In light of what it terms a growing international trend - remote working - global networking firm Cisco Systems has developed a suite of solutions designed to enable South African business people to collaborate.
This follows a recent Cisco WebEx survey conducted among small businesses in the US, which found that 15% of respondents intend to work remotely for 36 days or more a year. Cisco says the trend of working remotely, or from home, is on the rise globally.
“The survey also found that respondents prefer working remotely to avoid hassles and inconveniences often associated with traditional office meetings. In addition, the biggest frustrations cited by those surveyed were in-person meetings running longer than planned (29%), and being hard to organise because of conflicting schedules (25%).”
Almost a quarter (23%) of business people surveyed said their companies rely on telecommuting, and about 13% said they reimburse employees when they buy devices like laptops, smartphones or tablets.
Local solutions
Cisco says its new solutions were developed for the South African market, to underpin the trend of remote working by focusing on unified communication (UC), online meetings and social collaboration.
Cisco says its “next-generation” WebEx Meetings solution helps workers collaborate directly from Web applications they use every day. “There is also an integrated instant messaging client, as well as two-way HD video and voice over IP on mobile devices.”
According to Cisco, WebEx Meetings has been downloaded for mobile devices more than three million times, and on average 31 million people attend a WebEx meeting per month. Cisco recently announced it was extending the reach and appeal of WebEx Meetings by introducing a free version, which supports up to three attendees in a meeting. WebEx Meetings runs on most popular computing devices, including Apple and Android mobile phones and tablets.
On the social collaboration front, Cisco WebEx Social helps employees share knowledge, find experts and information, and form effective virtual work teams. The software unifies social and real-time solutions, such as video, voice, instant messaging, presence and Web conferencing, into a single user experience.
Cisco says the new social feature includes browser-based video calling, where people can seamlessly escalate to a high-definition video conferencing session, without going to a separate application.
Conrad Steyn, Cisco SA collaboration product sales specialist, says mobility is becoming even more important for employees globally, and increasingly in SA. “[South Africans] are asking for solutions for mobility and collaboration, while companies are looking for cost-efficient ways to make such technologies available.”
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