As the travel business goes bust, videoconferencing, Web-casting, and satellite services are starting to boom.
Special Report: Tools that will let you stay grounded
Alex Stanton would have swum across the Atlantic to woo that special prospective client in the United Kingdom. Ultimately, he only had to go downstairs.
Stanton, CEO of Stanton Crenshaw Communications, in New York City, passionately wanted a contract to represent a certain European telecommunications company. He and his team planned to fly to London in mid-September to pitch their proposal in person. But then came September 11, when terrorist hijackings grounded all U.S. air travel for three days and delayed many overseas flights for several days longer. With the Twin Towers wreckage billowing smoke just a few miles away, Stanton asked his prospective clients to postpone the meeting. They politely declined. They wanted to pick their public-relations firm that week to get an overdue marketing campaign off the ground.
In seeking options, Stanton didn't have to look far. He dropped in on ICE Inc., a marketing-communications company located two floors below his office, on the hunch that the company might have videoconferencing equipment. In the spirit of post-attack camaraderie, Stanton's neighbors offered to let him borrow their boardroom, their equipment, and a technician. Thrilled, Stanton called London. Fortunately, the prospective client had a compatible setup, and its executives were perfectly happy to meet virtually.
So, at the appointed time, Stanton's team went downstairs, faced the cameras, and put on a one-hour show for a five-person audience across the pond. "We did a couple of rehearsals," Stanton says. "We found you have to stage it a little more than you might in person. You have to decide who's going to talk when, and you can't interrupt as much." While the transatlantic sound was fine, the video occasionally jerked or froze. And the presentation didn't feel quite natural. The executives in London faced a fixed camera, which never moved even when they did, and occasionally someone would shift out of view, forcing the presenters to address a disembodied voice. "You're sort of at the end of a tunnel," Stanton says. "It's hard to see how people are reacting to your ideas."
Despite the drawbacks, Stanton's team members felt they'd made their case, even after the telecom company awarded the contract to a competitor (which, coincidentally, was another New York City PR agency forced by circumstances to pitch by videoconference). "We didn't win, but at least we were on equal footing," Stanton says.
Like Stanton's company, many small and midsize businesses have built their reputation on traveling to meet far-flung colleagues, customers, partners, and prospects. And like Stanton, who's now considering a blend of videoconferencing and personal visits, many CEOs are now reexamining the assumption that being in business means being on the road.
The most urgent soul-searching, of course, stems directly from the September 11 attacks. And the November 12 crash of an American Airlines plane in Queens, N.Y., did little to allay the fears of an already leery traveling public. But even before those events, the slumping economy prompted many companies to curb their travel expenses. In April 2001 the National Business Travel Association, a trade group based in Alexandria, Va., polled 200 companies of all sizes and found that 33% were using or considering collaboration technologies, primarily videoconferencing, to eliminate costly trips. Five months later, following the suicide jet crashes, nearly 90% of those polled said they'd now consider high-tech options to travel.
It's too early to say if increased scrutiny of business travel represents a true change in thinking, a permanent shift away from our economy's air dependency. Right now many CEOs seem to be in wait-and-see mode: Wait and see what happens in the U.S.-led "war on terrorism." Wait and see whether there are more hijackings, air disasters, or other threats at home. Wait and see whether the economy starts to rebound.
But it's safe to draw a few conclusions. First, for both financial and security-related reasons, many CEOs are developing restrictive new travel policies. In addition, many companies are experimenting with high-tech options that let them do their jobs closer to home. Some are already finding those alternatives surprisingly attractive compared with long-distance business trips with all their expense, time investment, and hassles.
ON SOLID GROUND: Alex Stanton, CEO of Stanton Crenshaw Communications, needed to make his pitch without getting on a plane.
Ultimately, though, nobody expects to eliminate the need for business travel. As Daniel P. Brogan, president and CEO of the San Diego architecture firm Earl Walls Associates, puts it: "I see this as an opportunity to rethink the way we do business. But we're never going to get away from traveling. Our business is still very much hands-on."
When it comes to substituting technology for travel, options range from the almost-free to those requiring another line on next year's budget. On the low end: making better use of existing equipment, an approach as simple as spending more time on conference calls. On the high end: renting a television studio for a satellite broadcast or even investing in an in-house, state-of-the-art videoconferencing studio. In between: options like Web-based conferencing and broadcasting, setting up virtual private networks, using peer-to-peer technology, and -- especially in an era of germ-tainted mail -- increasing use of E-mail, fax, and instant messaging. (See "The Next Best Thing to Being There," below.)
Obviously, picking the right option depends on what the company needs to accomplish and what barriers it must overcome to get there. The following are several common postattack headaches and the technology prescription for relieving them:
Your former "road warriors" are skittish about taking to the skies.
Earl Walls Associates specializes in designing scientific laboratories. Thanks to that narrow niche market, the company serves clients all over the world. But in recent months "I've definitely told people not to travel if they don't have to," says CEO Brogan. Instead, the company increasingly runs client meetings from two rented videoconferencing facilities located close to its office. Even at $1,000 a day, videoconferencing is cheaper than sending a team in person, especially when you figure in the loss of productivity on travel days.
