Cisco Announces Key Enhancements to Webex

Secure collaboration technologies that help people get work done from anywhere are top of mind for every CIO, putting pressure on IT teams to both support the unprecedented shift to remote work while simultaneously planning a return to the office.

Cisco has announced key Webex enhancements to help industry-leading security and compliance capabilities, intelligent and actionable insights deliver consistent user experiences and integration with Box. Additionally, the integration of Epic for healthcare will give patients choices for engaging with providers key to their wellness.

“Keeping everyone securely connected and productive is at the heart of what we do,” said Javed Khan, Vice President and General Manager at Cisco Collaboration Group. “We’re proud to announce that now Cisco will provide 3X the normal volumes to navigate through these pandemic times.”

Webex had supported half a billion meeting participants, generating 25 billion meeting minutes by April 2020 – more than triple the average volume. Being a long-time market leader, Webex commits to support the changing needs of customers. 

More connected, better security

The global increase in remote work has made security and privacy more critical than ever before. Cisco builds upon the security capabilities designed into the Webex platform, now extended to data loss prevention (DLP) retention, Legal Hold, and eDiscovery to Webex Meetings.

This gives an unprecedented level of security and protection for all meeting content – recordings, transcriptions, action items, and highlights. Yet another industry-first security offering for Webex Meetings. It is also expanding the end-to-end encryption options to include AES 256 Bit encryption with GCM mode, providing increased protection for meeting data and resistance against tampering.
 
The new way to manage an enlarged remote workforce

According to CIO Perspectives 2020, a new CIO survey by Cisco, more than two-thirds of CIOs say IT complexity is a top challenge as they continue navigating through these challenging times. Top-of-mind questions include, How to best support remote workers and How to create safer meeting environments in the office’.

Cisco Webex Control Hub provides intelligent and actionable insights, enabling IT to manage all collaboration workloads through a single pane of glass, whether working from home or at the office.

COVID-19 era use-cases for Control Hub include:

Instantly deploy Webex Assistant, a voice assistant technology to conference room devices, that makes it a simple task even on multiple devices. It minimizes the number of times people touch the screen or touchpad in shared spaces. 

Tap into deep insights about meeting room usage to influence not only cleaning schedules but also how a company plans the future office layout, while easily identifying the most used rooms. This data can thereafter be used to inform cleaning schedules or configuring meeting spaces to better meet needs.

Additionally, to help move work forward, Cisco has integrated Webex Teams and Box, the leading cloud content management platform that is used by 68% of the Fortune 500 and nearly 100,000 businesses globally. Customers can now choose to use Box or any other platform integrated.

Telehealth integrated with Epic

Telehealth has quickly become mainstream, enabling physicians to provide care to patients while practicing physical distancing. The new Cisco’s integration with Epic electronic health record software enables providers to use Webex Teams to conduct a video visit with a patient, review medical history, and update clinical documentation.

Patients don’t need to download anything, they simply log in to the highly secure session over a web browser and get the care they need. More than 250 million patients have a current electronic record in Epic. Other Cisco Partners are also building and deploying telehealth applications and solutions, helping clinicians to deliver care to patients around the world.

“Once the pandemic hit, our first concern was for the safety of our employees, and then we focused on enabling them to be the most productive from home. In a very short time, we had 95% of our associates working in secure borderless workspaces™ collaborating effectively leveraging various cloud-based tools like Cisco Webex,” says Abhijit Mazumder, Chief Information Officer, Tata Consultancy Services.

The CEO at Box, Aaron Levie notes that in this new era of remote work, businesses around the globe are urgently looking for better tools to help employees seamlessly collaborate internally and with customers and partners from anywhere and on any device.

He says, “We are excited to expand our partnership with Cisco with a new Box and Webex integration that enables secure remote work for our joint customers.”