ONLINE meetings have become a part of our lives since the start of the pandemic more than a year ago. Cisco, being the creator of one of the popular online video conferencing platforms, Webex, foresees the workforce will be a hybrid one in the future and the dependence on video conferencing platforms will be higher.
The company recently unveiled a set of new capabilities to its Webex platform that is designed to give users a better user experience.
According to Cisco Malaysia's managing director, Albert Chai, as the world transitions to a hybrid work environment, organisations require solutions that are flexible, supportive and inclusive.
"To meet this demand, Cisco 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 personalisation for everyone," he said.
The future of meetings
With 98 per cent of future meetings expected to include at least one remote participant, this mixed mode of working (blending remote and in-person interactions) is fuelling 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 organisations 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 Chai.
"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 organisations in Malaysia to rethink their approach to a workplace strategy that is driven by culture, connections and innovations," he said.
Webex growth
The surge in remote working over the past year has tripled the consumption of Webex in Malaysia.
Chai said for such an increasingly digital market, Webex Suite is more than just a technology for organisations to effectively adapt to the hybrid future of work. Its application holds the potential to enable collaborative and innovative services that fuel the continued digitisation 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 Cisco's managing director of Collaboration for Asia Pacific Japan & China,Hariharan S.
"To be successful in the era of hybrid work, organisations 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," he said.
New Webex features
* 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 per cent 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 optimisation for remote and shared workspaces through My Voice Only to eliminate background noise, including speech from people in the background, and solely focus 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, customers do not have to choose between usability and security, and benefit from both.
Pricing and availability
The Webex Suite is available now and is priced at 40 per cent lower than a-la-carte.