Over the years, technological trends have really reshaped the way face-to-face meetings in businesses are done. This comes as a result of the birth of social media platforms, increased usage of video conferencing and teleconferencing technological tools which have been part of the major cost-cutting strategies for many large corporations.
This is due to the recurring credit crunch and soaring oil prices which have made travelling and accommodation costs extremely high. The technological and economical factors highlighted above have led to the increased usage of the virtual meetings vis-Ã -vis face-to-face meetings.
The current tough economic times have led to the bargain of virtual meetings over the traditional face-to-face business meetings which in respect, are relatively less expensive, less tedious and absolutely less intimidating as they eliminate travelling and accommodation hustles for the attendees.
The most common fundamental objectives of any meeting are to exchange information and to network whereby the virtual meetings seem to satisfactorily meet these objectives.
On another scale, technology has also allowed and enabled the virtual attendees to enter into a virtual building, a convention centre and a conference hall where one can view a podium, audience and has the ability to choose from the different sessions of interest. There are also networking lounges where the active attendees can meet up virtually and connect either on a personal or a professional level.
On the other hand, face-to-face meetings can be considered to be the most ideal in the following business situations: when the meeting seeks to capture the attention of the audience or attendees especially when the company is about to launch or initiate something new, when the meeting intends to inspire the audience or attendees in a positive emotional climate which is more engaging, collaborative, innovative and requires performance and when the meeting intends to create and build upon human networks and relationships (in respect to information, this can be relayed virtually where there is a great value when people connect face-to-face and the magnitude of relationships created in such a scene is not comparable to that of a virtual platform).
Though the virtual meetings will never eliminate the impact of face-to-face meetings such as live meetings, technology tends to complement the faults of the traditional model of communication.
This is because the audience in a live meeting is more passive as opposed to the virtual meetings where the audience has more integrated social networking tools which are less business to business oriented but are more of peer to peer model. This allows the audience to interact both professionally and socially at the same time thus eliminating the disconnection between the two at first meeting.
On the other hand, the virtual meetings have opened a whole new array of how business is conducted and this has allowed decisions to be made easily, timely and effectively by the parent companies with subsidiaries across the globe.
Therefore, since technology has taken over the center stage of business communication, this means that business meeting models have to be redesigned to meet the new organizational needs and budgets. Therefore, virtual meetings will be more ideal in the future as compared to the traditional face-to-face meetings.
This is because many organizations are focused on cutting costs as well as becoming more eco-sustainable where a lot of travelling has been discouraged for it involves the use of modes such as vehicles and airplanes which emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere thus enhancing global warming. Therefore, companies are trying to gain up on carbon credits thus virtual meetings are part of the strategy.