Web Conferencing Gains Traction in India as document Sharing Emerges as a Top Collaboration Tool

Research house Forrsights Strategy Spotlight Collaboration Survey has come out with a report that shows 71 per cent users in Asia Pacific are hailing file sharing as the key collaboration driver in web conferencing. On the other hand, Wainhouse Research has stated that web conferencing will grow at a healthy rate of 19 per cent in India, which gives an indication of the demand for this solution among companies in the country. The file sharing feature of a standard virtual conferencing suite enables users to seamlessly view and send documents on the participants' computers during the meeting, thus enhancing the collaborative nature of the solution. These reports indicate that web conferencing solutions will be instrumental in the growth of conferencing industry of India. Cisco WebEx is one of the leading online meeting suites in the country and is widely used for the top-of-the-line collaboration features it offers. It comes with four components that are meant for specific purposes, namely WebEx Meeting Center, WebEx Event Center, WebEx Support Center and WebEx Training Center. In order to improve the functional advantages of this online meeting solution, it can be used in conjunction with audio conferencing services. For example, Arkadin India integrates it with its proprietary audio conferencing solution ArkadinAnytime to deliver best-in-class remote collaboration experience with real-time audio between the attendees. Such advanced virtual conferencing solutions can be used to conduct daily corporate communications, company-wide announcements, interactive summits, marketing sessions and product launches. Apart from these, such virtual web conferencing solutions can also be used to hold training sessions, high end events attended by C-level executives as well as to render remote customer support. In order to facilitate the users, these can even deliver high quality video in real-time, thus operating as a modern multipoint video conferencing product. According to the report by Forrsights Strategy, mobility was a close second in the list of business benefits that the respondents to its survey wanted from web meetings. Keeping this in mind, most of the new-age online meeting products are compatible with iPhones, iPads, Android devices, Blackberries and Windows Phone Smartphones. Dedicated apps that create the feature-rich collaborative experience are now available for these devices, which can prove to be instrumental for professionals who usually work on-the-move. Desktop users can communicate with them by simply accessing the solution from a standard web browser without any additional downloads and plug-ins. Web conferencing is also gaining pace in India since cost effectiveness is at the top of the list of agendas for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) as well as large enterprises operating in the country. Such solutions also render various cost saving benefits to the users by completely eliminating costs associated with air travel, meeting venue, on-road transportation and the likes. Moreover, it reduces the carbon emissions of the company since it reduces the need to travel, thus lowering its carbon footprint and helping it become environmentally responsible.