In an increasingly global marketplace, companies are more challenged today with reducing expenses and boosting productivity across geographical boundaries – these challenges are accompanied by the changing nature of business communications.

A recent Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) white paper, “Visual Collaboration: Boost Employee Productivity and Drive Customer Interactions,” claims that savvy companies are realizing that the key to success in the 21^st century workplace is to implement enterprise communication technology that can increase virtual collaboration.

As companies look to deploy new unified communications (UC) technologies, they are considering where and how visual collaboration applications, such as video conferencing, fit in.

In the white paper, Frost & Sullivan details the changing nature of business communications today; outlines the benefits of video conferencing in supporting advanced collaboration; details the business and integration considerations companies must weigh before deploying a new solution; and offers best practices for choosing, implementing and supporting a complete visual collaboration solution.

With employees working from locations across geographies, it’s more difficult than ever to schedule in-person meetings, hence our reliance on technology. “Smart companies are embracing this shift by leveraging technology such as video conferencing,” the white paper points out.

Bringing employees together in this visual collaboration also boosts employee productivity, according to recent research.

“Because it lets participants see one another, and react to facial expressions and body language, video conferencing helps users interact as though they were in the same room and creates a “you are there” experience that makes it easier to understand exactly what’s being said and heard…,” the white paper said. “By leveraging such technology, companies can improve meeting effectiveness and attendee performance, actively increasing the amount and value of collaboration in the enterprise.

Visual collaboration can deepen the strategic relationship between the customer and relevant employees, which leads to better service and satisfaction. According to Frost & Sullivan, video conferencing is replacing phone, e-mail and even chat-based interactions in customer service; it also improves the value of the relationship and deepens their connection to the company.

And with so many deployment options, companies of all sizes can benefit from video conferencing – of course some are better suited to certain use cases than others, according to the white paper.

New video conferencing deployments should be high definition (HD), which offers video resolution that delivers nearly 10 times the quality of traditional systems and will improve the video experience at any bandwidth.

Today’s video conferencing options include: traditional room-based video conferencing; executive desktop systems; PC-based video conferencing systems; interactive whiteboarding systems; and telepresence systems.

The Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) Interactive Whiteboard Solution takes collaboration to a new level, using real-time interaction capabilities provided by the whiteboarding module in the Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch 8660 MyTeamwork Conferencing and Collaboration solution.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, instant room-to-room collaboration allows updates to board contents in real time. For example, architectural firms reviewing building plans from multiple offices or legal offices can annotate documents from multiple locations.

Visual collaboration allows employees, partners and customers to meet face-to-face without actually having to be in the same room and delivers advanced collaboration tools (such as whiteboarding) that help support business goals across industries, all over the world.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.