Year: 2015

March 17, 2015 Leave a Comment
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Join the Revolution – Change Your Daily Routine

Today’s announcement of Cisco Spark is about much more than a new app for team collaboration. It is about the modernization of businesses from traditional organizations to next-generation or agile enterprises. Rowan compares this change in the way people work to the beginning of a revolution. I think it’s important for us to realize the magnitude of the opportunity ahead of us. Only collaboration technology can truly change the way people communicate and empower them to work better together. Cisco’s portfolio is stronger than ever – and we will continue to innovate and simplify with new products like Cisco Spark, the MX800 Dual, Context Service for contact centers, and our new video software. Combine that portfolio with the strength of the Cisco channel, and we have the ability to help our customers transform into the next-generation, agile enterprises they want—and need—to become.

This is some pretty big talk – galvanizing a revolution – to capture a $60 billion market. It’s certainly going to require change, but we can do it together if we start now.

I ran across this quote by leadership author John Maxwell the other day on Facebook, and I think it offers a good way for us to think about this big transformation: “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” I like this quote because it puts change into the perspective of the ordinary, of your “daily routine.” That seems more manageable than a revolution. Continue reading “Join the Revolution – Change Your Daily Routine”

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Richard McLeod

No Longer with Cisco

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Spark a Revolution

Today’s companies must evolve or face extinction. If they stand still, they’ll die. Pretty dramatic, I know, but that’s the reality. Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies will no longer be around in 10 years[1].

Companies in every industry know they need to move faster and innovate quickly to survive. But transforming traditional businesses into flexible, responsive, flat organizations built for speed is not easy. In fact, it’s massively challenging. But it’s this movement that will take us into the future.

Not everyone in the business world has adopted the concept of an “agile business,” but I am a believer. The move to agile has already begun. Even if some don’t get it, the people on the frontlines have already switched gears – the concept of agile was started by software developers, the people building the products and doing the work. Fourteen years later, agile may be the key to survival for businesses desperate to modernize their organizations in a digital era.

Look at the collaboration tools most people are using at work. They were built for businesses operating in a predictable world – a world of the past. Email, phones literally tied to your desk, and audio-only conferences worked well for yesterday’s business. But now, email is overloaded, the mobile is just as important as the desk phone, and audio-only conferences deliver a frustrating experience for everybody. Clearly we need something new. There isa whole host of tools that have entered the market to meet this growing demand for better collaboration experiences.

Today I am announcing how Cisco Spark, our team collaboration service launched as Project Squared in November, is changing the way companies get their work done. Continue reading “Spark a Revolution”

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Rowan Trollope

Senior Vice President and General Manager

IoT and Collaboration Technology Group

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We’re Happy to Oblige

My biggest take-away from today’s set of announcements? Customers just cannot get enough of Cisco video collaboration products.

Our new Cisco TelePresence MX800 Dual, for example, was not a planned product. But after experiencing the vast, single 70-inch screen of the original MX800 (now called MX800 Single), customers told us they wanted more of that great experience. They wanted a dual-screen version. And enough of them said it that we had to oblige; hence, the MX800 Dual with two expansive 70-inch screens to show video and content equally and brilliantly.

SS_Cisco stills_7_00439_take3_small

And not just dual screens, but dual cameras. What was once an option is now standard. The MX800 Dual is only available with the dual-camera, speaker-tracking system, because here again customers spoke. For the type of large rooms where the MX800 Dual is useful, dual cameras are required for the best visual experience. A single camera would only capture the full view of the room and participants would appear relatively small within it. Dual cameras bring the active speaker(s) full screen, basically giving everyone a front row seat and giving the meeting greater focus.

The MX800 Dual also comes to market with a few other notable enhancements that are enabled by the new Collaboration Endpoint Software 8.0 platform for Cisco room-based video systems. We are transitioning to this new software platform from what you may recall as the TC platform with TC 7.3 as the last release. The TC platform served us well for a long time, but the hardware that supported it was running out of processing power. We were forced to move to a new platform in order to continue to bring you the innovative features that you’ve come to expect from Cisco.

And innovate we did. Collaboration Endpoint Software 8.0 introduces these key new features: Continue reading “We’re Happy to Oblige”

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Snorre Kjesbu

Senior Vice President/General Manager of Webex Devices

Meeting Room Systems

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Context Matters: Announcing Context Service for Better Customer Care

“Hello, Mr. Famous, and thanks for calling 1-800-WeCanHelp! I see you bought three items from us last week, and you IM’d with our agent Chet yesterday when you had some questions about set-up. Are you calling about that same issue, or can I help you with something else?”

Calling customer service is never this painless or this easy. I usually start what can become a long, frustrating phone call by entering my account number into an interactive voice response (IVR) system. Typically, a customer service agent asks me to repeat it moments later. My call becomes a painful process of repetition. I provide numbers, ordering history, past calls to customer service, and loads of other information. And that’s before ever getting to how to solve the problem I called about in the first place.

But fast, painless, personal customer service is no longer just a dream.

Introducing Context Service for Cisco Contact Center

Today, we’re announcing Context Service for Cisco Contact Center, a cloud-based solution that tracks a customer’s critical contextual data and immediately delivers it to the service agent. Context Service integrates data from the various ways a customer can interact with your business – such as voice, chat, social media, email and web – to help the agent be better informed and make that service experience more appealing.

Context Service Diagram

With Context Service for Cisco Contact Center, a customer service agent has Continue reading “Context Matters: Announcing Context Service for Better Customer Care”

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Tod Famous

Senior Director, Product Management

Cisco Customer Contact Business Unit

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How the Intercloud Empowers Mobility Intelligence for Service Providers

When I talk to service providers around the world, many of them tell me how difficult it is to capture intelligent information about their customers’ mobile usage, including whom their top customers are, which social media sites are being accessed, and what information is being streamed live. What’s more, mobile data and usage continues to grow exponentially which will make capturing this information even more difficult over time. According to the most recent Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast by 2019, there will be over 21 billion mobile connections. In addition, mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57 percent, reaching 24.3 exabytes per month by 2019.

Now, mobile service providers need to better manage all Continue reading “How the Intercloud Empowers Mobility Intelligence for Service Providers”

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Kit Beall

Vice President

Cloud and Business Services

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Women of Impact’s 2015 Fearless Female: Annella Heytens

Roxanne EdwardsGuest Blog and Interview by Roxanne Edwards

At the Women of Impact Conference this year on March 19th, our focus is to empower attendees to Be Fearless – by taking risks, overcoming obstacles and blazing new trails in their personal and professional lives. The Conference focus is to connect, develop and inspire the women in technology at Cisco.

Learn why Annella Heytens, Vice President of Human Resources, APJC is our next featured Fearless Female.

We are impressionable at a very young age. The examples set by others can be inspiring and guide us in many directions.

Annella grew up in the Philippines and was inspired by her mother and grandmother who were both well educated women.   Annella’s mother was a nutritionist, and Annella followed in her footsteps. She holds Master’s degrees in nutrition and dietetics, but Annella is now Vice President of Human Resources and is responsible for 21,000 employees in over 18 countries. How did she get there?

Years ago, Annella’s then husband took a job in China and they relocated from Washington, DC. Annella, being a fearless female, interviewed for a human resources position without having any experience at all in the field. Annella assumed caring for people as a nutritionist or working for a retirement community developer wouldn’t be too far from a human resources function. The hiring manager took a risk on Annella, as she sensed Annella had the required skills and capabilities to master the job. Annella eventually became a managing consultant for one of the largest human resources consulting firms in the world in Beijing. Within three years under Annella’s leadership, her division became profitable for the first time.

Annella Heytens Photo

Annella is constantly paying it forward. She believes in taking a risk with others. Annella has influenced the hiring of many local leaders in AJPC. If they are motivated and have leadership capabilities, she’s willing to take a chance.

Annella loves to travel. She selects a new location every year for the family vacation. She enjoys champagne, chocolate and cheese (yes at the same time).

Have you registered for the Women of Impact Conference yet? It’s only 4 days away. For more conference details or registration information, click here:

Read about our other #FearlessFemales here and check out our #BeFearless #CiscoChat on Twitter.

Share with us with your stories and pictures how you can Be Fearless, tweet us @Cisco_WOI or find and Like us on Facebook on the Cisco Empowered Women’s Network Facebook page! Don’t forget to use the #WOI2015 hashtag!

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Rehana Rehman

No Longer with Cisco

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Traditional ISVs – Transform your Business into the World of Cloud Computing

If you’re a traditional on-premises software company, you’re in the right place. Today, I will talk about how cloud computing can transform your business. In a subsequent Cisco Blog, I’ll discuss the implication this move will have on your sales and distribution strategy.

Model One Business Model

Traditional software companies have operated in a Model One Business Model. In this on-premises model, the customer buys a perpetual license for software and then pays annual support and maintenance fees, which turn out to be another kind of subscription revenue stream.  While that might seem to be the end of the cost to the customer, it’s not. The customer is going to have to spend money managing the software – and it’s not cheap.

Continue reading “Traditional ISVs – Transform your Business into the World of Cloud Computing”

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Timothy Chou

Lecturer at Stanford University