Today’s businesses are connected like never before thanks to communications innovations such as the Internet and international conference calling. Not only is the technology in place, costs are remarkably low. Now, people can communicate with others around the world without incurring travel expenses or huge phone bills. Best of all, quality has kept up with technology. The combination of technology, low costs, ease of use, and quality has contributed to making the global village a reality. That’s not to say there aren’t a few challenges to overcome.

Benefits of International Conference Calls
While email and traditional long distance phone calls have their place in the global village, international conference calling have become essential. Rather than connecting two individuals from opposite ends of the earth, an international conference calling brings together an entire global team. Conference calls allow for cost-effective group communications and interactions. Because everyone can speak to one another and hear and understand voice inflection and tone, communication is far more effective than exchanging group email messages.

Just as important as being able to pick up on verbal cues during an international conference calling is the camaraderie that calls can build. Because this is a global village, it’s important that everyone gets to know one another on a more personal level. By coming together for regular calls, each participant gets to know the others as individuals. This can lead to greater cooperation as participants realize that they aren’t necessarily dealing with someone located thousands of miles away. Instead, the distance shrinks as participants see each other as peers working on the same team. Read the rest of this entry »

When you are in business, you realize that keeping the lines of communication open are critical. When you conduct your business worldwide, it is even more important. Your business relies on sales people, clients, and colleagues, and if that are scattered all over the world, holding weekly meetings can be difficult.

This is where international conference calling can be critical to your business. It is imperative that you keep in contact with your staff and clients. With international conference calling, you can hold meetings anytime, and with anyone even if they are on opposite sides of the world. If you have a client in another country, by using international conference calling, you can still give a presentation as if they were sitting right next to you in the conference room.

With international conference calling, you can provide training to new employees that reside in different countries just as efficiently as if they were right in front of you. The world today offers new and innovation methods of conducting business. Conference calling has been around for years. But with the Internet came global trade, making it necessary for business and website owners to make themselves available virtually twenty-four hours a day.

In the past, weekly meeting meant the staff would have to go through the process of booking airline tickets, securing a hotel room, travel thousands of miles to attend the meeting and then return to their country, just to do it over again the next month. With technology developing everyday, there is no need to travel. International conference calling eliminates all that, giving the employees more time to be productive. Read the rest of this entry »

International conferences are pretty big deals and I have had some experience in dealing with them. You are not just dealing with a base local audience in which you are familiar with; you are dealing with international perspectives and beliefs and behaviours, and barring having a team of psychologists to help you plan for your event, you need to be aware of certain sensitivities and issues you need to address before you even think of the location.

Firstly, you need to be aware of the political situation abroad and which countries are not doing too good with each other – this is especially important if you are holding a conference with international delegates from the political arena, or your conference is very politically motivated or has some economic/social issues that need to be addressed. If this cannot be avoided, you need to think about small things like seating arrangements and where certain delegates should be and what the minimum safe distance is.

You also need to think about translators, as while the world economy is ruled by the English language, not everyone speaks it and you might want to find out who is unable to understand the English language. Make arrangements for translations for any collateral that you may have as well as hiring a translator to feed directly via a mike or an earpiece into the person so that they do not miss out anything about the meeting. Also, look into issues like religious or cultural sensitivities, and this could even go to the simplest details like the dress code and the types of food that is served. Muslims, Hindus, even vegetarian food – they must be taken into consideration when ordering and feedback is very important here. Read the rest of this entry »