Businesses Not Ready to Give Up on Face-to-Face Meetings Yet

American businesses aren’t ready to give up the old-fashioned business meeting, with little chance that face-to-face contact will be replaced by teleconferencing in the next decade, a survey released Friday said.

Executives at 85 firms, with combined annual sales of more than $580 billion, said in the survey there was just a 41% likelihood teleconferencing would replace half of corporate travel requiring face-to-face contact by 2004.

They also said there is only a 44% likelihood firms would market their products directly to customers without use of wholesalers, distributors and retailers.

“Despite the information superhighway, it doesn’t appear that companies are ready to give up traditional distribution channels,” said Ira Smolowitz, dean of the Bureau of Business Research and Program Development at American International College.

Electronic communications will however move in on the U.S. mail. The executives said there is a 64% likelihood electronic mail, or e-mail, will replace at least half of all corporate first-class mail.

“If I were the Postal Service, I’d be concerned,” Smolowitz said from the college in Springfield, Mass.

The survey, which involved chief executives from Forbes 500 companies, also indicated most firms will adopt so-called employee empowerment programs to allow for decision-making close to the customer.

But there was a 67% likelihood that consensus building training techniques, so popular in recent years, such as group mountain climbing, will be dropped.

“This shows that management is not really ready to give up the reins and the worker is not ready to take the responsibility--for the errors as well,” Smolowitz said.

There is a 58% chance most firms will need to provide on- or off-site training for entry-level employees by 2004, perhaps reflecting dissatisfaction with public education, the survey said.

Informality also may become a thing of the past. The executives said there was only a 53% chance of letting management “dress down” on any day of the week.

Firms in the next decade are likely to rely more on strategic alliances with vendors, foreign corporations and governments, and there was a 71% likelihood most firms would form a strategic alliance with another organization, it said.