While the introduction of telepresence and other IT-enabled collaboration tools has been high on CIOs' agendas, persuading employees to head for the videoconferencing suite rather than the departures lounge has proved challenging for many organisastions. But the disruption to European air travel caused by the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, has fuelled new corporate enthusiasm for such technologies - as our straw poll of leading global CIOs confirms (see below).

The result: minimal business disruption, improved carbon and cost benefits - and, possibly, a permanent change in attitudes towards business travel. As Nokia's John Clarke quips, "Every cloud has a silver lining."

Here's a sample of some typical responses we received:

Filippo Passerini

President of global business services & CIO, Procter & Gamble (USA)
"P&G partnered with Cisco in 2007 to test the possibilities of using telepresence to decrease travel costs, increase productivity and collaboration and reduce our environmental impact. These video collaboration studios have transformed the way we do business. With more than 80 studios globally, we are now able to collaborate effectively without always having to travel. This proves especially valuable in times where travel is difficult. We are able to avoid business disruptions without sacrificing the face-to-face connection."

John Clarke

Senior vice president & CIO, Nokia (Finland)
"Recent environmental events have highlighted the importance and benefit of having an extensive collaboration ecosystem. Employees 'stranded' in remote locations were able to effectively execute their work tasks and maintain communications with loved ones. The event showed that as employees were 'forced' into adopting an alternative way of working, they discovered that it could be a viable and sustainable solution. As such we can see opportunities for reducing our travel plans and improving our dedication to minimising our environmental impact. Or as the saying goes, 'every cloud has a silver lining'."

Kenneth Egelund Schmidt

CIO, Carlsberg (Denmark)
"Never waste a good crisis - there is no doubt that Carlsberg's collaboration tools finally got the attention necessary for higher user penetration. The necessity to collaborate broke down the last perceived barriers - and experience so far shows that, once they have been used, they will be a natural part of the future way of working."

Kevin Griffin

CIO EMEA, GE Capital
"In GE Capital, we've been driving improved collaboration tools for our employees for several years. High-definition video conferencing is a key component of this and we've been working hard with our vendors to get this technology deployed to key sites. The recent disruption to travel has brought this initiative into sharp focus. We're implementing different solutions to address different needs: employee-to-employee and team collaboration as well as executive/board level interaction."

Pim van der Horst

CIO, KAS Bank (Netherlands)
"KAS Bank tries to limit (air) travel as much as possible, for ecological and budgetary reasons, and with our subsidiaries we already had video and telephone conference facilities in place. So we were not hit very much by the volcanic eruptions as far as business travel was concerned. However, some employees had considerable difficulties in returning from their vacations, as it was a holiday period - and that did cause delays in projects."

Alain Fontaine

Head of IT, atHome International Group (Luxembourg)
"We didn't notice any trouble due to the volcanic eruptions. The atHome Group belongs to the Melbourne-based REA Group, and the long distance required us to use IP conferencing systems - or simply Skype - long ago. It's just not possible to travel several thousand miles every couple of weeks for meetings, so REA invested in a proper conferencing and intercontinental VPN infrastructure to allow for productive collaboration between countries and continents without spending thousands on flights. We also have a cross-continent corporate intranet that every employee has access too, and which is used extensively for collaboration."

Did the cloud affect your company's enthusiasm for videoconferencing? Let us know by commenting below: