MAKATI CITY, Philippines -- The current financial crunch is expected to drive companies to look into streamlining their IT infrastructure and travel expenses in 2009.

This trend is expected to drive the use of technologies like telepresence.

Telepresence is an innovation that allows people to conduct virtual meetings using high-speed Internet connections and more sophisticated video conferencing technology.

Armando Pascual, Nortel Philippines Country Manager for Enterprise, said telepresence is a solution that is a good fit for corporate users. Using telepresence, people can interact with anyone not through a small screen but a much larger screen that is almost life-like.

Pascual said that the need to justify total cost of ownership for IT equipment is more important for companies now because of expected slowdown in business growth.

Instead of multinational firms sending executives abroad, they conduct virtual meetings to save on travel expenses.

He said telepresence environments are equally effective as face-to-face meetings.

Pascual said some companies in the Philippines are already looking at creating their own telepresence platforms, driven by the need to save on costs but also to increase manpower productivity among executives.

Amid expected economic slowdown in the Philippines due to the trickle effect of the US recession, Pascual said they are expecting a small but steady growth for the telepresence business in the country.

Pascual said that for Nortel?s business in the Philippines, one of the key drivers is replacement of network equipment from the business process outsourcing industry, which expects better growth in 2009.

As reported by BPO companies, Pascual said the growth in demand for services would come from the financial sector, power, healthcare and hospitality.

Financial institutions in the Philippines are also investing on replacing or upgrading their network facilities.

Nortel provides local area to wide area network equipment used for both voice and data telecommunications.