Cisco has announced a set of new solutions and developments which will be ideal for remote workers, in order to make it easier for people to collaborate anywhere, anytime and on any device.
The new solutions are focused on unified communication, a next generation of online meetings, as well as social collaboration.
A new Cisco WebEx® survey of small business owners found that July and August may be a time for taking time out from the busy day-day work agenda’s, but small business owners in Nigeria cannot afford to be away from the office for long.
To make the most of work and personal time, many plan to work remotely, on average, 18 days this summer.
The study shows that small business owners will spend up to four weeks working remotely during the holiday months and use online tools and web collaboration to stay in touch.
Bola Adegbonmire, Cisco Business Development manager, Emerging Africa said: “In today’s supply-chain driven economy, communication and collaboration across teams and companies are key. Also, employees are asking for solutions for mobility and collaboration, while companies are looking for cost-efficient ways to make such technologies available.
With the start of summer, mobility is becoming even more important for employees. Latest solutions in communication and collaboration allow business people in Nigeria to stay connected, be able to participate in meetings, take decisions without delay, whilst giving them the flexibility to work anywhere, from multiple devices.”
She said “The survey results demonstrate the extent to which telephone and video conferencing have become ingrained in the work habits of small business owners, since nearly half of the survey respondents say traditional, in-person meetings are becoming less relevant.”
“It’s clear small business owners need to stay “connected” to the office , even during the summer vacation season, and so we are giving our customers in Nigeria the tools to not only meet, but also easily and efficiently manage content relevant for those meetings wherever they happen to be.”
Cisco WebEx Study Highlights shows that 15 per cent of those surveyed intend to work remotely 36 days or more. Almost half of small business owners plan to work remotely for at least two weeks before the summer is out.
The survey also showed that summer or not, nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of the respondents said their companies rely on telecommuting.
The survey was conducted for Cisco by Wakefield Research between June 6 and June 14 2012, involving the owners of businesses with 100 or fewer employees. The poll has a margin of error of 4.4%.
The new solutions include Extend and Connect works with Cisco Jabber™ and is designed to bring any third-party phone—including phones at hotels, airports, convention centers, or even far-flung places like offshore oil rigs into the Cisco UC environment.
Other solutions include The Next Generation of Cisco WebEx Meetings which gives workers an easy way to collaborate directly from Web applications they use every day and the social collaboration.