conferencing is not a new idea, but the idea has certainly picked up major steam.

Despite its technical veteran status, it is only now being talked about how virtual conferencing has evolved so much that business meeting culture has been changed forever.

Virtual conferencing is no longer an umbrella term for the various formats in which people can connect. Virtual conferencing is THE term. One tool, one environment, one platform that does it all: voice, video, web chat, file sharing, document presentation, screen sharing, LIVE streaming, and more.

Breathing fresh life into every industry, the virtual conferencing technology and toolsets developed by the most innovative cloud service providers on the planet, combined with the global political, social, and professional climate, have turned virtual conferencing from a luxury into a necessity.

Elevate Business Connectivity With UniBridge: The All-in-One Virtual Conferencing Solution

Encouraging collaboration and making all parties feel at home with high definition audio, video, and web conferencing, screen and file sharing capabilities, meeting logs, timestamps, summaries, no software download required, and custom branding, the UniBridge virtual meetings and conferencing solution takes your business anywhere.

Virtual conferencing is no longer for early adopters. It has become a staple in major business operations across the globe. The time is now to join the trend.

Why Virtual Conferencing Is Replacing Face-to-Face Meetings

Some would say face-to-face meetings are a thing of the past out of necessity. Others would say it’s because nearly half of the workforce is now comprised of millennials, and with them, they brought new social and professional norms. Then there is the small minority that just won’t admit virtual conferencing is in, and the traditional round-table meeting is out.

Well, boomers better start looking at the reality of the situation because, by 2025, millennials are projected to make up 75% of the global workforce. Then, we have the revolutionary Gen Z, or “Zoomers,” as they like to be called, and it’s projected that we are in for an even more significant shift to virtual workforces once they enter the business world.

So, it's pretty obvious why most are quickly realizing that virtual conferencing is the future, and the future is now.

1) Connectivity From Anywhere In The World

For major enterprises with locations all around the world, collaboration across sites used to be a challenge and a bottleneck for success. However, virtual conferencing has made it possible to not only involve team members regardless of their location but also provide an all-in-one environment where real productivity can take place. Virtual conferencing has broken down geographical barriers and simplified project completion for geographically dispersed teams.

2) Urgent Meetings Can Happen Urgently

Once upon a time, if major stakeholders were needed to make critical decisions for a company, each individual would have to fly in from wherever they were to gather in a board room to even begin productive conversations. However, since the rise of virtual conferencing, stakeholders can join in on impromptu meetings when on vacation, at home, watching TV, or at the airport. Coordinating and conducting urgent meetings is as easy as clicking a link and starting the conversation, all with the necessary resources required in the decision-making process available on any device.

3) Efficient Flow Of Information

Meetings of any sort are designed to distribute information to respective team members, discuss that information, and make a plan of action based on what was shared. In a virtual conferencing environment, the flow of information is optimized by allowing the ease of communication to occur via multiple channels. File and screen sharing, document presentation, file upload/download, and group chat are only a few of the many ways that meeting attendees can efficiently participate in the sharing of knowledge so that projects are completed more quickly and thoroughly.

4) Engaging A Larger Audience

Many major publicly held companies have struggled with disseminating valuable information to their shareholders since the beginning of big business – ultimately resulting in a weakened shareholder trust that did no one any good. Well, when virtual conferencing “big-player” capabilities like LIVE streaming via YouTube stepped onto the field, publicly held companies realized they could offer shareholders an immersive, in-person experience at any board meeting, even from their living room couch. It’s advanced relationship management that has completely transformed the way the board connects with the members of their corporation.

5) A Cost-Effective Way Of Doing Business

Without the need to physically meet, operational costs are drastically reduced. A physical meeting requires time and money, perhaps travel and hotel expenses, and is an all-around drain on resources. So, without the need to physically meet, operational costs are drastically reduced, less time is spent on travel, and more time is spent on productive work that generates revenue. With only a computer or a mobile device, business becomes less about finding a budget to accommodate physical interaction and more about increasing the bottom line.

Industry Applications For Virtual Conferencing

Financial Services

Financial earning broadcasts
Quarterly business reviews
Receive/send updates to corporate
Analyst presentations
Remote customer meetings

Healthcare

Telemedicine
Policy training
Distance learning/certification renewal
Provider/Specialist global collaboration

Education

Distance learning
Parent-Teacher conferences
Remote classroom instruction
PTA meetings
Virtual field trips

Legal

Remote depositions
Court arraignment
Client meetings
Record and archive video testimonials
Remote case preparation

Entertainment

Talent recruitment
Production Collaboration
Global guest participation

Manufacturing

Remote quality control
Remote supply chain management
Stakeholder communications
Vendor meetings

The Impact Of Video Conferencing In Today’s Business Landscape

The Role Of Video Conferencing In Virtual Collaboration

While virtual conferencing platforms offer a comprehensive suite of features, video conferencing stands out as a critical component. By simulating an in-person experience, video conferencing allows participants to engage face-to-face, even when separated by distance. This unique feature enables team members to connect on a deeper level, which is essential for fostering relationships, particularly in high-stakes discussions and negotiations.

Building Connections Through Eye Contact

Sharing documents is undoubtedly essential for collaborative decision-making, but eye contact remains a powerful form of communication. Video conferencing provides this "human touch," promoting trust and rapport, especially when major decisions are at stake. This element helps keep interactions authentic in an increasingly virtual world.

Key Facts About Video Conferencing

1. High Adoption Rate

Over 58% of businesses integrate video conferencing into their daily operations, making it a staple in modern communication. (1)

2. Cost Efficiency

By utilizing video conferencing, companies can cut travel expenses by up to 30%, offering a budget-friendly alternative to in-person meetings. (1)

3. CEO Insights & Predictions

About 75% of CEOs anticipate that video conferencing will replace traditional conference calls, signifying a shift in executive preferences. (1)

4. Market Growth & Demand

The video conferencing market is projected to reach $13.82 billion by 2023, reflecting the increasing demand for video-enabled solutions. (4)

5. Real-Time Data Sharing

66% of executives see mobile video and real-time data sharing as essential to their day-to-day operations, underscoring video conferencing's value in enhancing collaboration. (2)

6. Dominance In Internet Traffic

By 2021, video content accounted for over 80% of global internet traffic, indicating the significant role of video communication in today’s digital ecosystem. (2)

7. Enhanced Relationship Building

Video conferencing enables participants to engage in real-time face-to-face interaction, a feature that fosters stronger personal connections, which are crucial for relationship building and trust.

These facts highlight video conferencing as a critical communication tool that blends efficiency with relationship-building capabilities, cementing its role in the future of business communications.

Choosing The Right Virtual Conferencing Platform

Not All Platforms Are Created Equal

While there are many video, audio, and web conferencing solutions on the market, not every platform is designed to meet the unique needs of every business. Companies often try multiple solutions before finding one that aligns with their requirements, especially if they’re just beginning to incorporate video conferencing into daily operations. Although many platforms offer similar core functionalities, substantial differences can become apparent upon closer inspection.

The Role Of Pricing & Feature Availability

For businesses focused on price, it can be frustrating to find that essential features included in one platform may only be accessible in premium versions on others. This is a common stumbling block for budget-conscious companies, as basic costs don’t always reveal the full extent of necessary add-ons or upgrades.

Customer Experience Matters

A strong customer support experience is essential, particularly for remote teams who may rely heavily on timely assistance. When evaluating a platform, it’s crucial to understand what support resources are available. Without robust support, resolving issues can become a significant challenge, hampering productivity.

Weighing Options Carefully

Selecting the best platform requires more than comparing popularity or price. It’s wise to assess the user experience, the quality of customer support, and any customization options each platform offers. Taking the time to weigh these factors will help ensure the right choice for your organization’s specific needs.

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