MAINTAINING 'EYE TO EYE' CONTACT WHEN WAR BREAKS OUT

With continued unrest in the Gulf, the question for many UK businesses is how to maintain their business interests in the lucrative markets of the Gulf States. Furthermore, most travel & business insurance policies are 'null & void' in a declared war Zone.

British Airways has stopped crew stopovers in much of the area and no longer flies direct to the region, which adds a considerable amount of stress & time for business travellers.

So what are the alternatives for that critical client briefing due to take place next month? Video conferencing, in the limelight for being used by senior statesmen, is now also a realistic option for businesses of every size with overseas meeting requirements. Video Connections (International) Ltd is a specialist in providing the technology and its Director, Roger Paine has found that requests are flooding in from Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE, as well as requests from Europe, the UK and London. Commenting on the trend he said: "For sometime now companies have become more concerned to reduce time and stress incurred from business trips and have looked at video conferencing as an alternative. However this current crisis has really fuelled demand and many are now bringing forward the decision to switch to this economical and hassle free solution."

The recent developments in this alternative to physical travel have meant that equipment can now be as compact as an average computer laptop making it a much more accessible solution for small to medium-size businesses. Specialist technical expertise is also no longer required with usage as simple as that of a telephone but with products offering broadcast quality.

Video Conferencing can allow businesses to maintain 'eye-to-eye' contact with both prospects and customers in the Gulf at a fraction of the costs of actual physical travel In most cases it only requires one to two dedicated ISDN telephone lines to hold a 'eye - to - eye' business meeting at broadcast quality.

Financial research undertaken by Video Connections has proven that if travellers reduce the physical 'meeting habit' by as little as 35% substituting or increasing these meetings using video conferencing the equipment can pay for itself, on a lease or outright purchase basis, from the day of installation. The value of the investment may be much more however, especially for those companies facing interruption to business and damage to client relations.