Cisco on Cisco

Timur Muminov needed a better way to keep partners in the loop.

As a Cisco sales engineer based in Moscow, he supports industrial solutions throughout Kazakhstan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Working across such a wide geographic area, he found that partners and resellers were eager to deploy Cisco solutions but often required more training and support than he could realistically provide.

“In many cases, our partners aren’t focused solely on Cisco products,” he says. “They work with a lot of other vendors as well. So it can be difficult for them to keep up with the latest developments across our product line.”

More Product Insight, Less Time Onsite
Muminov and his team hosted quarterly onsite meetings for partners to learn about new Cisco technologies, but those meetings often proved expensive and logistically challenging. Then it occurred to him that a collaborative online workspace would enable partners to view product documentation, ask questions about particular solutions, and maintain more frequent contact with Cisco team members.

“I knew that the right collaborative technology would help our partners stay informed while streamlining our training and support efforts,” he says. “So I started experimenting with Cisco WebEx Connect.”

Dynamic, Centralized Collaboration Within a Shared Workspace
With WebEx Connect, Muminov was able to create an online Partner Relations workspace where partners could read about the latest product updates and contact his team more quickly and easily than ever.

“The advantage to WebEx Connect is that everything can be located within a single workspace,” he says. “You can share a file with a partner, then answer any of their questions over IM or on the discussion board, and even jump into an online meeting with them, all without leaving the Connect environment.” 

New Strategies for Customer Outreach
Muminov isn’t alone in using WebEx Connect for external engagements. John Rider, a program manager in Cisco Advanced Services, built a series of workspaces designed to coordinate customer outreach and keep his enterprise clients in the know.

Within each workspace, he created customer-specific websites that he can share externally for real-time project updates. “Once I log on to Connect, I can send customers a link to their custom website,” Rider says. “They click on the link and get a firsthand look at how the project is progressing. Then if they want to make any project updates, I can enter the new information on the spot, and the updated record syncs automatically with our internal databases.”  

Coordinating Internal Teams Like Never Before
WebEx Connect transforms project management by making it easier than ever for remote teams to pool their resources.

“I created a CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] Space where sales engineers could focus resources their knowledge into a single shared environment,” says Muminov. “By collaborating more efficiently online, we can make the most of each person’s expertise while eliminating unnecessary travel.” 

Rider also uses WebEx Connect to coordinate his team’s outreach to enterprise customers.

“Prior to implementing WebEx Connect, we attempted to manage all of our project-related discussions via email,” says Rider. “Email is fine if you need a quick response to a direct question. But if you try to address more than one topic in a single email, you’re asking for chaos. The topics shatter and go off in different directions. You can’t keep everyone focused. If you address those same topics on the shared discussion board within Connect, it’s far easier to ensure that the discussion remains on-topic.”

Enriching Partner Relations One Connection at a Time
Timur Muminov’s Partner Relations workspace generated an overwhelmingly positive response.

“We’ve always been very committed to our partners’ success, and WebEx Connect helped us take that to the next level,” says Muminov. “Before using Connect, we held large-scale meetings for all of our partners on a quarterly basis. Now we can hold meetings on that same scale every week at a far lower total cost. And best of all, our partners feel closer to us than ever before, because WebEx Connect has enriched our interactions with them on a day-to-day basis.”

Streamlined Communications, Accelerated Productivity
WebEx Connect significantly enhances productivity. Rider estimates that by switching to collaborative workspaces, his teams have the potential to improve their productivity by as much as 40 to 60 percent.

“Since our entire project team shares the same environment, we can minimize the time we spend answering individual emails,” he says. “We can locate and interface with team members in real time via IM, and we can escalate to online meetings on the fly. I’m convinced that this technology can bring huge efficiencies to managing just about any project.”

Greater Continuity for Teams in Transition
According to Rider, another benefit of Cisco WebEx Connect is that it helps ensure greater continuity when new team members come onto the scene.

“Since all of our project information is in one place, newcomers can get up to speed much more quickly,” he says. “Or on the flip side, if you leave the company tomorrow, the data remains right there in the Connect space rather than on your PC. I would estimate that new team members can reduce their ramp-up time by 60 percent, maybe more, because they can instantly access and review the current discussions, key documents, and archived materials on the WebEx Connect space.”  

A Transformative Technology, a Reason for Excitement
“WebEx Connect is causing a lot of excitement at Cisco,” says Rider. “This level of collaboration creates huge opportunities for innovative problem-solving. I’m excited to see the impact that Connect will have around here.”