Connecting with technology, E-meetings offer a new dimension for manufacturers. MRG Labs has been a client with Digital Samba for the last 3 plus years and we were very honored to be part of MRG's success on landing new manufacturing business. The story that was published in the Central Penn Business Journal this past February.

"We have a product that we're reaching out across the country and across the world to sell, but we have a limited budget," said Richard Wurzbach, president of York PA-based Maintenance Reliability Group, also known as MRG Labs.

MRG Labs used videoconferencing to explain Grease Thief to staff at the California-based Electric Power Research Institute, an energy industry-backed research nonprofit. Speaking to them live in an e-meeting helped MRG Labs land a $50,000 research contract with the institute, Wurzbach said.

"If your choices are sitting on the phone and being frustrated explaining a complex process, as opposed to showing someone in live video," he said, "that's worth it."

MRG Labs uses videoconferencing through Digital Samba to demonstrate the process to potential clients. Having that technology available has paid for itself in new business, Wurzbach said.

Explaining Grease Thief via videoconferencing helped MRG Labs land contracts with Dong Energy and Vattenfall, two of the largest wind turbine operators in Denmark, Wurzbach said. He and MRG staff explained the process online last year. A few months later, he said he was standing on top of a 400-foot windmill in Denmark finalizing the contract.

Companies won't lose that personal touch as long as they're using videoconferencing to augment in-person meetings, Wurzbach said.

But if your goal is to better explain yourself, your company and its products to potential clients before flying to Europe or even across the country, then e-meetings have a definite value.