Business Travel Tips

With the latest development of technology that made possible creating a more realistic videoconferencing environment, the number of companies adopting videoconferencing facilities is continuously increasing.
Videoconferencing is increasingly becoming an alternative to business travel.

HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking groups, is planning to introduce videoconferencing to nine of its offices worldwide by the end of this year.

silicon.com reports that HSBC has a plan to grow videoconferencing use by 16 percent each year and significantly reduce air travel. The newspaper adds that HSBC has been trialling the use of Cisco’s videoconferencing system, TelePresence, in London and Hong Kong for about a year and in 2007 reduced its CO2 emissions per employee to 0.557 tonnes from 0.62 tonnes in 2006.

During one month of use between its 8,000-strong London HQ and its Hong Kong office, the bank saved $604,000 (£340,000) on air travel bills and reduced distance flown by staff by 522,000 miles.

HSBC is now conducting a consultation exercise to see how it far it can reduce its travel with use of videoconferencing technology.