The Impact of Web Conferencing for Small Businesses

Wainhouse Research recently released a new study on web conferencing and its impact on small businesses. Wainhouse Research had over 1,500 survey participants, of which 75% worked at companies with less than 500 employees. A majority of the small businesses leverage web conferencing as a competitive advantage to drive revenue, penetrate markets, and expand territory reach with minimal resources. Most even stated that web conferencing has become such a vital part of day to day business that they could not conduct business without it.

"Considering that SMBs constitute about 99.7% of U.S. businesses, comprise approximately 44% of the overall U.S. private payroll, and are responsible for more job creation than any other sector of the marketplace, Web conferencing is proving to be a strategic business tool," reported Alan Greenberg, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research. "Next-generation Web conferencing solutions give SMBs the capability to impact local and global economies as never before possible."

Survey Highlights:

• "Outbound" Web conferencing applications that involve customers and prospects are most important to SMBs.
• 75% of SMB respondents believe the ability to involve/reach more people and save travel costs and time are major reasons to use Web conferencing; 59% say it makes meetings more productive.
• 55% of SMBs (and 44% of large enterprise respondents) say that in addition to the more predictable improvements in business practices, Web conferencing enables users to solve problems they could not solve before.
• 69% of all respondents use Web conferencing to enable new meetings that could not be held in any other way due to cost constraints, timing and several other issues.

"The majority of companies polled indicated they are increasing their use of Web conferencing, and are enjoying a high to very high return in value," said Greenberg. "Though companies of all sizes use Web conferencing to drive business processes, SMBs are much more aggressive in using online presentations and demonstrations to drive marketing and close sales by facilitating meetings with customers and prospects."

It is evident that even the smallest of small businesses need web conferencing. Companies like WebEx, have designed programs specifically for small businesses: cost effective and flexible price models to match the needs of any small business. Without web conferencing, and reviewing these results, any small business that does not have a reliable, secure, and easy to use web conferencing solution will not reach cash flow positive status any time soon.

To view other similar research reports by Wainhouse Research, click here.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert