The way we work – and where we work – has changed immensely in the past decade alone. That transformation will continue with the ongoing proliferation of communications devices.
According to Gartner, an estimated 40% of the workforce will be mobile by 2016. In addition, more organizations have employees in different buildings, cities, states, and even countries.
Collaboration is critical to business success and innovation, but the changes in the workplace require new ways to collaborate. No longer can you rely on being able to huddle at the cubicle down the hall.
Fortunately, advancing technologies have empowered people to engage and innovate anywhere, anytime.
To support this transition, today’s IT staff must wear multiple hats. Gone are the days when you’d have a dedicated voice guru, a specialized video expert, and someone else to support collaboration tools. Multiple trends are converging and with them, IT job roles are blending. In many organizations, video and voice specialist roles have converged to become a single specialty.
As a network engineer, how do you convey and prove that you have the skill set to deliver business value using Cisco collaboration solutions? Through certification.
Today, Cisco announced an expansion of its Collaboration Certification Portfolio that provides training on how to deploy collaboration technology most effectively.
The Collaboration Certification portfolio now includes associate (CCNA) and professional (CCNP) levels, offering a complete career path for collaboration, voice, and video network engineers who want to enhance their skills to embrace the new way of working.
The benefits? Those pursuing Cisco Collaboration certification and training can look forward to the following:
- Development of video and voice skills that will allow network engineers and others to meet an ongoing talent gap in these areas
- Curricula and labs focused on real-world best practices incorporating the latest Cisco collaboration products and solutions
- A complete career certification track that validates Cisco Collaboration mastery from the Associate through the Expert level
These new certifications will have major impact on individuals and organizations alike, ensuring that network engineers bring the latest collaboration knowledge to proverbial table – regardless of whether that table is at company headquarters or a coffee shop in Timbuktu.
To learn more, please visit: Cisco Collaboration Certification.
Tejas,
Does this means that Cisco is going to replace CCNP Voice with CCNP Collab?
Hi Jose,
Yes. The CCNP Voice certification will retire in the fall of 2015. An exact retirement date will be communicated later. See the following for details:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/ccna-ccnp-collaboration
Regards,
-Errol
Glad to see Cisco investing in new and relevant certifications. Technology changes at a breakneck-speed, and should certifications. Collaboration touches EVERY part of a customers network which makes it even more crucial to understand all workings of technology.
Tejas,
Thanks for highlighting the needed updates to the Collab certs to keep them relevant to the needs of today! Off the collab topic and more general to our overall certification strategy, when will we start seeing Cloud, Programability (ACI) certs become available?
Hi Marcus,
Regarding Cloud and ACI, L@C is focused on delivering current certifications that reflect today’s job roles. We have some ACI trainings and exams in the Network Programmability area now. Go hereto explore: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/network-programmability
Typically we don’t discuss our roadmap in a public forum. Stay tuned for more announcements in the near future.
Regards,
-Errol
Sounds good but I am intrigued to see what the difference in real time will be between a CCNA and a CCNA Collaboration? Would the basics be the same with an add on or would it be totally different suject content wise?
They are indeed pretty different, each of them really focused on the specific topics that relates to that technology. As technologies specialize more and more we had to specialize our certifications as well. This trend has been going on since a while now.