Offshore Management Framework: The key to managing outsourced IT projects across time, distance and cultures.

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Video Conferencing technologies and Offshoring (Part 1)

A few days ago I was in Boston discussing the intricacies of an interesting technology strategy being evolved at a financial services company with a Senior VP (let’s call him Bob) when the topic shifted to globalization, more specifically travel and logistics of working with global teams. This was pertinent to the current initiative at the client’s end since Bob’s company had teams in Boston, London, Paris and India and senior executives had to confer on a regular basis.

The cost of flying the teams back and forth was least of his worries at the moment --though I am sure some financial guy in his organization was going to give him a hard time later – the real challenge was to work through the logistics of travel: who goes where and when, and to ensure that everyone’s calendars were sufficiently open….not to mention the ‘softer’ side of things that began playing out like a manager having to miss his son’s birthday party planned months in advance…you probably get the drift.

Now, what’s new here, you must be wondering? Those of us in the offshoring space live and breath the challenges of bridging the “time and space” divide…but most of the time, it is we -- the sourcing organization’s folks -- who bend over backwards, jump through the visa hurdles, missing birthday parties, trainings and the like, just to be present at a client’s crucial meeting, summit or review sessions.

If we can help clients leverage the benefits of technologies, why can’t we be eating our own cooking? In the section on Video conferencing in my book, I ponder over the same topic “Technology to facilitate videoconferencing and teleconferencing has been around for a while but the widespread usage hasn’t followed. Why hasn’t videoconferencing become popular?” Even scholars seem to be wondering about the challenges in adopting the video-conferencing technologies. A Professor asked me about this very topic while I was presenting on offshoring management at the recent Smart Sourcing Global conference in Los Angeles.

Video Conferencing technologies and tools have been in existence for a while and continue to mature, so everyone should be jumping on to using the tools instead of hopping on to the nearest airport. right? 

In my book, Offshoring IT Services, I dedicated a section to explore the “Tools and Technologies of Communication.” Needless to say, an analysis of video-conferencing technologies figures there.

Posted by Mohan Babu K. on October 24, 2006 11:08 PM |

Comments

That's really a smart and quick solution for video conferencing, without much efforts and time.

Posted by: steve | August 29, 2007 5:12 AM

Great Post, it shows the growing importance of teleconferencing and video conferencing, how the demand is increasing with time, a great help.

Posted by: Video Conferencing | August 4, 2009 10:17 AM

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