As the world transitions to a hybrid work environment, organizations require solutions that are flexible, supportive and inclusive. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) has recently unveiled an all-new Webex Suite with innovations to serve as the foundation for inclusive hybrid work and events, delivering unmatched levels of flexibility and personalization for everyone.
With 98 percent of future meetings expected to include at least one remote participant, this mixed mode of working (blending remote and in-person interactions) is fueling long-lasting implications on work culture, event engagement and technology. This requires investing more broadly – beyond the traditional conference room – to fundamentally reimagine the new requirements of hybrid events and a hybrid workforce. The way organizations worked pre-pandemic and during the pandemic will be starkly different in this next wave of work – where good enough is simply not enough.
“Cisco’s collaboration business is incredibly essential to our customers,” said Albert Chai, Managing Director of Cisco Malaysia. “The latest advancements we are bringing to Webex present an opportunity not only for our customers to enhance their current hybrid work arrangement and experience, but also enabling organizations in Malaysia to rethink their approach to a workplace strategy that is driven by culture, connections and innovations.”
The surge in remote working over the past year has tripled the consumption of Webex in Malaysia. For such an increasingly digital market, Webex Suite is more than just a technology for organizations to effectively adapt to the hybrid future of work. Its application holds the potential to enable collaborative and innovative services that fuel the continued digitization of many economic sectors, including utility, oil and gas, financial services, education, healthcare and public sector.
“With all the integrations the team has added – 800 new features and devices since September – we truly have the most comprehensive meetings, calling, messaging, and event management solution on the market powering the future of hybrid work,” said Hariharan S., Managing Director of Collaboration for Asia Pacific Japan & China at Cisco. “To be successful in the era of hybrid work, organizations need to make sure their solutions are flexible, inclusive, supportive, secure, and easily managed on the backend by IT. The all-new Webex Suite ensures everyone in a hybrid workforce has equal opportunity and voice.”
New Webex advancements include:
- Increased Value: The all-new Webex Suite is the industry’s first suite for hybrid work to combine meetings, calling, messaging, polling and events in one offering for up to 40 percent less than a-la-carte. The new Webex identity and logo unveiled earlier this month were reinvented to reflect the powerful purpose and value Webex brings to the market, its customers and people’s lives.
- End-to-End Events: A complete events execution and management platform necessary in the next era of hybrid events. Full capabilities of the industry’s first end-to-end event experience at scale will become available upon completion of Cisco’s Socio acquisition.
- Audience Interaction Tools: Polling, quizzes, Q&A and more powered by Slido, is the industry’s first audience engagement solution to be integrated across all collaboration experiences. Polling is available now in Meetings and will be coming soon to Events.
- Speech Intelligence: Building upon Webex’s market-leading noise removal and speech enhancement capabilities, users will have the new ability of speech optimization for remote and shared workspaces through My Voice Only to eliminate background noise, including speech from people in the background, and solelyfocus on the main speaker’s speech. My Voice Only will be available worldwide in August 2021.
- Camera Intelligence: People Focus, announced earlier this year, is coming to Webex in 2021. People Focus uses machine learning and AI technology to individually re-frame meeting participants who are spread across a meeting room allowing remote participants to feel more connected and everyone in the meeting to benefit from seeing body language, facial expressions and more.
- Next-level Devices: The Webex Desk provides a powerful all-in-one collaboration device designed for the desk at work or home. Immersive collaboration experiences are also available with modern touch interactions via RoomOS that connects workflows with less context switching, as well as Webex Assistant Skills platform that opens up of universe of voice-powered extensions to seamlessly and easily integrate more controls, content and applications for Webex Devices.
- Secure Experiences: The industry’s first real-time data loss prevention for Webex, which automatically blocks and removes confidential information in places like Messaging. With this real-time data loss prevention, users can prohibit classified content from being stored in the cloud rather than redacting or deleting content after it is posted. Webex users will also benefit from strengthened end-to-end encryption options, including augmenting end-to-end encryption with end-to-end verified identity. Now, customer do not have to choose between usability and security, and benefit from both.
Pricing and Availability
Webex Suite is available today and will be priced at 40 percent lower than a-la-carte.
