It is the very rare person who likes business travel. It is even rarer to find the company that likes to pay for the expense of business travel. It is time to end the need for this travel once and for all to save the company money while saving the planet one weary traveler at a time.

A business meeting of any size, especially if it requires people from outside of the immediate office, requires a lot of resources. Not only do flights have to be booked but often hotels and other expenses are required for the trip. The costs can quickly mount up so better options simply have to be found. Video conferencing is one of the best and most viable solutions to the travel nightmare and can not only reduce the cost that are incurred with each business trip, but can make a difference in carbon emissions that are counted against the company as well. There are several things you have to keep in mind when looking into videoconferencing; however the technology has grown in leaps and bounds since first being introduced. There are a number of providers that offer video conferencing capabilities including Polycom, Tandberg, Cisco Telepresence and Lifesize.

For each of the companies that offer teleconferencing, there are several questions that you should be asking. These questions are similar to the ones that you ask your telecom providers and should cover the basics of the service, who is responsible for the equipment, the level of service that will be given (for instance, will the carrier provide initial training?) and the rate of service.

In addition, there are several questions that you should ask yourself. First, will the company need videoconferencing every month, every week or more? Count how many traveling employees you have times the number of trips that they take each month and get an average figure. If that cost is over what it would cost to have videoconferencing, it is worth it. However if you only have an annual trip for one or two employees, it may not be as cost effective for your situation.

You will also need to consider how many locations you will need the technology in; after all you have to have the equipment in place at both ends for it to work. Do you have the right bandwidth requirement or will you need to upgrade your internet connection? Do you have reliable, consistent connections at both ends? 

In companies that see a lot of travel back and forth, the videoconferencing option will eventually be a good return on investment, however for those companies with very limited travel it may not be worth it in the long run.