It’s 2015, and business moves faster than ever before. While a fleet of 20,000 jets is constantly crisscrossing the globe, making LA and Tokyo a mere half day away from each other, high-speed Internet means you can communicate instantly with people half a world away.  We’re living, to borrow a line from Shakespeare, in a brave new world—so why is it that so many 21st century companies continue to hold meetings like it’s 1970?

In the past, you either met people in person or resorted to opening up an audio conference and hoped for the best. Today, we have so many more options when it comes to meetings. Video conferencing lets you have more meaningful conversations face to face and adds the ability to screen share so everyone in the meeting can be looking at the same presentation—or any type of data, for that matter—at the same time. There’s an increasing value in being flexible when it comes to hosting meetings, so why stop at audio-only services when you can have so much more?

You may assume that adding a video option to your audio conferencing system is prohibitively expensive, especially if you’re already invested in separate audio and web conferencing providers. With Lifesize Cloud, everything can be handled in one service to give you high-definition video when you want it and audio-only calling when you need it. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about managing two different, overlapping systems. Not only is this a better experience for all of the users in your organization, it also makes it easy on your IT department—and your bottom line. Throw in native screen-sharing functionality, and you’re getting a 3-in-1 conferencing Swiss Army knife that’s always the right tool for the job.

The solution works just as well for direct two-person conversations as it does for larger 40-site conferences. We also offer local dial-in phone numbers in over 50 countries, so when you need to conduct a larger international call and all of the participants can’t meet on video, you’re covered. People can connect from their meeting room systems, laptops, tablets or mobile phones, giving everyone even greater flexibility in how they host and attend meetings.

If you’re still sticking to the old audio-only model, you run the risk of getting lapped by the competition. People meet in more varied ways than ever before. Shouldn’t you have a conferencing solution designed with that in mind?