IT IS said that time is money.

So it follows that time travelling to and from meetings is wasted money. But firms can now prevent that waste, thanks to a new company that has set up in Chineham.

Solution Builders Limited, based at Grove House, in Lutyens Close, Chineham Court, is a new entrant to the world of unified communications (UC), an industry that is set to explode over the next few years.

Headed by managing director John Owen, the company offers communication systems that can have an immediate impact on business by offering online, encrypted and secure meetings.

Mr Owen explained: "People want to limit the amount of business travel, because travel is unproductive time and it's also costly time. An executive sitting in his car for an hour-and-a-half isn't exactly a productive person."

The company, which set up in March, promises small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to cut back on motoring expenses, parking costs, meals and even flights with the use of face-to-face meetings with online conferencing.

This is just one of the services offered by Solution Builders, which is aiming to build sales to £8million per annum within five years.

Although online conferencing is not a new concept, Mr Owen and his team offer Microsoft Live Meeting with Arel Voice and Video facilities, which can be customised to meet clients' needs.

"The difference compared with other packages is that the video quality is excellent," said Mr Owen. "It's so good that you can gauge people's reactions and body language. It's as intimate as you can get without being sat next to each other in a meeting."

The software package allows an unlimited number of people to take part in a meeting, where documents, flow charts, diagrams and pictures, as well as websites, can be shared and viewed at the same time.

"This is not something that we would spend years developing," said Mr Owen.

"We could be implementing this for businesses around Basingstoke tomorrow and they would get an immediate return."

The supported package, which includes training, offered by Solution Builders costs £6,000. But Mr Owen is confident that his product will save businesses money.

"If, for example, I find I'm spending £20,000 a year running my sales team on just the meetings, and this package costs me £6,000, I'll be saving £14,000."

Visitors to Solution Builders website - which can be found at www.solutionbuilders. co.uk - can work out for themselves how much they could save by using the site's Return on Investment (ROI) calculators.

Mr Owen said that unified communications has taken off in the past 12 months in the United States.

"Undoubtedly, America is 18 months ahead of Britain," said Mr Owen. "The problem we've got in this country is there is a bit of a culture issue.

"Some people like to go to meetings. They get up at 6am in Basingstoke, travel 200 miles to Derby, have a meeting and then travel all the way back, because they think it's a hard day's work. But, actually, it is not. It's a hard day's driving there and back.

"I think the technology is about to take off over here.

"It will never replace every single meeting - it's not designed to do that - but it can replace the meetings which you could viably conduct online and replace the run-of-the-mill meetings."

First published: Thursday, April 13, 2006