LONDON, December 3 /PRNewswire/ --

With global economic recession having an impact on almost all industries, videoconferencing and telepresence can present companies with an effective solution to the challenges they now face. Experience from early recessions and economic slow-downs suggests that companies that continue to invest in their IT and communications capabilities are both better able to survive the crisis and can be in a stronger position to ride the up-turn -- sometimes grabbing market share from their competitors in the process.

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Videoconferencing, telepresence, and now unified communications, have each an important potential role to play in helping organizations become more flexible and resilient. These technologies, and the new generations of pay-as-you-use services based upon them, can allow companies to reduce the cost of travel, replacing many face-to-face meetings with effective alternatives.

By implementing these communications tools, organizations can avoid the costs, carbon emissions and general wear and tear to their employees that accompany long-haul flights.

Additionally, firms planning to lay-off employees in order to survive the recession must have the means of enabling their remaining people to be more efficient and productive -- benefits that visual communications tools offer.

Furthermore, telepresence and videoconferencing, as key elements of real time collaboration, can aid organisations in making faster business decisions, increasing their agility and responsiveness to customer demand while helping them to realise business goals more quickly.

Last but not least, today's telepresence and high definition videoconferencing solutions -- particularly when linked to managed services -- can achieve much higher usage rates, resulting in greater savings and a significantly faster return on investment.

So will companies continue to embrace the very real benefits that visual communications can offer, or will some simply avoid new investments of all types, preferring instead to try to ride out the financial down turn?

Dominic Dodd, Frost Sullivan Principal Analyst, notes: For companies able and willing to continuing their IT investments during the recession, visual communications and collaboration products and services should become a central part of their strategy for survival -- and for creating a dominant position for themselves, come the upturn.

Frost Sullivan has recently held an on-line debate on How Telepresence can Save the World! with the participation of key executives from leading players in the market, including BT Conferencing, HP, Polycom, Tandberg and Teliris.

If you would like to receive a link to the recording of the above debate, or would like to learn more on telepresence global markets, please send an e-mail to Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications, at joanna.lewandowska@frost.com with your contact details. Upon receiving your message, the information will be sent to you by email.

Frost Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership(TM) empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost Sullivan's Growth Partnership Services, visit http://www.frost.com.

Contact: Joanna Lewandowska Corporate Communications - Europe P: +48-22-390-41-46 E: joanna.lewandowska@frost.com

Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications - Europe, of Frost Sullivan, +48-22-390-41-46, joanna.lewandowska@frost.com/Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081117/FSLOGO