Technology has and will continue to be a key enabler across every product delivery channel within the financial services sector. You simply need to explore some of the newer bank branches, available applications within app stores or investigate online innovations inherent in many institutions’ web presence to see how engrained technology has become in the customer experience. While firms are making this transition in differentiated form factors and across different channels, the trend itself is clear and pervasive; underpinned by the “anywhere, anytime” mantra and the continued consumerization of technology.
These channel developments cut across all products, but all have one common element – enabling improved and increased collaboration between institutions, their clients, businesses and/or consumers to drive accretive revenue. While these developments have and will continue to deliver impressive initial returns, they are largely siloed by either a business unit and/or delivery channel. The true potential value can only be unlocked by enabling a seamless and contextual integration of the physical, direct and mobile channels – the evolution from multi-channel to omnichannel.
The omnichannel model enables the customer to choose how and by what method they want to conduct their business, be that in person, via a mobile device, from the home, online or with telephony. Cisco’s IBSG team has published a white paper that looks into the transformation of institutions from multi-channel to omnichannel. While the method of communication is important, the true differentiator in transformational channel evolution is the ability to integrate interaction. Institutions must be aware of the context and outcomes of customer interactions as customers move from channel to channel, product to product, or business line to business line.
From an institutional point of view, the value in the omnichannel impacts multiple factors. Read More »
As Cisco Marketing Velocity wrapped up in Cannes last week, Sherri Liebo, Cisco’s vice president, global partner marketing, offered a final takeaway and call to action to the 200 Cisco partners in attendance.
WISDOM.
Repeat: “What I say and do differently on Monday.”
Girls and careers in information communications technology (ICT). A contradiction?
Unfortunately that is the case in so many classrooms and companies around the world. Teenage girls use computers and the Internet similar to boys -- they text, they take pictures on their phones, yet they are five times less likely to consider a technology-related career. In fact, in the OECD countries, women account for less than 20% of ICT specialists. Today, on International Girls in ICT Day, I’m wondering how we can reverse that trend.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at Fairmont Heights High School in Capitol Heights, Maryland. I had the privilege of talking to dozens of young women who are passionate about technology and are getting trained and certified in IT skills through Cisco’s Networking Academy program. I also met Ashley Covington, a Networking Academy graduate who is currently a systems administrator for the City of Baltimore public schools. Ashley told us that she loves her job and “I take pride in my data center.” That is music to my ears.
Virtual meetings have become an increasingly important part of the workday. Companies rely on technology such as video and web conferencing to help geographically distributed teams collaborate and be more productive.
The common denominator in all of these virtual meetings is the conference call. It’s a fact that the quality of the audio usually dictates the quality of the meeting. Think about how many times people complain about the audio breaking up, being too loud or too soft, or simply asking to repeat questions or points discussed because the voice quality is just not good enough?
New Cisco Unified IP Conference Phone 8831
The new Cisco Unified IP Conference Phone 8831 – a new phone purpose-built for the conference room – solves many of these audio challenges. Now, each user joining a meeting can expect the best possible meeting experience, with high quality audio that is akin to being in the room itself. The traditional definition of a meeting has changed, and with it, the tools needed to have a successful meeting experience must evolve as well.
As anyone who has led a meeting knows, the key to a successful meeting is engagement. But employees won’t speak up and engage if they’re frustrated by the meeting experience – if they can’t hear others or aren’t being heard if they speak up themselves. Large meetings can sometimes suffer from a lack of productivity and results because of this lack of participation.
Great challenges can bring great opportunities to any business, and with the inevitability of cloud on the horizon, IT organizations will need to embrace this change. Taking the first, second or even third step can be scary, but the return on taking such risks will pay off so long as the IT organization champions the deployment.
Cisco itself has also had to face these risks of deploying cloud, and has already embarked on the private cloud (IaaS) journey —all the way from virtualizing the compute, network, and storage resources to integrating change management, and metering services for “pay as you use”.
Some of the challenges that we encountered typical that other IT organizations could face in cloud adoption were:
• Ensuring security. Each cloud solution has to be matched to appropriate security capabilities. The new capabilities may include centralized management (vs. trying to manage firewalls on ever-changing edges or trying to manage security on each endpoint), scalable multi-tenant architectures, real-time threat analysis and dynamic mitigation delivery.
• Navigating the required steps. Even the public cloud model is never one-size-fits-all. A successful cloud initiative requires several best practice steps, which occur in three phases:
Plan, including aligning the business and architecture strategies, planning and design, and security.
Build, including staging, testing, and implementing solutions and systems integration.
Manage, including network assurance, remote monitoring/diagnostics/alerts, optimization, and support.
• Establishing the business justification. Calculate the projected and actual ROI from cloud project expenses for equipment and services.
It’s very rare for any IT organization to already have all the in-house expertise and experience that’s required for a cloud project. This will eventually happen, but IT organizations can fast-track their cloud initiatives by partnering with a company that understands the cloud journey.
Cisco Services has a proven methodology for implementing private clouds that can help ensure your agency makes a smooth and effective transition to cloud. It starts with the Cisco Domain TenSM discussion to identify where you need to focus among ten crucial areas:
Cisco Cloud Enablement Services professionals and Cisco Certified Partners can guide you through any, or all, of the plan, build, and manage steps. They can help you integrate the entire cloud solution, including reducing the complexity of security.
New cloud platforms are rapidly transforming government IT—just as client/server and mainframe/terminal platforms did in decades past.
If you embark on the cloud journey, you’re committing to an exciting and long-term opportunity. And when you step out your door to head to work each day, you’ll be an agent of change for your organization and your career.
I’m curious, what do you see as the biggest challenges to a government entity adopting a cloud model?
Stay tuned to view upcoming installations of the Cloud for Local Government blog series or click here to register and reserve your copy of the complete compilation of the blog series, including this blog as well as a variety of cloud resources, which will be available in May.
