How Can Your Business Cope With the Icelandic Ash Cloud ???

It was a year ago that the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull caused chaos across much of Europe with flights and transport delayed or canceled. As an ash plume 9 kilometers high was thrust into the atmosphere, 6 days of travel cancellations were caused.

Europe hadn't seen such large-scale shut downs in air travel since the second World War, with the European Commission estimating that 100,000 flights were effected and 10 million passengers left stranded throughout the continent. The cost for this disruption was said to run into the billions of dollars.

Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, extreme weather ranked as the number-one concern in the latest CMI Business Continuity Management research, with 93% of respondants having suffered from it in the past 12 months.

So how can you survive the upcoming ash cloud?

Thankfully there are lots of ways you can avoid the chaos caused by travel disruptions.

Video conferencing

Across Europe, workspace provider Regus saw a 180 % month-on-month increase in video communication enquiries in April and May 2010.

Celia Donne, Regional director at Regus comments: “The worldwide disruption caused by the volcanic ash cloud of 2010 had a beneficial consequence: it taught businesses that video communication can replace time-consuming and costly air travel."

I visited HSBC recently to see how they make use of a wide array of video technology to improve internal communication. They use a combination of Cisco Telepresence, video conferencing and desktop conferencing to enable their staff to communicate anywhere, anytime. Matthew O'Neill from HSBC said:

"Video isn’t only about reducing travel costs and reducing our carbon footprint, we are using it to improve engagement and team communication to maximize productivity"

So it's clear that the technology exists to meet virtually, and with Skype and other suppliers offering such services for very little cost there is no reason why you should get caught out by the ash cloud this year.