RAVI Rao woke up in the morning, feeling as if he had just been rescued from an industrial washing machine on a perennial spin-dry mode.

He had travelled home to Mumbai from New Delhi late last night. This afternoon, he is slated to leave for Chennai, to catch up on a last moment brief. The same day, post-Chennai, Ravi will be flying to Singapore for a three-day visit, before leaving for a month-long trip to London.

Unfortunately for him and his family, Ravi's office is yet to discover the world of collaborative communication tools. Like in many other companies, the bulk of business development, project reviews and other meetings typically happen face-to-face. This involves huge travel and incidental costs, loss of executive time on travel and the ensuing large project completion cycle.

This is not a one-off incident with some companies; it is a rampant phenomenon with most business houses. The cost of business under the account heads of travel, hotel and incidental is very large.

And although the loss of opportunity due to large ‘time-to-market’ is not followed assiduously, it does affect business efficiency. Loss of time on travel and the loss in productivity due to stress situations add to the general kitty of lost opportunity.

Living in office?
Employees stay back at their offices until the wee hours on a regular basis to catch up with clients working in a different time zone. This can be exhausting.

But now, with the opportunity to be on a virtual conference from their homes, people are more relaxed. Virtual conferencing is a service that has been offered in India for some time now, but the number of companies providing this service is limited.

From the end consumer's point of view, web conferencing services are increasingly inching their way into corporate cubicles. This makes it possible for you to attend a meeting, discussion, conference or seminar without having to be physically present.

Everything that would be done if one were there is possible through this software -- sitting through a presentation, sharing one's documents, making changes to a financial report, even having an argument with a colleague. You can now sit through press conferences from the comforts of your home (or office).

Travel less, save time
In fact, recently, a colleague stayed at home because her daughter fractured her leg and was in bed. But she 'attended' a client review meeting, 'discussed' the road map for an event at a conference with all offices on hand, and checked every e-mail that came her way. It was a typical workday, minus the traffic.

This was possible thanks to web collaboration. Just as how e-mail and the mobile phone have made several in-city meetings redundant, web collaboration will make travel even more redundant.

For cities like Mumbai and Bangalore, where traffic has reached colossal heights, this is a definite advantage. This also benefits women in an organisation who make need to take maternity leave. They could be back at work before they know it.

In a world that is becoming increasingly smaller because of technological advancements, collaborative communication tools only seal the deal for reducing the world to a global village.

Photograph: Vipurva Parikh
In the photograph: Blackberry Curve

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e-mail: Kiran Datar

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