One of the most compelling cases for video conferencing technology has to be the reduction in travel costs.

Many businesses increasingly view travel as a drain on time and budgets. You can understand why when most business travellers admit that only half of the time spent on a business trip can be classed as productive working time. Not only could you reduce your business travel bills by up to 30%, but you could also improve employee productivity by cutting back on idle hours.

Allied to the reduction in travel time and costs is the environmental argument. Video conferencing uses little energy – no petrol, diesel or aviation fuel, only a few units of electricity. The technology can help the business reduce their carbon footprint and environmental impact. To demonstrate the point, a UK environment minister gave a keynote speech at the Climate Change Conference in Sydney via video conferencing. This saved 60 hours of travel time and 6.2 tons of CO2 emissions.

Your business could benefit in other ways too. Video conferencing gives you the flexibility to hold ad-hoc meetings; you don’t have to plan weeks in advance. This flexibility could speed up decision-making and response times, which will also benefit your customers.

Why invest in video conferencing now?

In the past, video conferencing has had a bad reputation. It’s been seen as expensive, complex to implement and delivering low quality, jerky images. However, these arguments are losing ground as the technology rapidly evolves and affordable fast connections make high definition video conferencing a reality.

Traditionally, you would have needed an ISDN network for video conferencing, but today’s IP-based networks are fuelling an interest in converged voice, video and data communications. IP lends itself to cost-effective voice and video conferencing and has the added benefit of allowing users to collaborate on documents simultaneously. Cisco estimates that global IP traffic will increase fivefold over the next four years. The company also estimates that all forms of video traffic will make up 90% of global consumer IP traffic by 2013.

Video conferencing shopping list

There is a video conferencing system for every budget, ranging from personal desktop systems using low cost webcams, through to specialist video conferencing equipment designed for use in meeting rooms and other shared environments. However, the essential components of any video conferencing solution are camera, microphone, monitor, speaker and codec.

For most organisations, high definition video conferencing is the most readily available option and offers good quality on a limited budget (usually between £1,500 and £5,000).

Your next consideration should be the number of point to point video-enabling terminals or ‘endpoints’ needed. If you specify too few endpoints users could get frustrated that they do not have access to the technology. You need to balance the cost of the video conferencing equipment and services against convenient access to the network of endpoints.

Video infrastructure – a high definition video conferencing service may require an investment in additional network infrastructure, such as a dedicated line or circuit for each endpoint. Each session will demand connectivity of around 1Mbps for clear video and audio. Deploying high definition video on the enterprise network can cause problems; the network may not be able to handle real-time video, while video activity may compromise other enterprise tasks. The right media-ready network is vital to the delivery of business video applications.

Extra peripherals – you might also want to invest in additional peripheral devices to enhance the video conferencing experience; this could include high definition and wide-angle cameras, upgraded speakers and microphones. You may also want to connect your systems to DVDs, VCRs and document and multimedia applications via a PC.

Test the water with web conferencing

If there’s some resistance to investing in video conferencing solutions, one way of proving the benefit to the business may be to experiment with lower cost web conferencing solutions. These could not only demonstrate cost savings but also lead the way to more sophisticated technology.

Web conferencing allows your staff to share what’s on their desktop with people in other locations. Typically, this happens in conjunction with a phone call or audio conferencing session. Additional features include the ability to share documents and to work collaboratively on projects.

Why telepresence could be the next step for video conferencing

John Chambers, Cisco chief executive, has compared telepresence  to “Star Trek teleporting”. Telepresence offers ultra high resolution, which makes video conferencing an even more immersive experience. Spatial audio allows the transmission of every nuance of a conversation, while huge screens and high quality cameras capture every detail of an expression.

Fabulous as this sounds, telepresence remains an expensive technology to implement at present. It requires a high-bandwidth connection and a specifically designed room at each location.

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Complete video at: fora.tv Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of The Grameen Bank, explains his “social business” model, a plan for addressing social issues through entrepreneurship. This program was recorded in joint collaboration with the Commonwealth Club of California and Link TV. —- Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of The Grameen Bank, speaks about his new book Creating a World Without Poverty. Muhammad Yunus is founder and managing director of …

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Ever wondered what the difference is between secured car loans and personal unsecured car loans and how that difference affects your finance and their repayments.  The car loans terms can be only minor, but is larger when the true cost of each is taken into account.

Before discussing secured and unsecured car loans in more detail, let’s first have a look at the various workings that determine the cost of your loan and of your monthly repayments. The cost of the car finance package is the total you repay less the loan amount borrowed. Hence, let’s say you are repaying $20,000 at 12% interest rate over 36 months; you will repay at the rate of $664.29 per month.  That would total a repayment of $23,914.44, and the cost of the loan would be $3,914.44 plus any set-up or administration fees.  A car finance calculator will enable you to work this out for yourself.

An substitute to a car finance would be car hire purchase (HP), where you hire the car over the repayment period and get the title to the motor car with your final payment. Until then the car belongs to the HP company.

However, most finances are either secured or unsecured, and not all finance companies offer unsecured or personal loans so let’s look at secured car finance first. Secured car loans is one whereby the lender offers the loan with the car as security.  If you fail to make payments, the lender can sell the car to recoup their money.  It is possible to get a secured car loan when the motor vehicle gets past a certain age, often 7 years, but the car finance term or loan term may be requested to be shorter than the standard 5 yearsor not at all by using your home or some other form of security. These however are not strictly classed as a car loan. normally the car is used as security over the loan.

If you prefer you can request no deposit car finance and have all on-road costs added to the amount financed. Options like registration , loan protection insurance for disability,death or unemploymentand comprehensive auto insurance as part of the financing deal.  Loan insurance makes sure that the loan is paid off in the event of your death during the loan period, and comprehensive car insurance is needed to make sure that the car is in good condition should it be needed to repay the finance in the event of you having your car repossessed.

This might look hard , but these are standard conditions for any secured loan, not only car loans. Secured car loans terms are from 1-7years, and the interest rate will be lower than that for an unsecured car finance where the financier charges extra to compensate for their added risk. As with any loan, a deposit will result in lower payments, or a shorter term, whichever you prefer.

Balloon payments could be an option on your finance package, which is like a deposit in reverse, payable at the end of the period.  This is popular by those whose income will increase over the period, and they will be in a better financial position to pay a lump sum in 3 – 5 years time. This  too  results in either a lower monthly repayment or a shorter repayment term.

If you are buying a used motor vehicle, your car loans intererst rates can be priced very differentlyaccording to the finance company and the age of your car. Many will charge higher loan rates, and the current credit crisis has changed the outlook of many lenders to unsecured car loans in particular. Many no longer offer unsecured car finance due to the increased risk in the current economic climate.

However, they are still available, and some car loan brokers can ensure you get the best unsecured car loan available. In addition to the interest rate on such loans, you should also evaluate the fees charged, since they can involve a considerable outlay for you before you get the loan.

The key differences between secured and unsecured car finance, therefore, can be summed up as:

Secured car finance are cheaper to repay, with normally lower rates.

You need to have full comprehensive car insurance with all secured car loans, while unsecured financing does not.

Both loans could require deathinsurance cover for the finance, but secured car finance packages are more likely to.

You can sometimes include comprehensive insurance, registration and other costs in the secured loan, but with an unsecured car loan you must include the the costs on top of the amount borrowed.

Fees for unsecured car loans can be significantly higher than for secured car loans.

Not all finance companies will offer unsecured auto loans.

There few doubts that if your vehicle is young enough to be given a loan with the car as colateral, then that should be your option.  You might be able to arrange a secured loan for an older vehicle with your residential home as security, but you will have to make sure to maintain the payments since lenders are becoming unsympathetic in the current economic crissis.

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It is not easy for small businesses to get small business loans. Banks and other lenders require them to go through strict and complicated financial procedures with stringent requirements for qualification. After everything, credit approval is not even guaranteed.

Even the financing for loans supported by the Small Business Administration (SBA) cannot meet the needs of the majority of small businesses. Although the amount of credit available for small businesses has reportedly been increased by 25% since March this year, it is not that easy to avail of the said small business loans.

Small businesses seeking small business loans should know how to prepare the right kind of business plans that banks are looking for. To justify the loan, they should be able to show the banks in detail how they intend to use the money in business and how viable their plan is. Experts say lenders have specific points which they scrutinize applications for and applicants should know these points and tailor their submitted business plans accordingly.

It is also said that loan applicants should first establish a strong relationship with the lending bank in order to increase the possibility of having a loan approved. Banks supposedly give more small business loans to businesses they have already known and trusted long term. Since small businesses are usually new businesses, this is quite difficult to do and it cannot be done in a hurry. How can a new small business with financial needs establish a good long term relationship with a bank in time to meet its current needs?

Another requirement of lending institutions from small businesses applying for small business loans is a good credit history score.  A small business should first be deemed credit worthy by the bank before it can even be considered for loan approval. Again, small businesses that are stll young are at an immediate disadvantage here. How can they establish credit worthiness in time?

The US Congress has also placed Congressional restrictions on eligibility for the Small Business Administration loans. Small businesses first have to prove that they are at least two years old and are both struggling and viable at the same time. They should present proof that they have had a positive cash flow in one of those previous two years in business. They should, however, be currently struggling with “immediate financial hardship” with a decrease in income that should not be less than 20 percent. At the same time, they should submit their projections for cash flow for the next two years, proving that they will be able to meet loan payments.

A faster way to get small business loans would be through credit card services.

Any small business should have credit card services. Credit card services enable a company to accept customer payments for goods and services via credit cards or debit cards, whether over the counter in brick and mortar settings, through the phone or online. Credit card services provide the hardware and software for this.

Being able to accept payments through credit cards or debit cards can greatly enhance a small business’ income earning potentials. In addition to that, credit card services can provide the equivalent of small business loans with no need for any collateral. The amount of the small business loans are computed based on the average monthly income of the small business from credit card payments. The small business loans are then amortized through automatic monthly deductions of a certain percentage from the small business’ future credit card revenue. This means small businesses can almost automatically qualify for small business loans through credit card services, and will surely be able to pay such small business loans. Is there a faster way than this?

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Complete video at: fora.tv Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of The Grameen Bank, explains his “social business” model, a plan for addressing social issues through entrepreneurship. This program was recorded in joint collaboration with the Commonwealth Club of California and Link TV. —- Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of The Grameen Bank, speaks about his new book Creating a World Without Poverty. Muhammad Yunus is founder and managing director of …

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