Cost of Communication in Modern Business

Businesses all across the globe spend a significant fraction of their revenues in establishing effective communication systems to ensure hassle free communication with their clients/customers. Both within and outside the organization, business communication plays a crucial role in determining the success or failure of the firm.

An Overview of Communication Expenses in Current Era

The cost of communication for an organization in today's business has become expensive, owing to the boom in different types of technology and the increasing base of companies in several countries. From the starting days of telephones to the current world of web conferencing, video conferencing and VoIP, communication methods in businesses have evolved to a great extent. Now, the greatest challenge for large corporations is not that they have to provide PCs to their employees, but a far greater challenge is to manage the overall communication cost-effectively. Information communication technology is now an integral aspect of business management. It forms a vital link between all core functions of the business, be it manufacturing, operations, marketing, sales, advertising, logistics, or the supply chain.

High Cost Factors in Modern-day Businesses
If we leave aside communication technology, there are some other vital and more expensive costs related to communications. Costing related to traditional and conventional meetings have increased to a large extent in the recent years. Travel costs, hotel rentals and catering services for businesses have shot up tremendously in this decade. Arranging business meets of hundreds of thousands of employees is certainly possible for large-scale companies but for the SMEs, it is not always a cost-effective method to conduct multiple meetings in several hotels, with clients and employees, given the high costs involved in doing so. The need of cost-effective business communication solutions has become increasingly important now owing to the harsh economic conditions that have been in existence since the past couple of years. The current situation is:

• Business managers especially associated to finance and accounting face the challenge of allocating budgets to the business communication strategies.
• Information technology managers in a company have been facing serious challenges to limit spending on technology and communication costs.

Limiting High Costs in Communication Tools
Irrespective of the fact that you have a home office or a multi-national firm, here are some steps you can take to limit the communication cost in modern business.

• Significant costs can be saved by decreasing the frequency of traveling for business meets in hotels. Using web conferencing or video conferencing is an ideal option. It also saves time of the professionals in traveling.
• Online conferencing has hosts of benefits. Innovative technologies in web conferencing have made it possible to conduct live polls, question answer sessions and easy sharing of files and folders. This technology is of vital help for interacting with colleagues situated thousands of miles away.
• It is not possible to go for a complete overhaul of communication systems of an organization overnight. Companies like Microsoft, HP and others provide strategic solutions to communication infrastructure needs of businesses. The process of change in communication infrastructure takes significant time.
• Embracing social media is the key to growth and improved connectivity with a large audience base. Marketing and branding can be effectively done through the social media networks without some whopping costs addition.
• Broadband Internet communication and VoIP are some other technologies that have become a cost-effective business communication systems option in the present day world.

It is no doubt that in the recent years business communication has become an expensive affair. With increased and practical strategies to tackle the high costs, managers are making sure that the communication chain only improves with every passing day and just because of cost, there is no lack of communication between employees and clients.