At the beginning of the new year of 2022, Vientiane is updated. Looking back on 2021, it was an extraordinary year. Around the world, more and more businesses are embracing a more flexible work model, where employees can choose to work flexibly at work, anytime, anywhere, at work, on the go, or at home. As a result, users have higher demands and expectations for online collaboration based on various scenarios, and enterprises are facing greater challenges.
How can you translate the effective collaboration of your business face-to-face to mobile and create even more possibilities? How do you ensure that all employees have secure and reliable access to the applications they need to be productive? We focused on hybrid office, and with the above questions in mind, a reporter from Computerworld interviewed Hou Shengli, vice president of Cisco Greater China and general manager of Cisco's pre-sales engineer team.
【Breakthrough crisis innovation growth, users and scenarios are the key】
Hou Shengli, vice president of Cisco Greater China and general manager of Cisco's pre-sales engineer team, pointed out in an interview that in the past 2021, the application of the Internet has exploded, from the number of users and mobile terminals to the number of machine learning and machine access are growing exponentially, including the speed of bandwidth. In response to the surge in the number of users and devices of various types, as well as the public's demand for high adaptability to the network environment, network management and operation are facing unprecedented challenges.
Hybrid work is one of the challenges. Hybrid office refers to an emerging office model in which employees can flexibly work anytime, anywhere, at work, at home, on the go. As Hou Shengli emphasized: "Hybrid office must first have a good network connection, but in addition to network connection, how to make it more secure and reliable is also what we need to consider." ”
So what changes has hybrid office brought about? According to Cisco's Global Hybrid Office Index, launched in October 2021, the volatility of the pandemic has led to a 1.8-fold increase in the use of collaboration applications, with a 3-fold increase in demand for background noise elimination. In addition, the proportion of customers participating in video conferencing through mobile devices is 3 times higher than before the pandemic. The data is the feedback from more than 39,000 respondents that Cisco visited in 34 countries around the world. As you can see, nearly 30% of customers participate in video conferencing through mobile terminals.
Cisco also did a survey internally, and after the pandemic, 97% of collaboration occurred across remote and local scenarios, making the ability to work hybrid a standard for enterprises.
Hou Shengli stressed that in order to do a good job in the hybrid office model, we must first ensure that employees can enjoy the best office experience that can get rid of the shackles of physical space, that is to say, let employees have security guarantees everywhere as in the office. Secondly, with regard to the work scenario, it is necessary not only to achieve the diversity of functions, but also to ensure the security of information exchange.
Hou Shengli said that Cisco's vision and strategy for security is to help customers achieve end-to-end security based on the "zero trust" network architecture. The Zero Trust security architecture fully secures access to employees and devices, workplaces, and workloads. Based on the Zero Trust policy, any user can use any device, run any application, and get the services they need anywhere.
【Flexible and efficient workplace collaboration, hybrid office is the new standard】
When it comes to collaboration, Luo Qi, general manager of Cisco China's collaboration business unit, said that in the past, "telecommuting" referred to what kind of technology can be used to help company employees remotely access the company's network. Now, almost all of the company's resources, including high-definition video, reimbursement for commonly used businesses, and financial approvals, can be handled at home. In the past, employees were mainly company-oriented, but now, like knowledge and writing workers, they are more task-centered or self-centered, so this also weakens the necessity of the workplace for work. "It can be seen that the updated iteration of technology is pushing the public into the era of 'hybrid office'."
From the perspective of corporate governance and organizational development, because of the change in management philosophy, OKR has become popular in Internet companies, and after supervisors and employees have reached a consensus on goals and key results, employees can be assured to work in their own way. Because of the breakthrough of technology and the evolution of work mode, more and more enterprises around the world are beginning to accept a more flexible hybrid office model, and employees can realize their office needs anytime, anywhere. Against this backdrop, companies that can't provide flexible working capabilities will have a hard time finding the talent they need in the marketplace. If this capability is not built now, it may be necessary to compensate for this part of the missing part in the future with higher salaries or other high-cost methods.
Luo Qi stressed that there are five major elements that must be realized in the mixed office:
First, it is flexible and easy to use. When you enter a space, you can easily access the hybrid office tools provided in this space. Recently, Cisco released a new feature for Webex that increases interoperability with third-party video platforms/applications commonly used in the market, ensuring seamless collaboration between users on their preferred platform and device.
Second, inclusiveness and equality. This is reflected in the fact that every participant received equal attention and presentation during the conference. For example, Luo Qi said: "In the video teaching scene of the business school, through Webex's People Focus function, each student's avatar and expression can be displayed on the screen one by one, rather than a single screen of everyone concentrated on the scene, which can vividly bring students a course that is no less than that taught offline, so as to make the communication and interaction more cordial and more enjoyable." ”
Third, care and support. Meeting fatigue is probably an experience that everyone in the workplace has. Cisco's Team Meeting Insights technology proactively reminds employees and supervisors to stagger meeting times, ensuring that people can retain a certain amount of self-regulation time.
Fourth, security. One of the biggest risks of remote meetings is the security of information, and on November 1 this year, the state officially implemented the Personal Information Protection Law, and the safe transmission and storage of suppliers, customer data, internal employees and personal information is very important. Cisco puts security first for all innovations across all product lines. Whether it's a network or a collaboration product, from each user's authentication to the encryption of data streams, Cisco has a complete set of security mechanisms to ensure that customers can plan ahead, prevent security threats, and reduce enterprise risks.
Fifth, easy to manage. For infrastructure or O&M teams, automatic upgrades, updates, and maintenance are important. Cisco Webex Collaboration Solutions continues to innovate technology upgrades, add a variety of functions, in the system architecture function innovation and management interface, for the user's O&M team to provide simple, efficient, direct management function integration, for the IT team to provide convenient O&M management.
【Panorama TelePresence Webex Room Panorama, seamless linkage across virtual reality】
In the interview, Ma Zhi, Technical Director of Cisco's Greater China Collaboration Division, showcased Cisco's latest flagship product, the Panorama Telepresence Webex Room Panorama. Suitable for high-end meeting rooms, this product can present a panoramic image of both sides of the video conference in real time, and everyone's details can be seen very clearly. Compared with traditional video conferencing, the collaboration experience of "Panorama Telepresence Webex Room Panorama" has been greatly improved in many ways. In contrast, if the traditional video conferencing system has two screens, the left screen usually displays the image of the speaker or part of the venue, and the right screen is the PPT of the conference presentation. "Panorama Telepresence Webex Room Panorama" presents the panoramic image of each other's venues on two screens, bringing an immersive meeting experience to the participants.
At the same time, this system supports 4K ultra-high definition resolution image and file transmission and sharing, the image effect is very clear, which for industry customers, such as manufacturing, medical industry, can be said to be a very attractive function, can be used to display precision production, treatment and rescue of the most detailed image is closely related.
"Panorama TelePresence" also optimizes the sound to the extreme, this device is equipped with a new microphone, with a "directional audio" function, in the conference room participants, even with their eyes closed, can distinguish the direction of the speaker in the other room.
Designed for high-end, immersive meeting rooms, this system is simple to install, does not require room renovations, and is highly compatible with equipment from other manufacturers.
One particular innovation worth mentioning at Cisco Webex is the application of AI Audio Intelligence, which focuses specifically on optimizing the user's "visible and audible" experience. Through the embedded technology of the device can suppress any noise, whether it is a neighbor in the renovation when working from home, or a family member using a vacuum cleaner hair dryer, or in a café, airport and other public places with a lot of background noise, Users of Webex can concentrate on meetings and are not affected by the external environment. In addition to the most basic noise cancellation and background noise removal, Cisco Webex has further implemented the masking of background voices such as phone calls and conversations. In the future, the precise picking of speeches in the conference room will be further enhanced through the realization of accurate picking for everyone's speech.
The key to this technology is the integration of AI with video conferencing, and Cisco breaks through the limitations of being able to achieve its capabilities only by connecting to the cloud. Ma Zhi said: "Cisco has always adhered to the concept of "hoping to put a better experience in the hands of customers. And this experience can have a good fit with the enterprise hybrid office. This can be demonstrated in the Cisco Collaboration Product Family, where we give all of Cisco's collaboration solutions, such as sound, image, video, and other best-optimized technologies, either in hardware or software, without any additional investment from the customer. ”
Through this interview, we can see Cisco's delicate insight into the environment and users, and through continuous improvement of management and technology potential to adapt to the diverse needs of users. Under the change, Cisco has reproduced the efficient and flexible collaboration of real office scenarios for users, enriched the lack of remote office capabilities, broken through space restrictions, and created a more free mixed office experience for enterprises and employees around the world.