WWT Scales Webex Meetings to Enable Real-Time Collaboration

Challenge

With more than 6.000 employees working in over 30 locations around the globe, World Wide Technology (WWT) found enabling real-time collaboration amidst expansive growth to be a continual challenge. Company representatives relied on conference calls, email and collaboration apps to do business and stay connected. But with offices in locations such as Alaska, China, Brazil and the UK, employees often lacked the ability to interact face-to-face with business counterparts and clients.

"WWT is one of the largest Cisco partners in the world," said Brandon Echele, WWT Video and Conferencing Practice Manager. "As a Gold Certified Partner with Masters-Level Certification in Collaboration, Networking and Security, staying on the forefront of video conferencing and utilizing the latest Cisco technology to enable seamless collaboration with Cisco and joint customers is a top priority." Moreover, WWT wanted to be able to leverage video to help customers implement technology, plan more effectively, save on travel and keep Professional Services project costs down.

Solution

In Cisco, WWT found a single vendor with a holistic solution set to help the company meet a variety of video needs from the desktop to the boardroom. WWT relied on its people, proven processes and powerful Cisco partnership to empower real-time, video-based, collaboration with Webex Meetings®.

People

WWT's Video and Conferencing Practice worked closely with the internal IT Unified Communications team to evaluate WWT's current assets and infrastructure, along with Cisco's complete video and Webex offerings, to determine exactly what they needed to establish a video enabled collaborative environment across the enterprise. "As business video is still evolving in the marketplace and within WWT, it was up to us to take the lead, explore capabilities and address implementation challenges as they arose," said Tim Cappel, Collaboration Technical Solution Architect for WWT.

As solutions are continually deployed, Education and Training representatives help communicate the benefits and functionality of new video endpoints to WWT employees. "Education is the key to the successful roll out of any kind of advanced technology, but is particularly important with video conferencing to demonstrate how easy it is to use the equipment, which can be costly and intimidating," Cappel said.

Processes

WWT deployed a variety of Cisco video endpoints in order to meet the varying requirements and space constraints of business units, remote locations, executive offices, conference areas and more. "It's our job to try to give end users the best video-enabled experience possible, and we carefully select the appropriate  device to turn any meeting space into a high-definition collaborative environment," said Tim Grace, Senior UC Engineer.

To establish a complete collaborative infrastructure with call control, bridging, scheduling and B2B interoperability, the WWT team installed the servers and applications that enable single sign-on (SSO), interoperability and calendar scheduling integrations with Outlook. The team also enable secure firewall traversal of video conferences to support mobility as well as connecting with customers and partners.

Cisco's robust support for mobile platforms also allowed WWT to extend Webex to Android and iOS devices for a ubiquitous end user experience.

Partners

WWT leveraged its powerful Cisco Partnership to acquire, deploy and support the most advanced video conferencing equipment available today. "Cisco provides the only complete suite of collaboration products to deliver next-generation video and a simple meeting experience across the enterprise," Cappel said. WWT and Cisco representatives and engineers were in lock-step during the install and testing of our Next-Gen Meetings solution. WWT and Cisco use Webex Teams and Webex Meetings to securely collaborate with each other and joint clients, which has cut travel costs, strengthened their longstanding partnership and enhanced communication with customers.

Results

WWT's video conferencing initiative is ongoing. The company now has more than 400 Cisco meeting room endpoints deployed throughout the world and all employees enabled for desktop video.

"Video conferencing with Cisco Webex Meetings is enhancing our culture, strengthening our partnerships and making us more collaborative as we're able to have more face-to-face meetings now, especially with our offices in remote locations like Guam, Hawaii, Alaska, Brazil, Singapore and Amsterdam," Echele said. "It's also helping us provide an unprecedented level of service to our customers. For example, using our Integration Centers, we can show customers how their equipment is being assembled, provide live status updates and even collaborate with clients on custom assemblies."

Meeting times are shorter as there is less multi-tasking during video conferences and face-to-face interactions build trust and rapport, enhancing internal and external business relationships. Meetings are easy to schedule and join due to the extensive software integrations performed by WWT. Mobile end users can join video calls wherever there is mobile network or WiFi connectivity – using the device of their choice.

WWT has transitioned its entire organization to Webex Meetings, which the company utilizes heavily and at-scale for day-to-day meetings and large events (1000+ participants). For our customers, we plan, architect and deploy video collaboration as a cornerstone of digital employee experience programs, as part of work from home initiatives, or to enable organizations to host large virtual events.