 Executives and senior managers also use video communication to maintain rapport with important customers, strategic partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Video communication enables them to meet frequently with Wall Street analysts, legal experts, and consultants. In executive applications, travel savings are usually a secondary objective. Typically, the real issues are time savings, productivity, and fostering of additional opportunities-areas in which one can express improvements in financial terms. Few, if any, will dispute the assertion that video communication can save creative potential that would otherwise be lost to excessive travel fatigue. Executive applications are not cheap. Senior managers usually demand (and deserve) Video Communications: The Whole Picture high-quality transmission, multiple large monitors, premium audio, and facilities that suit large audiences. However, the value that such systems can provide can often offset such costs with just one use. PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND CONSULTING Video communication is an ideal tool for managing projects over distance. It unites team members and subject-matter experts for prompt collective decision-making (or troubleshooting) in joint or distributed undertakings. Video communication improves the frequency and the efficiency of communications, and direct cost savings are often secondary to accomplishing the job. In the mid-1980s, the aerospace industry discovered that inter-company video communication was valuable for managing contractors and subcontractors who cooperated on large projects. Many more companies are now using video for similar applications. Video communication works well in the management of construction projects. Experts at remote sites can inspect footage that is captured at the construction site, as can customers who are paying for the project. Figure 2-2. Boardroom System (courtesy of Tandberg). Air Products and Chemicals is one firm that has benefited from the use of video communication in project management. The company is a ma