...has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I understand the value of face-to-face contact, especially in sales, but I've always wondered if the vast majority of it was worth all that money. In the days when I used to travel, I was always struck by the expense of the plane ticket, hotel, and restaurant bills. Coupled with the opportunity cost of spending time away from my day-to-day responsibilities, it seemed a little extravagant to me. (Maybe this says more about my value in the workplace, or maybe I'm just a cheapskate.) But when I would look around me at all the other business travelers in airports and all the other people staying at expensive hotels and taking colleagues or clients out to dinner, I would often wonder aloud if all this was really necessary. After all, couldn't most of this be done over the phone? This was invariably met by an irritated response somewhere along the lines of "Are you nuts?!?" (I seem to get that a lot from people.)
Today's New York Times reports that Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers recently told analysts that his company had saved a lot of money during these difficult times by cutting back on travel. These cuts, he said, had taught Cisco a valuable lesson that would carry over when the good times returned: employees don't need to travel quite as much. Travel expense per employee has been cut in half as the company is now holding 4,000 video conferences a week.
The key phrase here is "...when the good times return." People tend to have short memories and more prosperous times might lead to more lax spending practices. But 4,000 video conferences a week sounds like a lot to me. How many other companies could be saving that kind of money?
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