Year: 2017

May 26, 2017 Leave a Comment
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Keeping your edge by delighting customers

Unbeatable video quality and intelligent content discovery are two key elements of a great customer experience.

Online video is a competitive market, with many different companies providing similar services. But there’s one way that businesses really can stand out – and that’s by providing a memorable customer experience.

Making it easy and enjoyable for viewers to watch high quality video sounds simple enough. But rapid growth in this field is creating new challenges.

Cisco research predicts that by 2020, video will make up four fifths of internet traffic, and it will be watched using 11 billion connected video devices. So there’ll be more and more people watching video, using more and more different devices. To keep their edge in the future, service providers will need to be at the top of their game.

Maintaining high standards in a world of increasing complexity

Until now, most service providers have distributed video along fragmented pathways, with broadcast, cable, on demand and over-the-top content all kept separate. But as the demands for video content become larger and more sophisticated, this model is going to be increasingly difficult to keep going with. Legacy systems will not be able to cope with either the sheer scale of the demand, or the growing expectations for seamless access across different devices and networks.

The Cisco Infinite Video Platform uses virtualisation technology to bring these different pipelines together, helping telecoms businesses meet the challenges of the future.

Its cloud-based software as a service model gives providers visibility across the whole system, and the ability to analyse it in real time. This allows them to manage video quality and network usage effectively. So they can reliably distribute a wide range of great content, including ultra high definition 4K video.

Content discovery – a key differentiator

High quality video is an essential element of a great user experience, but it’s not enough on its own. It’s becoming increasingly important for service providers to act as aggregators, bringing lots of content together into one place. With so many programmes now available, customers need user-friendly discovery tools to find a rewarding path through them.

The rich data and analytical power of the Infinite Video Platform make it possible for service providers to help people find what they want – and make recommendations if they aren’t quite sure. You can make services truly personal, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing churn. And our technology makes it possible for businesses to come up with ever more innovative ways of navigating content. In Germany, for example, Vodafone is using the Infinite Video Platform to power a voice-enabled search for its GigaTV service, creating a more human way to access their service.

Exceeding expectations

This may only be one part of the customer’s experience, but when all of these details come together, they really help a company to stand out. And the importance of that should not be underestimated. According to experts from McKinsey, “brands that can improve the customer journey see revenues increase as much as 10-15%”.

As online video grows more complex, it becomes even more important to do the simple things well. But success is also about going beyond people’s expectations. Cisco technology can help you meet both these goals, providing services that customers can depend on – and that delight them.

Find out how an integrated video platform can help you create a memorable customer experience. Get more resources here. 

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Adam Davies

Technical Leader, Engineering

Service Provider, Video Solutions

May 25, 2017 Leave a Comment
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Update: U.S. Patent and Trade Office Reviews

Update (6/01/2017): We disagree with the Patent Office decision regarding the ‘668 patent, particularly since the ITC rejected Arista’s validity challenges and found the patent both valid and infringed. We intend to appeal the Patent Office’s decision, which will be the final determination regarding validity of the ‘668 patent. The Patent Office’s decision here has no impact on the other patents Cisco has asserted in its District Court case.

______________________________________________________________

Cisco is pleased that the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (U.S. PTO) upheld the validity of our ‘537 patent, which covers Cisco’s proprietary SysDB technology. ITC enforcement proceedings addressing Arista’s continued infringement on this patent are underway. These enforcement proceedings are a key step in determining whether Arista’s redesigned products continue to use IP copied from Cisco.

We are disappointed in this U.S. PTO decision surrounding the ‘577 patent, which had been authored by Arista founders Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton when they were Cisco executives. The decision does not directly impact the ITC ‘945 proceedings, where infringement was found and the ITC refused to allow Arista to seek to invalidate patents that its own employees had created, and which creates a ground for appeal, as well, of the U.S. PTO decision on that patent. For that infringement, a bond is currently required for import or sale of Arista’s infringing products, and an import ban and cease and desist order are expected to go into effect beginning July 4.

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Mark Chandler

Retired | Executive Vice President

Chief Legal and Compliance Officer

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Cisco ACI and Citrix NetScaler win Best of Citrix Synergy 2017 Award

The Best of Citrix Synergy 2017 award was announced today at Citrix synergy, Orlando. Read awards related Blog here. Check winner’s slideshow here.

Winner: Storage, Networking and Infrastructure—Cisco Network Automation Solution with Cisco ACI and Citrix NetScaler from Cisco

I want to extend my congratulations to the entire team at Cisco Insieme Business Unit and recognize their hard work in developing this award winning product.

Cisco appreciates the recognition from the Best of Synergy judges and it’s a great complement to the recognition ACI is getting from its customers. There was a multi-fold spike in customer interest for ACI throughout the event after the awards news was announced.

Visit us at Cisco Live 2017, to learn more about the Cisco ACI and Citrix NetScaler joint solution.

 

Related Links

www.cisco.com/go/dcecosystem

www.cisco.com/acicitrix

www.cisco.com/go/aci

https://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/cisco-aci-partner-ecosystem-packs-a-punch-65-partners-and-growing

http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/changing-the-game-with-cisco-aci-and-netscaler-mas-integration-customers-benefit-from-full-l2-l7-automation-and-native-operational-flexibility

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Ravi Balakrishnan

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Datacenter Solutions

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Winning With The Best #WeAreCisco #Maythe4th Post In All The Galaxy

A few months ago, a fellow Cisco employee set the ball rolling on a wild, fun, Star Wars adventure.

He asked in an all-company meeting, the Cisco Beat, if we could celebrate Star Wars Day #Maythe4th as a company. I love to bring a bit of goofiness into work, and it’s always exciting when we get to do it on the company level (#nerdalert.)

When @WeAreCisco announced the #WeAreCisco #LoveWhereYouWork #Maythe4th contest at another one of our Cisco Beats, I was super jazzed, and almost forgot the question I had prepared for the ELT (Executive Leadership Team). My manager was watching at the same time on CiscoTV in Sweden. He emailed me immediately and said “I expect you to win this.”

My Cisco family readily embraces my particular nerd tastes and have come to love the hidden R2D2 references and team offsite requests to see Rogue One. Alas, not everyone is as big of a fan as me, however, my fandom lives in legend.

My favorite Star Wars films are actually the prequels, which I know are not everyone’s cup of tea. I find them wonderfully quirky, endearing and cheesy (who doesn’t love cheese?!). However, The Force Awakens also holds a place in my heart because it showcased a female heroine who kicks butt and is still able to connect emotionally with the audience. Plus, there’s BB-8, and you can’t save the galaxy without your faithful robot sidekick.

I have a whole closet of Star Wars costumes and choosing the best costume and scene for my entry took some careful storyboarding. My favorite costume is a Padmé Amidala robe that I had made in Morocco. Fun fact – did you know that many of the Star Wars costumes are inspired by the traditional North African dress, and that Tatooine was filmed in Tunisia? However, I really wanted to highlight both girls in tech and some of my favorite parts about working in tech at Cisco. The clear choice to properly represent girlpower in tech is Rey, so I started crafting the scene on Jakku.

Luckily, my little sidekick Roxy (BB8) and my fiancé are used to my crazy schemes. We spent an afternoon on the beach in Santa Cruz getting the right shot. Roxy had fun being BB-8 and got plenty of attention from the ‘extras’ on the beach. In the end, I think we found the perfect representation of the sand dunes of Jakku by standing on the construction pipes.

Winning photo
My winning entry!

One of the best parts about working at Cisco is that Cisco technology allows us to stay connected no matter where you are. I love to travel, give back to my community, and work on real world problems. With Cisco, I can do it all. Some weeks you’ll find me on the Great Wall of China, other times volunteering in Ghana or my own community. As a Program Manager for Cisco’s Global Alliance Team, I build relationships, influence change, and manage day-to-day operations from either Santa Cruz or Romania, wherever the work, the wind or the cause takes me.

When I told my manager I had won the #WeAreCisco #Maythe4th contest he said, “Of course you did!” (See all of the #WeAreCisco #LoveWhereYouWork #Maythe4th entries here.)

To all girls in tech and anyone who wants to work at Cisco, my advice is don’t be afraid to be authentic and always take on the big challenges. After all, success is concentrated where there is laughter.

Be you’re authentic self with us! #WeAreCisco and you can see open roles here.

 

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Faina Segal

Program Manager

Global Partner Organization – Ericsson Alliance

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Clearing the Fog Around Automation

Our last blogs highlighted the success factors for SDN & NFV transformation and the three pathways to Service Provider (SP) transformation. Many of you have responded to the results of the study. While the research was a qualitative look at issues facing SPs as they adopt NFV and SDN, we will focus this discussion on the business benefits of automation. It is a key component for delivering the agility and lower operating costs built into vision for NFV.  We will share some real world examples of how we have helped customers automate their service and network operations. We will show you what they were able to achieve as they followed the technology evolution pathway identified in the study.

Technology evolution focuses on deploying key building blocks of SDN and NFV, by virtualizing a few core functions. With this approach SPs like you can minimize risks, dependencies and organizational change.

The study shows that service providers are pursuing SDN and NFV mainly to gain more agility and network efficiency.  Automation is a primary driver for only a small number of respondents. Yet it can play a significant role in achieving other objectives like agility, network efficiency and cost savings.

 

The research also shows that SPs recognize they need to change their operating model to deliver virtualized services. In fact, 29 percent of them are making the shift to agile or DevOps operations.  Another half of the respondents are making plans for this kind of change.

You can jump start your journey to NFV and SDN with automation.  With it you can bring greater agility, and you can drive to a new operating model. Automation provides flexibility and improves existing operations. It positions you to deliver virtualized and hybrid services. Customer like Softbank have improved their time-to-delivery by 70 percent and reduced man-hours by 86 percent.

We have worked with a number of our customers who want to automate their operations. We have helped them analyze the value automation can bring to their businesses. Using data from their existing operations, we have quantified the impact automation has on their service delivery.

Automation can help you:

  • Provision services more quickly
  • Speed up order to cash
  • Reduce time to perform tasks
  • Improve customer satisfaction

We have created a benchmark to show best-in-class VPN operations from this work. The best SPs spent 5.8 person-hours to provision new customers and improved their process time by 78 percent. The benchmark data also shows change requests and MOP (Method of Procedures) execution were 81 percent faster after automation. Download the benchmark data to see where you stand.  As the data shows, when it comes to achieving best-in-class performance in service delivery, automation is a great place to start.

Source: Cisco Automation Benchmark

Cisco’s Open Network Architecture offers SPs the technology solutions that allow a speedy adoption of SDN and NFV technologies in their networks. It encompasses a broad set of automation solutions like the Network Services Orchestrator that will provide service agility and operational efficiency.

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Sanjeev Mervana

Vice President of Product Management

Emerging Technologies & Incubation

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Hot Spots and Hot Sauce

Have fun and make money. That’s the mantra of Nando’s restaurant. A fast-causal chain that began in South Africa and has since gone global. Recently, they realized that customers wanted more than their spicy peri-peri chicken. And to keep having fun and making money, they needed to change the way they did marketing. So, they turned to Cisco partner Turnstyle for help.

Turnstyle says…

We had a global restaurant chain – Nando’s – that wanted to create an effective email and SMS marketing program. Getting opt-ins and making sure customers cared about the content they received was a challenge. Posting deals on their website alone wasn’t doing the trick. They had a form, but customers weren’t filling it out, and they needed an alternative solution to reach customers and bring them into the restaurant.

Using Cisco hardware to offer wi-fi for the guests of their restaurant locations, we created a custom branded splash page that advertised promotions for Nando’s customers when they opted-in to receive marketing messages. By rewarding customers with free Wi-Fi access and exclusive offers in exchange for joining their marketing program, Nando’s has been able to grow their marketing database by an average of 650 contacts per location per month.

Thanks, Turnstyle!

The story doesn’t end there.

If you’re looking for ways to take your marketing digital, check out Cisco Engage. We’ve got training and resources to help you wherever you are in your own digital marketing process.

For more information on Turnstyle, visit: www.getturnstyle.com

Meet other Cisco partners helping customers around the world.

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Julie Colwell

Marketing Manager

Global Partner Marketing

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Making Education the Foundation for our Innovation Economy

Over the past few weeks I have had the good fortune to spend a lot of time with teachers and administrators of schools and school boards around the province (including my recent keynote to OPSOA). I’ve been passionate about the critical role educators play in helping us shape our innovation economy and preparing our future workforce for a digital world.

The business leaders that I engage with daily all recognize that their organizations will be disrupted. Consequently, they appreciate that they will need to transform themselves over the next three to five years in order to stay productive, competitive, and relevant. During this transformation we will see yesterday’s jobs become obsolete, and new jobs be required for tomorrow’s reality. Already we’re seeing that six out of ten most popular jobs today did not exist ten years ago. With great certainty, we can say that industry’s expectations and the jobs of tomorrow will look even more different than today.

The kids in elementary or high school today will end up entering a workforce and economy where we don’t know what it currently looks like. Tomorrow’s economy is being transformed and disrupted by current-day technologies such as mobile, video, internet of things, big data, analytics, and cloud/edge computing. Furthermore, drones, robots, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and autonomous cars (just to name a few) are technological advances that will further re-define our future.

Our new reality poses some serious challenges to today’s educators.

First, “what” we teach needs to be updated and upgraded to reflect the rapid changing needs from tomorrows industries. Coding skills become equally relevant to learning math, history, and language (both English and French in Canada). Not every child will become a programmer, but every child will need to understand how future roles will evolve and new jobs will be created. This is not a higher education or K-12 challenge alone. This transformation relates to the whole education ecosystem…preparing our students for a new reality – from kindergarten through college and universities, including access to continuous learning after we enter the workforce. “Learning” in today’s Information Age and digital economy will never stop.

Second, “education” is an industry itself that will increasingly be disrupted in the Digital Age. Like every other sector, the education industry needs to transform itself and embrace digital capabilities to enable, differentiate and (re)define itself.

In K-12 we see some clear opportunities on how to renew, rethink, and re-imagine the future of education:

Anytime and Anywhere

Learning does not only happen in the classroom in front of a teacher. With mobile and video technologies, every child can learn whenever and wherever. The classroom dynamic is about to change. There will be more time for inclusive and personalized learning and teaching. For example: meet Peyton Walton. Peyton is 10 years old and had to undergo cancer treatment while being away from school. To help her through this tough time, what she really needed was the normalcy of her classroom and being with her friends:

https://youtu.be/Bf1QUYXUZrY

Global Classrooms

Experiences in the classroom can be enriched with video technologies and emerging capabilities such as virtual and augmented reality. Children can visit countries, cultures, museums, peoples, etc. in ways they’ve never experienced before. Immersive experiences will (re)engage students in new manners. There will be more time for richer, experiential learning and teaching. For example: Connected North is connecting over 100 indigenous classrooms across Canada with each other, and schools and institutions across the country. Learning extends beyond the walls of (remote) classrooms. Children across the country are learning from one another and they each get to experience global curriculum as if it happens right in front of them:

https://youtu.be/CSjslZ4hr_4

Smart Schools

Technology allows school boards to redirect cost of schools and operations to learning and teaching (where the spending belongs). The Internet of Things connects all the building and learning systems in schools and classrooms. Big data analytics as well as centralized control and operations will streamline the performance of the physical assets. Spaces become more dynamic and responsive to the changing needs of the educator and student, while being cheaper to operate.

It is time for education administrators to see the disruption of economies and industries (their own included). Our children are a lot more ready for the digital world than we give them credit for. The question we should ask ourselves: are we providing the appropriate skills, learning experiences, and teaching environments that will truly prepare them for tomorrow’s future? Are we giving our teachers the tools and resources so they can renew, rethink, and re-imagine the future of education?

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Rick Huijbregts

Vice President

Smart Connected Communities

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Is it time to hire cybersecurity guardians for the network? 

Another day, another hack. It seems like every time we turn on the news, we are hearing about another company that has been breached. Hackers are not going away and are getting progressively sophisticated as companies struggle to equip their security teams with the tools and expertise to protect their assets. Partnering with a security services provider has become a common practice when faced with worries over understanding and investigating the threat landscape, as well as responding to a breach. Not every company that wants to grow has the extra time and resources to deal with the daily barrage of attacks.

Concerns over cybersecurity are impeding innovation – too much is at stake to risk. The damage caused by breaches goes far beyond the time and money it takes to deal with outage; the substantial impact comes from tainted reputation and lost business opportunity. Forced to deal with an involuntary disclosure of a breach, companies are increasingly looking to external experts for security guidance around preparing, managing, responding to, and recovering from incidents quickly and effectively.

 

How do you think companies should fight back? How to remove the burden of detection, investigation and remediation from the in-house security teams? What about recovering a network and rebuilding trust after a breach – when is the time to turn to an expert?

Join #CiscoChat on Wed, June 7th at 11AM PST to talk about alleviating the stress of dealing with the advanced threat landscape.

 

 

To participate in the #Ciscochat:

  • Make sure you’re logged into your Twitter account.
  • Follow @CiscoServices on Twitter.
  • Search for the #CiscoChat hashtag and click on the Latest tab.
  • Add to the conversation by using the #CiscoChat hashtag in your tweets. This way, others can find your contributions to the discussion.
  • When replying to specific participants, add a “.” at the beginning of the tweet so your question or comment will appear in your public twitter feed.
  • If you need multiple tweets to answer a question, preface each tweet with “1A,” “2A,” etc. This will make it easier for others to follow along with the conversation.

 

Welcome introductions and questions will begin at 11am PT. Don’t forget to bring your own questions to the discussion, too. See you there!

 

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Sean Mason

Director, Threat Management & Incident Response

Cisco Security Advisory Services

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Welcome to Cisco Bedfont Lakes – The UK’s Flagship Office

Where can you “chill out,” watch airplanes, work with a “wellbeing ambassador” and take a quick jaunt into London if you’d like?

Welcome to Cisco in Bedfont Lakes, United Kingdom!

Bedfont Lakes

Bedfont Lakes Rainbow

Should you ever have the opportunity to visit or interview at our location, we thought we’d share a few tidbits to make your experience even better (than it already will be, of course.)

 

What’s your claim to Cisco fame?

Our office in Bedfont Lakes is our flagship office in the UK – one of 15 –  where we regularly host a range of visitors, from interview candidates to potential and existing customers providing  demos of our cutting edge technology.

Bedfont Lakes

How do I get there, please?

The Bedfont Lakes office is situated in a business park close to Heathrow Airport and is about 40 minutes away from the center of London. The campus has three buildings and is home to a large proportion of UK employees. But it’s more than buildings, It’s surrounded by a beautiful park and a lake, which can be viewed from the majority of our “chill out zones” and coffee areas.

Getting here is easy! Those coming to Feltham / Hatton Cross stations can use one of the free Bedfont Lakes (BL) shuttle buses, which will drop you off directly in front of the office. If you’re driving, there are over 1m100 car spaces available for Cisco employees on the campus, including parking spaces for those with special needs and primo spaces for expecting mothers.

Now that I’m here, what goodies does the office have for me?

Bedfont Lakes

Take some time to wander around the office, you never know what you’ll find. But here are a few things not to miss.

Customer Experience Centers (CEC)

Located on the ground floor in Building 9, this is where you’ll find the latest intelligent network solutions we offer. You’ll be one of many of the visitors from around the world that have stopped by!

Cisco TV and Virtual Event Centre (VEC)

Watch out – recording in progress! Our real life TV studio, where we record different materials (news, communications, training) for internal and external purposes. Our biggest meetings are also live-broadcoast from here. You can find this space on the ground floor in building 10.

Chill out zones

You can find many “chill out zones” in all three Cisco buildings at Bedfont Lakes. This is where we come to relax or take a break. How? Well, there are massage chairs (ahhhhh!), nap pods for getting your energy back, and games – like Scrabble and puzzle-solving fun. We work hard, and we relax hard (which energizes us to work hard again.)

Chill zone
Just chillin’ 🙂

Sounds like you’re inside the office a lot?

We are, and we’re not. 🙂

When the weather is nice, you can relax outside the office, on one of the benches or bean bags, enjoy the view of the lake and observe the planes taking off and landing at Heathrow airport. Did you know that every day at Heathrow a plane takes off and lands every 45 seconds?

Bedfont Lakes Country Park is also a short walk from the office and is one of the top tourist attractions in the borough. This big green open space has many plants and birds and you can walk, picnic, go orienteering and fishing. The Lake itself looks pretty and tranquil in every season and provides a great place for ducks and swans (and there are fuzzy babies in spring!)

The park also features the highest point in the borough, Monolith Hill and, on a clear day, you enjoy the view of Windsor Castle and the Wembley Arch.

Bedfont Lakes lake

What should I wear? Isn’t the UK quite fashionable?

Dress code in the office is smart causal. You see many variations of style – from jeans and t-shirt to fashionistas to classic business formal. It all depends what type of role you perform and whether you interact with customers, and what your individual style preference is.

Let’s have coffee and talk?

Coffee lovers will be in their element! We have two onsite two Starbucks to choose from! One is in the building 10 Deli and the other in the building 9 restaurant. Then you can sip your very complicated but lovely beverage in one of the coffee areas we have in each of the buildings.

What else can you tell me?

We’re family friendly! We take care of the entire Cisco Family, including its littlest members. Our employees can use the Cisco Early Years Nursery and Preschool, which is run by Bright Horizons and is located in one of the buildings in the campus. It has a beautiful outdoor play space and garden where Cisco kids can learn and play. Now, parents can pop in and have a look at how their toddlers are doing during their break at work.

Plus, we have lots of services on site, like:

  • Beauty treatments (looking good!)
  • Car washes
  • Dry cleaning
  • Electric car charging stations (because, the environment!)

Wow, I’ve worked up an appetite. Where are we going for lunch?

We have an onsite restaurant where you can chose from a range of delicious meals. There is a good choice of healthy options and the more indulgent depending what you fancy! Lunch is served (but also breakfast, if you pop in earlier.)

If you want to grab some coworkers and head out for lunch (or dinner) then Richmond is a great place to head to. It’s a lovely town situated upon the river Thames, with beautiful Royal parks, open spaces, historic houses, and a lively town center full of coffee places and restaurants.

Now I have food coma. Help?

At Cisco in Europe,  we follow Jessie Pavelka’s philosophy which encourages you to “Eat, Sweat, Think, and Connect.” Jessie is our Wellbeing Ambassador and shares with us different tips within those four areas of health.

For those who love sport and who are keen to stay more active, we have an onsite gym. You can pay as you go or sign up for a membership to pop in and use the facilities or take part in a group class.

We’re a little competitive here, so if you fancy a game of “table football” you can challenge us at your own risk and find a table in the back of building 9 and 10. Or, if you fancy pool, there is a pool table in the Building 11 Deli area.

When is the best time to pay you a visit?

Bedfont Lakes always welcomes its visitors, no matter what the season –   there is always something happening! From a very popular Pub Quiz, delicious Barbecue, bring your kids to work day, to our quarterly Movie Nights and different charity initiatives, such as Movember. So why not visit over and over?

If I visit, where should I stay?

Since Bedfont Lakes is very close to Heathrow airport, there are many hotels that can be reached easily within a few minutes from the office by taxi. There is a shuttle bus service between the Bedfont Lakes office and Sheraton Skyline, which can be arranged through the hotel concierge desk.

Hope to see you soon at Cisco Bedfont Lakes!

See other Cisco site guides here.

If you’d like to work at any one of our Cisco sites, be sure to check out open opportunities on Cisco Careers.

 

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Aga Pajak

Local HR

Human Resources