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Going Green With Telecommuting Solutions
Welcome to the Telcom & Data Green Solutions area. This part of our site is designed to provide you with the latest technology to help your office lower its carbon footprint, save money, retain and hire better people as well as saving time. Lowering you office’s carbon footprint not only makes sense for the environment, but it also makes perfect business sense. All of the Green Technologies in this area are proven to work, and are being used by thousands of companies worldwide, including here at Telcom & Data. I am passionate about these products because they make such a huge difference, not only on our environment but also in our lives. I am dedicated to helping you reap the incredible benefits of these technologies.
Telecommuting
Why drive in when you can work from home? Shift this paradigm and the sky is the limit! This gem has so many benefits it never stops paying dividends. Implementing a work-from-home plan is easy. It can be done on a part-time or full-time basis. The technology is VoIP, and adding it is easy and inexpensive. You heard right, easy and inexpensive. You can add VoIP capabilities to ANY phone system, no matter how old. We added VoIP features to a 1985 AT&T Merlin phone system recently. Of course, there are new VoIP based systems which are designed to operate for remote users, branch offices, or my favorite, the “virtual office”. Think of how much more work you could get done by not wasting your hours doing “drive time”.
Benefit Factor: Extremely High. Offering VoIP to employees makes sense now more than ever. With commute times ever increasing, the sky-rocketing cost of gas, and the environment, implementing a telecommuting company policy makes good business sense. The best reason to offer telecommuting is to attract and retain talent. Ask any employee what's important to them and the answer will be “family”. Telecommuting gives employees more time to spend with their family. In turn, employees will have a higher quality, less stressed lifestyle. A happy employee is going to stay longer and be more productive. Offering telecommuting, even on a part-time basis, can have a huge impact. Need more proof?
Check out www.workingmother.com for a list of the 100 best companies to work for. All of the companies on the list offer telecommuting. The corporate consulting giant Accenture scored big with a recent ABC documentary about its telecommuting policy with 92% of its 26,000 employees working remotely. Think they get it?
Environmental Impact Factor: Very High. Helping to get cars off the road is always a good idea.
Savings: HUGE. IBM’s telecommuting policy is such that 42% of IBM employees telecommute, saving the company over 100 million dollars annually on real estate. But there are other savings to the employee. How about saving money on lunch, dry cleaning, gas, parking, wear and tear on the car, and tolls?
Bottom line: If you are not offering your employees a work from home opportunity your competition will be.
Video Conferencing
Why fly when you can sit behind your desk and host a meeting? Cheaper, newer technology and increased fiber rings coupled with increased competition, are driving the cost of data and high speed Internet access down. Lower costs are enabling countless companies to take advantage of a host of IP Video technologies and solutions that can help reduce emissions and travel costs. After 9/11, there was a spike in video conferencing system sales as travel concerns rose among companies and their employees. Expensive ISDN circuits were the primary component in many of these existing systems. Since then, companies like Polycom have improved IP-based video conference system options. As the cost of both video conferencing and high speed Internet access continue to fall, video conferencing systems are being used more extensively than ever. Airline ticket prices are increasing to stay in step with energy prices, and soon they are expected to reduce the amount of flights available. All of these factors make video conferencing a must-have.
Benefit Factor: Very high to extremely high depending on where you do business. Video conferencing projections are set for high growth as more and more applications and situations are used. Telemedicine, video depositions, distance learning/training, and portable field units are all driving system sales. The cost of travel will soon make video the way to go. Asking your employee to fly out of town is expensive and a huge waste of time. Think security line at the airport. You are paying really good money for that.
Environmental Impact Factor: High. How many tons of jet fuel does it take to see a client in Providence, RI when you’re in LA? I don’t know. but I am sure it’s a lot. Picking up my video remote seems so much less stressful on me and the environment.
Savings: Very good. Eliminating a couple of trips a month would provide you with a return on investment in only months. Think of all those creative expense reports you won’t have to reimburse.
Bottom Line: It’s not a luxury item any more. The price has dropped, so it’s affordable and your customer will think you look 5 pounds heavier than you are.
FAX to Email
Fax machines were cool 15 years ago. Now they take up space. Fax to email is a much better way to receive a document. Open your email and bam! There it is. Why do we still have the fax machine? It wastes paper, it jams, the toner always needs changing, and you have to physically walk over and get your fax or have someone hand it to you. What an Edsel. Fax mail, IP fax, fax over Internet, paperless fax, or anything else you want to call it is the way to go. The Internet Fax gets your faxes going straight to your email. You can print, forward, archive, or delete a fax. Forget the paper fax!
Benefit Factor: Good. Actually, if you work remotely, very good. Get your faxes no matter where you are. Just open your email.
Environmental Impact Factor: Good. Think of how many trees you’ll be saving every time you don’t print out an offer to go to Orlando for 3 Days for only $ 199.00!!!
Savings: Nominal but worth it. The average fax machine costs $ 70.00 a month to operate, not including disposal of aforementioned travel offers.
Bottom Line: Save a tree and some green of your own!
Teleconferencing
While audio conferencing has been going on for a long time, owning an in-house system is now very affordable. When talking to companies already using audio conferencing services, they mentioned that they didn’t use it as often as they would like to due to cost concerns scheduling issues. Owning a system can cost less than $ 2,000.00. Being able to meet on your own reservation-free conference bridge gives one a great sense of control. Imagine getting everyone you want to talk to with the click of a mouse right now! Our web-based systems can have predefined groups set up. All I have to do is call the bridge from my cell phone, enter my pin, and the system gets my people on the phone immediately. Anywhere from 2 to 1000 conference users can be united.
Benefit Factor: Huge. If reaching out and touching someone feels great, reaching out to 100 is ecstasy. Conference with Web conferencing can be used for anything - sales meetings, application selling, even distance learning. All this, while everyone calls in from the comfort of their remote offices. No travel, no conference room rentals, no reservations, no credit card hassles!
Environmental Impact Factor: Great. If you had 100 people traveling to a conference meeting that you are now doing over the phone and web simultaneously, you have done the planet proud. Good job!
Savings: If you have to rent a conference room, then you are probably going to have to buy lunch too. Meet on the bridge and it’s practically free.
Bottom Line: If you are meeting with your people constantly, think in house conference bridge.
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