World Wide Technology Breaks Ground With Cisco Webex Hybrid Services
Investment in Cisco Webex for Developers Opens Doors for Customers Who Want to Realize Business Outcomes from Cisco Webex Teams
ST. LOUIS – March 14, 2016 – World Wide Technology, Inc. (WWT), a market-leading technology integrator that provides innovative technology and supply chain solutions is breaking new ground with Cisco Webex (formerly Spark) Hybrid Services.
WWT expects to see a lot more of Cisco Webex Teams in the enterprise in 2016, especially after the recent announcement of Cisco Webex Teams and its hybrid service. With the new Cisco Webex Hybrid Services, WWT customers can integrate their Cisco Unified Communications Manager or Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) deployments with the cloud-based features and flexibility of Webex teams.
Cisco Webex Hybrid Services make functionality like desktop sharing easier and enable the integration of desk phones with the Cisco Webex Teams mobile app. Cisco Webex Teams also integrates with customers' existing Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory to simplify meeting scheduling, room creation and updating of user information in the cloud. The success of Cisco Webex Teams in the enterprise will ultimately come down to how it's integrated. That's why users are excited by the news that Cisco has invested $150 million in Cisco Webex teams for Developers.
"Partners like WWT who have the depth of programming knowledge, collaboration expertise and the ability to deliver business outcomes are what's needed to make Cisco Webex Teams an invaluable staple for workforce productivity in the enterprise," said Andy Dignan, senior director of Global Cloud Collaboration Sales with Cisco.
WWT has found that for its customers the integration of Cisco Webex APIs can change the game when it comes to workforce productivity, both from an end-user standpoint as well as IT operations.
"Based on our use of the tool and what we see in the marketplace, Cisco Webex Teams is a leading platform for collaboration just from an end-user perspective when compared to other business messaging tools out there," said Joe Berger, manager of WWT's Collaboration Practice. "But really, it's when you integrate Cisco Webex Teams into an enterprise's workflow that you see tremendous gains in workforce productivity and ultimately cost savings for the enterprise."
Berger points to WWT's pilot of Cisco Webex Teams, which led the $7.4 billion technology company to integrate Cisco Webex Teams with the product it uses to manage proofs of concept, a key tool of WWT's lab services portfolio.
"When we integrated Cisco Webex Teams with our proofs of concept tool we saw incredible productivity gains," said Berger. "Not only does the integration trigger the immediate creation of a Cisco Webex room when a new ticket is opened, but Cisco Webex Teams also updates the ticket. We now save about three hours of management time required for a proof of concept per week."
"We have about 1,000 of these workflow processes going on at one time," said Derek Lohman, Cisco prototype lead for WWT. "So, if you can shave off three hours for every workflow in an organization, which in this one example affects 144,000 worker hours of productivity per year, now you're affecting the bottom line in a big way."
Joel King is a principal architect who leads software-defined networking initiatives at WWT. King consistently uses the Cisco Webex for Developers portal to create new integrations, for instance setting up a Cisco Webex room through Cisco's APIC-EM via an Ansible module.
"Obviously there are the end-user benefits of Cisco Webex Teams as a collaboration tool, and you hear about those a lot and how they help end-users be more productive," King said. "But from a programming perspective, I think what you're going to increasingly find is incredible productivity gains for people like network engineers as well as it having a huge impact on branch-office collaboration."
About World Wide Technology
World Wide Technology, Inc. (WWT) is a leading technology integrator with more than $7 billion in annual revenue that provides innovative technology and supply chain solutions to large public and private organizations. Through its culture of innovation, WWT inspires, builds and delivers business results, from idea to outcome. Based in St. Louis, WWT works closely with industry leaders including Boeing (NYSE: BA); Dell (NASDAQ: DELL); Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO); EMC (NYSE: EMC); HP (NYSE: HPQ); AT&T Inc., (NYSE: ATT); VMware; NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP); Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and the U.S. Air Force. WWT employs more than 3,000 people and operates over 2 million square feet of warehousing, distribution and integration space in more than 20 facilities throughout the world.
Media Contact
Ed Levens, PropelMG for WWT
919-346-5531