Having a secure remote work-from-home environment is crucial right now, and will continue to be important as people head back to the office.
People need the ability to work from anywhere, which means they need unique and efficient capabilities that can empower them to do so.
In this episode of B2B Tech Talk, Keri Roberts is joined by Matthew White, a Senior Business Transformation Center Engineer at Ingram Micro, to discuss technologies and features that enable people to work both from home and in the office.
Matthew also explains:
- A remote work experience forecast for 2021
- How the move to the cloud affects collaboration
- New Cisco Webex products to look forward to
- Unique updates for Cisco Webex
- The future of technology
A remote work experience forecast for 2021
Having a secure remote environment will continue to be important as people head back to the office, whether it be full or part time.
The work experience will change in 2021 in a few ways, with the main difference being interaction across from-home and in-office environments. Because so many people will continue to work remote, there’s going to be a smaller footprint when it comes to office space. Not everyone will be in the office every single day. This allows the office space to shrink, giving companies an opportunity to repurpose some of that space that would be used for desks into conference rooms.
How the move to the cloud affects collaboration
Since March of 2020, almost every business has been forced to move or consider moving to the cloud. The biggest thing they should think about as they do is manageability. In the past, when people worked from the office, they had IT staff onsite to make sure everything was running smoothly. Now, when people work from home, that IT staff isn’t physically present. A major advantage to the cloud is that it allows IT to get into the system easily and quickly to fix things remotely as if they were onsite. From a collaboration and communication perspective, the cloud is an efficient solution and can save businesses on bandwidth and Internet fees.
New Cisco Webex products to look forward to
Recently, at their WebexOne event, Cisco announced the following new devices to equip individuals working from home with the best video and audio capabilities:
- Webex Desk Camera—gives individuals full 4k ultra-HD capabilities and enables remote IT management
- Webex Desk Hub—takes the desk camera and integrates it into a separate device, creating a second monitor
- Webex Desk—allows users to experience video conferencing and co-creation with an all-in-one home office collaboration hub
Unique updates for Cisco Webex
Updates for Cisco Webex include:
- Background noise removal (Babble Labs)—listens for the audio coming from a person’s speaking voice and eliminates anything outside of that rang
- Real Time Translation— auto-detects the input language, and interprets and responds with the appropriate translation
- Environmental sensors and Webex Room Navigator—purpose-built device sits either inside or outside the meeting room to provide intelligent, safe room booking for users and deep data for IT and facilities managers
- Animated meeting reactions—gives users more freedom to express themselves non-verbally with the clap, thumbs up/down, smile, laugh, sad, surprised, and celebrate emojis
The future of technology
Communication technology is going to progress a lot more not only in the video conferencing area, but also in the call center. For example, in the future when you call your local retail store, instead of sitting on hold or going through a voice activated menu, you’ll be able to tap through a visual menu that will connect you on the backend to the exact person you’re looking for. More and more companies will adopt this technology, making customer’s lives easier.
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Learn more about the cloud and Cisco Webex through Cisco Virtual Learning and Ingram Micro’s Business Transformation Center, or contact your Ingram Micro representative.