As fuel prices soar, a survey has found that only 28% of drivers using cars on business say that all of their journeys are absolutely necessary - while 4% say that they simply did not need to make any business journeys by car, but did it anyway.
That's the finding of Unicom, the small business specialist telecoms provider, based in Manchester. Unicom asked car drivers from 98 companies to state what proportion of their day-time car journeys on business were absolutely necessary. They wanted to find out whether they could have achieved the same result by making a phone call or arranging a conference call.
The results were quite startling with 28% said all of their journeys were necessary. 17% said that only 80% of their journeys were necessary; 19% said that 60% were necessary; 23% said that 40% were necessary, while just 9% said 20% were necessary and 4% said absolutely none of their car journeys for business was necessary.
By my calculations this works out that a staggering 36% of business journeys by car could be replaced by a telephone call or conference.
The responses indicates that as oil prices hit another record high and the UK remains twitchy following the recent temporary closure of a Scottish oil refinery, there is a significant potential saving to be made by businesses.
Just make sure you do not make the telephone call in the car on a hand held mobile!
FemaleFirst - Jackie Violet