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Businesses Cut Travel in Katrina's Wake
While Hurricane Katrina wreaked devastating damage and massive
suffering in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, the economic
impact of the storm is being felt far beyond the Gulf Coast
region. With the price of a gallon of gasoline hovering near
three dollars and airlines compensating for rising fuel costs by
increasing round-trip fares by as much as thirty dollars, the
travel budgets of companies across the U.S. are straining at the
seams. Increasing travel costs, combined with general economic
uncertainty, are leading business owners and company executives
to help secure their bottom lines by seeking less expensive
technological alternatives to routine business travel.
According to Erik Boos, VP Marketing of BeamYourScreen
(www.beamyourscreen.com), developers of innovative
technology-based communication tools, "For many companies,
having employees travel to trainings or sending sales
representatives to prospective customers' work sites is no
longer economically feasible."
In addition to gasoline, airfare, hotel, and meal expenses, Erik
Boos notes that traditional business travel consumes a
significant amount of time, thereby negatively impacting
employee productivity. "Flying from coast to coast can take an
entire day, and even local meetings require a significant amount
of drive time, which is compounded by traffic jams and the
challenges of finding parking. This increases the cost of
on-site meetings and represents time that could be spent
generating revenue."
While acknowledging that business travel is sometimes
necessary, Erik Boos asserts that many on-site meetings can be
replaced by online meetings at a fraction of the cost. With
BeamYourScreen's proprietary desktop sharing technology, sales
representatives can conduct live product demonstrations or
presentations to prospective customers and employees can be
trained from remote locations. "Online meetings offer the
advantage that everyone can stay in his or her office and
present slides or collaborate on documents or show applications
instantly. There's no travel time involved, as meetings start
with a click. And there's no travel cost involved, because
everyone stays where they are." says Erik Boos.
After downloading and installing the BeamYourScreen sender
software, the host user can initiate meetings with up to 20
participants, who connect for free using their Internet
browsers. As guests connect, they can see the host user's
computer desktop. The host can then conduct presentations or
trainings in real time, utilizing the resources on his or her
own computer. The BeamYourScreen technology can also be used to
enhance customer support by demonstrating solutions during
telephone support calls, to enable consultants to easily and
securely review sensitive documents with clients, and to
facilitate team projects by jointly working on documents during
team meetings.
BeamYourScreen offers two types of software licenses, each with
flat rate pricing. Prices range from $29 per month for a single
host/single guest license to $89 per month for multiple hosts/20
guests license. As there is no per-minute or per-session fee,
companies can host as many online meetings as they'd like at no
additional cost. According to Erik Boos, "We're pleased to be
able to offer small and medium-sized businesses the core
functionality of online meeting solutions at a fraction of the
price that large companies pay for fully integrated solutions."
About the author:
Mark Zondler
Written By: Mark Zondler
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