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Inkjet Printer How far can we go doing business using video calls
"I'm not affraid of business challenges", people use to tell me, then along cam the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. Now in 2020, remote working and video chats have largely become the norm. Almost 100% of business travel was halted in response to the outbreak, and further clamped down by a series of border closures and travel restrictions worldwide. While the ones that are open you think three times about traveling there..By Publisher Paul Callaghan
Meanwhile, remote meetings using the likes of Microsoft Teams, SKYPE, Cisco and Zoom have made many question if business travel will ever fully return to the shape and scale of pre-pandemic days.
However, research published by Harvard University this month suggests that business travel will remain in the ascendancy because of its ability to spread ‘knowhow’.
Knowhow is different to “information and codified knowledge that exists in books, computer files, graphs and algorithms,” the Ivy League university shares.
Instead, “knowhow only exists in brains, and moves very slowly from brain to brain through years of experience.” “Moving knowhow quickly involves moving brains,” and that’s where business travel comes in – and will remain strong, Harvard believes.
Business travel builds economies
Beyond the expansion of ‘knowhow’ across the globe, payment card data supplied by Mastercard and analysed by Harvard also demonstrated that business travel had a positive impact on GDP in both travellers’ origin and destination countries.
The data showed that if Australia stops sending business travellers abroad – as it’s now largely doing by way of closed borders and travel bans – this would most heavily affect New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, the United Arab Emirates, Philippines and Sri Lanka, in that order.
If you look at Singapore and its 4 airport terminals, 2 of which have
shut until such a time that travel is on the rise again, then add in the hotel situation that heavily relies on business travel, the picture just looks worse and worse.
Then you include Bangkok airport and its favourite status as a convention and exhibition hub, I think you get the picture.
In fact, looking at Australian business travellers heading overseas, they are responsible for 0.09% of total global GDP.
While that number may not sound significant, it places Australian travellers just behind those from Singapore and China in terms of global economic worth. Australia itself also heavily benefits from inbound business travellers from overseas.
How far can we go doing business
By analysing the same data, the researchers at Harvard claim that Australia’s economy is 9.6% larger than it would have otherwise been if business visits were more closely in line with population, as they are in many other parts of the world.
Of course, with borders remaining closed, inbound business travel remains at a practical standstill – Getting back to online business, it works because we make it work, we have no choice, but from my experience in this industry, looking back to in person meetings, unlike a video chat, I hang up its over, I don’t have the opportunity to invite them to dinner, have a beer at the bar
and talk shop, get to know what the person is really like.
So I know we will be traveling again one day soon for business, but only when we have a vaccine and travelers are being injected. I bet some countries will have it on their visa on arrival card , a section to tick to say you are vaccinated against COVID-19, this before they let you pass immigration, or for that matter before you even board your flight. Yes the world has changed forever, but I’m still a believer in that some, not all meetings should be done face to face, gone I think gone will be the day runs for a one hour meetiung flying from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok to Jakarta etc, these will be done with Video calls for sure.
Until business travel is back, I’m sitting working from home and dreaming of that fantastic aircraft food at 39,000 feet, looking forward to the immigration ques on arrival, then the taxi arguments and finally living in hotel rooms. Bring it on PLEASE…
