Here, there and everywhere

Business decision makers are having a tough time. Disruption is everywhere, from the long tail of the pandemic to the war in Ukraine and ongoing challenges in global supply chains and energy.

Two technology trends have emerged — the move to hybrid working and the relentless shift of business applications and services to the cloud, both of which fall under the umbrella of digital transformation.

For many businesses and employees, collaboration platforms such as Webex have been the face of their company’s digital transformation. Adoption of the technology has grown sharply since 2020 and is revolutionising not only ways of working but what’s considered to be a workplace. 

With offices re-opened, businesses and employees are presented with a new question: do we want to “return” to pre-pandemic ways of working or do we invest and push ahead with digital transformation and put those platforms onto a firmer technological footing?

Cloud-enabled collaboration is fundamental to sustaining productivity. But so too is the need for consistency across the business. This means giving everyone, everywhere, at any time — and on any device — full access to the apps and services they need to collaborate effectively and securely. It involves investing in platforms and connectivity to support all workplaces, whether on-site or remote. 

It’s with these drivers in mind that we have expanded our broad collaboration portfolio with the full power of Webex. We’ve enriched our existing Webex Meetings offering to include the new Webex Events, Webinar and polling capabilities. And this year we launched Webex Calling and Webex Contact Centre for both UK and international customers, providing them with scalable, unified cloud-based platforms.

Our Webex Calling and Webex Contact Centre solutions leverage the reach of our voice network and the comprehensive support of our managed service to provide feature rich, scalable cloud-based voice and contact centre offerings. Moving voice to the cloud gives organisations the flexibility to enable true hybrid working for their people, whilst eliminating the cost and complexity of legacy infrastructure.

Brian Stout, vice president of global collaboration sales, Cisco, commented: “These launches form the latest chapter of our three-decade long partnership with BT. BT’s new portfolio of Webex services give our joint customers everything they need to collaborate. Together we can now provide customers with a range of scalable enterprise-grade managed cloud collaboration and customer experience services, which have been purpose-built for hybrid work.”

As businesses try to find a balance between ‘everyone and everything from home’ and ‘everyone back in the office’, in true Goldilocks fashion, the middle path feels ‘just right’. Hybrid working is here to stay.