Jun. 10--When company officials at Eliokem want a potential job candidate in Akron to meet someone at headquarters in France, often no airplanes are involved. 

Instead, the specialty chemicals business sets up a videoconference session. It gives the job candidates an opportunity to see and talk to key people in France without the company spending thousands of dollars to send people there, said Communications Manager Valerie Slonsky. Eliokem regularly rents time to use the videoconferencing equipment at the John S. Knight Center, which costs $250 an hour. 

For a recent two-hour session in which job candidates met via videoconference with company officials in France near Paris, Eliokem spent $500 for the session (headquarters has its own equipment, so there are no costs on that end) and also spent money to fly job candidates domestically and lodge them. 

But a trip to France with lodging and meals could easily have cost a few thousand dollars, company officials say. A search on travel web site Orbitz for a trip to Paris from Cleveland with less than a week's notice cost $2,717 for airfare alone. 

Eilokem, formerly owned by Goodyear and sold to a private equity firm in December, is one of several regional companies utilizing videoconferencing for day-to-day operations. 

Shortly after the Sept. 11 tragedies, corporate travel decreased and use of videoconferencing spiked as companies tried to continue working as fears about flying grounded many business people. 

The downturn in the economy didn't help companies either, and corporate travel budgets suffered. 

Nine months later, many companies say corporate travel is on the rise, but airline industry officials say the business travelers have not come back to pre-Sept. 11 numbers. 

And videoconferencing and other methods, such as teleconferencing and webcasting over the Internet are increasingly being used in company conference rooms. 

MCSI, a Dayton-based company that sells videoconferencing systems around the country to companies such as Microsoft and Boeing, has seen a marked increase in companies interested in videoconferencing units and board rooms since Sept. 11, said Sharmila Rao, vice president for corporate communications. 

"We're seeing that companies that had videoconferencing installed before 9-11 are using it a whole lot more than they did before,"said Rao. "Before, it was `Well, I'll use it as a last resort if I can't get (plane) tickets.' Now they're using it as a first alternative." 

"If you can do it over the videoconferencing (unit) and go home to your family, a lot of people have been choosing that option," she said. 

MCSI officials estimate that videoconferencing equipment can cost between $6,000 for a basic system to millions of dollars for a sophisticated system built into a board room. The average cost is $50,000 for a system. Rao said companies can often justify the cost of investing in a system after figuring out how much money they'll save on business trips. 

"We did a project in Ohio for Wendy's and installed about seven locations for them. We showed them for the amount of travel they were doing, within about six months they got their investment back," said Rao. 

Roopam Jain, an analyst who covers the videoconferencing industry for Frost & Sullivan in San Jose, Calif., said videoconferencing usage has doubled in the last five to 10 years. But it's still an underdeveloped market, she said, estimating that only 2 percent of companies utilize the technology. 

Not only is videoconferencing easier on travel budgets, it's also easier on employees and saves time. 

Employees of Sterling Inc. are still doing the same amount of traveling, said Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Richard Miller. But the company also often utilizes its videoconferencing equipment to have meetings with its parent company, Signet Group Plcin London. 

Several times a month, committee meetings with employees from both the United States and the United Kingdom will get together via videoconference, Miller said. 

"It beats taking a trip over there for a two-hour meeting," he said. 

Lee Bell, a partner in the law firm Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs Canton office, said he uses a videoconference room at the Knight Center about 20 times a year for video depositions. 

Bell, who specializes in medical malpractice and personal injury cases, said technology has improved so much with videoconferencing that "you really feel like you're sitting across the table from the person." Many videoconference systems also allow users to view and work on data files with each other on the video screens. 

In cases where videoconferencing is not available, Bell has to travel to talk to the witness, which takes both time and more money. 

As an example, Bell said there were times when he would fly to California and back to Akron in one 14-hour day for a deposition. For a two-hour deposition, that can mean a $500 to $600 plane ticket, plus 12 hours of his time. 

Instead, he can pay the $250 per hour charge at the convention center on one end -- he figures it would cost $1,000 for a two-hour deposition to pay for both ends of the videoconference. 

Bill Stewart, technical operations manager for the Knight Center, said the videoconferencing equipment at the convention center is used by a variety of local companies and organizations. 

Some companies supplement their own videoconferencing equipment at their offices with time at the convention center. The system can be moved anywhere in the convention center, so it can accommodate a small meeting or one with 3,000 people, he said. 

Stewart estimates that requests for the videoconferencing facility increased 20 percent following Sept. 11, but has since returned to normal levels. Slonsky of Eliokem said for now, the company will continue utilizing facilities at the Knight Center, but may eventually consider purchasing its own videoconference system. The company also uses videoconferencing to have meetings with its headquarters in France and shareholders in Connecticut, Slonsky said. 

At The Hoover Co., use of videoconferencing has steadily increased since it was introduced in 1995, said Public Relations Director Jackie Love. 

Love said the trend to use videoconferencing started before Sept. 11. 

The technology allows the company, which has business partners and associates in other locations, to have meetings with retailers and its parents company, Maytag Corp. in Iowa. "It is a very effective tool for conducting business long distance," she said. 

Larry Miller, vice president of human resources for the international division of Diebold Inc. said the use of videoconferencing has probably increased by 25 percent at the company since 

Sept. 11. The corporate offices has four videoconferencing rooms. 

"It's hard to get a reservation in one of the videoconferencing rooms, if that's an indicator," said Miller. 

Employees continue to travel, but in a decreased capacity and with extra precautions, he said. Now, with tensions rising in Pakistan and India, for example, employees are being careful about traveling there. 

"The whole series of events has certainly contributed to our using videoconferencing in particular and telephone conferencing more aggressively," Miller said. 

Miller said some projects can be done by videoconference while others still need the face-to-face interaction and team building of a live in-person meeting. 

"If it's an exchange of information and short term, then videoconferencing can be sufficient on its own. If it's a team of people doing more complicated work over a long period of time, we like to bring them together to get to know one another and make sure there's real consensus about what the focus of the project is and what the team will be about," Miller said. 

Other area companies are utilizing other technology to keep in touch. 

GOJO Industries has been experimenting with webcasting, which is a blend of teleconferencing and Internet usage, to keep in touch with partners, Chief Operating Officer Mark Lerner said in an e-mail statement. 

"So far, we're finding that webcasting is promising," he said. 

Timken Co. does some videoconferencing, but also uses NetMeeting, which uses computers and the Internet to exchange information, company officials said. Companies that use different technologies to communicate with each other say it doesn't replace real face-to-face contact, but is still a cost-effective tool to use. 

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