Research released by Cisco has shown that small businesses are benefiting greatly from online collaboration tools that encourage remote working, allowing them to reduce business expenses and improve productivity.
In order to gauge the attitudes towards improving work-life balance of small and medium businesses, Cisco conducted a SMB working practices survey which found that more than half of senior employees in small and medium businesses agree that remote working provides better work-life balance.
The survey found that one in 10 workers spend more than four hours a week travelling to and from meetings, one in five commutes more than one hour every day to work and nearly all have worked overtime, with almost hald working outside their normal working hours everyday.
According to Cisco, a number of small and medium businesses have turned to online collaboration tools such as Cisco WebEx to improve productivity among their workers.
One such small business, StatSeeker, a Brisbane network-monitoring company that employs 20 people has benefited from implementing remote working tools, with global operations manager Martin Reed, claiming they have saved”“hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel expenses” through using the remote Cisco WebEx Meeting Centre.
“In order to avoid the expense of travelling back and forth overseas to meet with customers and prospects or setting up international offices, StatSeeker chose to sell directly to customers through online meetings and Web conferencing.”
Sara Adams, the Cisco Australia and New Zealand regional manager for SMB, said: “Cisco believes online collaboration, built on the network as the platform, is a key way for Australian SMBs to work smarter and better compete, particularly at a time of significant challenges in the economy.”
People who read this, also liked:
Does working from home equal slacking?
Aussie workers take pay cut to work from home
Easing the squeeze with web commuting
