Teleconferencing in Helping in Daily Work of an Industry - Assignment Example

Teleconferencing in Helping in Daily Work of an Industry Answer1. Teleconferencing has emerged as one of the greatest tool to connect with employee on discussions. In manufacturing industry, we generally use teleconferencing to connect and discuss with distributers, sales personnel’s and other vendors on daily basis. There may be other departments which uses the service as per their needs. Question2. Is there any fixed protocol or etiquette that you follow to initiate teleconferencing? Answer2. In general, we do have defined protocol which we adhere to. A request is initiated by the leader of the call along with date, time and agenda of the meeting. Other attendees are assumed to join in at that particular time. The etiquettes are assumed to be formal discussions, but the leader needs to introduce any new joiner to the call. Question3. You spoke about the leader, who is the leader and what significance does teleconferencing holds to him? Answer3. A leader is the initiator of the call and he decides upon the date and time of the call in most cases. However, sometimes leader may not be responsible for any agenda but serve as an administrator to the call. Teleconferencing is significant for the leader, as he decides upon the agenda and time for discussion. A leader is at liberty to select the participants for the call. Question4. What is total number of people who can attend to the call in your industry? How do you judge the role of each participant? Answer4. There is no restriction to the number of participants but we try to restrict it to 8 to 10 people to the maximum. It becomes a commotion in case more people are present in the call. The role of each participant depends on the responsibility each participants has towards the agenda. Question5. With 10 people on one call, how do you ensure the participants equally and effectively contribute? Does a debate arise in such cases? Answer5. The participants are expected to adhere to the agenda and they are asked for feedback to the agenda one by one. This helps to listen to everyone and a conclusion can be drawn out of teleconferencing. Yes, debate arises most of the time, but that really helps to tune up the discussions, as members get involved with the agenda the debate is managed by the leader. Question6. How is the interest level maintained among the participants, and how are distractions managed? Do you really feel teleconferencing is an effective tool for communication in between departments? Answer6. There are times, when the conference enters into informal discussions but this only helps to rejuvenate the participants and allow them to think and contribute to the agenda. There is no set protocol to manage distractions, we try to keep the duration of discussions short and maintain a dialogue rather than monologue in order to avoid it. Yes, teleconferencing has emerged as an effective tool to communicate with teams at far off places. Questions7. What are different ways in which teleconferencing is conducted? What are their uses? Answer7. There are three main types of teleconferencing using viz. telephone, computer and video. Teleconferencing through telephones are cost effective and whereas video conferencing involves cost in terms of data transfer, bandwidth etc. Teleconferencing allows users to connect from distant places as it is difficult to have face to face meeting with them. Question8. What are the system requirements for teleconferencing? Are there any technical specifications involved? Answer8. Teleconferencing involves use of PBX (Private Branch Exchange) which is connected to the telephones. A technical person is generally involved to set up the system in place and connect the users. Technical specifications are taken care by the technical team. Question9. Are there any means to summarize teleconference? Is it a manual process or done automatically? Answer9. Yes, the conference is summarized either manually by one of participants or there is a way to record the discussions by the system automatically. Question10. What are the factors that lead to the success of any teleconference? Answer10. Preparation on the agenda to be discussed, date and time communication to participants and availability of the participants are critical to the success of teleconference. Any technical flaws are rectified beforehand in order to setup the process of conference. Interpretations Teleconferencing is a tool for communication internally within the company or externally with customers. Effective communication is one of the prerequisite for information sharing in organizations. Off late teleconferencing has emerged as one of the greatest tool to connect with people at distant locations and share their thoughts verbally over phone, computer or video. The process involves use of equipments which make conferencing easy and comfortable for the participants. Teleconferencing helps to reduce cost of travel and time for participants in the organizations. With technological advancement, the quality of audio and video teleconferencing has improved making real time experience for the participants. Teleconferencing helps to bring together different departments to discuss various issues that lurk within the organizations. The advantages of teleconferencing are evident in organizations of present times. Globally organizations have been able to connect its employees over teleconference and further made transmission of communication easy. Teleconferencing has brought the world together on a device which we call telephone. The process of teleconferencing has become necessity in today’s organization to sort out operational issues in organizations. Time bound conferences has made decision making quick and helped organizations prosper in recent times. Off late, teleconferencing has emerged as a sound training module which helps employees to learn from the best around the world. Teleconferencing sometimes tends to avoid effective communication as proper expressions may not get communicated among the participants. The participants sometimes due to ignorance may not benefit from the effective communication through teleconferencing. Teleconferencing may also be affected by the non-conformity of participants to the issues or their contrast views. Teleconferencing tends to provide an ease to communication and off late has become as an indispensible part of organizations. Summary The paper discusses about teleconferencing in detail in organizations of today. The first part explains about teleconferencing methods in the form of interview. Subsequent topic helps to understand more about teleconferencing and describes the interpretations. The paper describes about teleconferencing its types and the common business usage in organizations. The advantages and disadvantages have been discussed in detail and help to understand the topic from a broader perspective. Teleconferencing in organizations has become very important and participants have added valuable contribution to the relevant issues in discussion. It has shrunk the world and brought participants closer on issues facing organizations. Teleconferencing has reduced the distant factor and is cost-effective for organizations to implement. The cost of travel and face to face meeting has been minimized using the service. Teleconferencing could be mentioned as an invention of great utility for present organizations. Reference Federal Highway Administration (n.a) Public Involvement Techniques for Transportation Decision Making: Teleconferencing, US Department of Transportation and Highway Administration Retrieved on July 30 2010 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/pittd/teleconf.htm Commonwealth of Learning (2004 June 4), Teleconferencing: A Training kit, Commonwealth Educational Center for Media in Asia, New Delhi, India ClintDavis86 (2009, June 11) What are the types of Teleconferencing [Video file] Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwOufmWoZgc&feature=related Cowan R (1984) Teleconferencing: Maximizing Human Potential, Reston Publication Company, Virginia Bodson D & Schaphorst R (1989) Teleconferencing IEEE press New York Read More