Are you wondering how small businesses are utilizing Web conferencing in their organizations? Recently, Software Advice tackled the question head on in a survey of employees who work in companies with 50 or fewer workers.
The survey shows that the use of hosted services are currently soaring at the small-business level, as businesses turn to hosted providers for everything from webinar services to video and audio. Right now, 50 percent of small businesses use Web conferencing for audio; 45 percent use it for video; and 34 percent use it for Webinar purposes. Why are so many small businesses investing in hosted communications services? It’s because small businesses often lack the budgets and manpower to effectively maintain a legacy network. It’s more cost-effective, and secure, to outsource operations to a third-party service.
For what purposes are small businesses using Web conferencing? The survey indicates that planned meetings top the list at 84 percent. Online product demonstrations (55 percent), Webinars for marketing outreach (49 percent) and one-on-one collaboration (49 percent) follow in priority. Also mentioned is customer support (48 percent) and training (45 percent). As these results show, Web conferencing can serve many different needs for a small company and is, therefore, one of the most versatile business communications technologies.
Perhaps the most notable finding from the survey is that Web applications are becoming the most widely used conferencing platform for small business; in fact, 45 percent of small businesses rely on browser-based conferencing as opposed to laptops and PCs, phones and mobile applications.
To learn more about why businesses love Web conferencing, click here.
