Pros and Cons of Online Meetings and Documenting using Business Transcription

The need for business transcription has always been there, though with the increasing use of virtual meetings there is greater requirement for transcription of conferences.

The Age of Virtual Shareholder Meetings

Shareholder meetings are no longer bound to be held in the same room or hall. Thanks to virtual conference technology, attendees could be in any other part of the globe or time zone and still be an active part of the meeting. The effectiveness of this arrangement has been proved by major multinationals including Hewlett-Packard (HP) while companies such as Intel, Microsoft and Symantec have conducted hybrid meetings where there are physical as well as online attendees.

If corporate majors have considered this an effective arrangement just as an onsite one, and that too for their shareholder meetings, it is an indication of things to come. The trend kind of took shape in around 2011 and has been building up ever since.

Technological Elements

But what could the technological and financial hurdles be for smaller organizations? While Google Hangouts and Skype can serve the purpose of minor meetings and conferences, shareholder meetings require more precise and purpose built tools.

>> Higher specification tools such as WebEx and Adobe Connect provide business class infrastructure.

>> They do, of course, cost more but are well worth the additional investment since they offer the efficiency you could expect from a meeting where all attendees are physically present.

>> It would be better if businesses use these tools through service providers since they would have the experience and professionally trained staff to help them extract the maximum potential of these tools.

>> Some of the service providers themselves have customized software at hand which helps them cater to the unique needs of clients better.

Getting to the Meeting

Getting virtual participants to the conference isn’t a big deal. Participants receive invitations and instructions to log in through their mail. With the control number provided, participants can sign in to the meeting page that would be providing live streaming of the meeting. Participants would be able to enter questions, view additional messages, and cast votes.

Pros and Cons of Online Meetings

While the obvious advantage of online shareholder meetings is that attendees who may be unable to physically attend due to various reasons could still play an active role. Technology enables them to ask questions, raise their points and make themselves very conspicuous. The downside though is that virtual attendees may not know whether the questions they submit are being filtered or screened before they are put forward.

This is why some companies prefer hybrid meetings where you’d find online as well as onsite attendees. That said, companies are in no doubt about the cost savings online hosting provides, especially in meetings that are sparsely attended. In fully physical meetings there are umpteen arrangements hosts will have to make, only to find empty seats. Some other logically conceived advantages are that:

>> Online meetings could accommodate more participants than what would be possible in a physical meeting.

>> Online conferences also enable investors to ask or make possibly critical or controversial questions or suggestions to the board or the CEO remotely and anonymously.

On account of these myriad advantages there would continue to be greater use of virtual conferences, and business transcription companies would help in making all that information useable.

Promoter for MOS Legal Transcription Service.