SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwire - May 21, 2009) - Cisco (
NASDAQ:
CSCO) announced today that
leading Australian
small to
medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are using
Cisco WebEx™ collaboration
tools to aid their expansion, improve productivity and reduce expenses by
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Two Cisco WebEx customers, StatSeeker and Kinetic Securities, are amongst
the leading SMB adopters of collaboration technology in Australia and are
benefiting significantly from using the network as the platform for
communications. They are typical of the kinds of businesses identified in a
recent Cisco WebEx survey of SMB attitudes towards improving work-life
balance. The survey, released today, shows, for instance, that half of
senior employees in Australian SMBs agree that remote working provides
better work-life balance.
StatSeeker, a Brisbane network-monitoring company that employs 17 people,
has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel avoidance by using
Cisco WebEx collaboration technology. StatSeeker has also used the Cisco
WebEx collaboration technology to underpin its expansion outside Australia,
where it estimates that 98 per cent of its customer base operates.
Martin Reed, global operations manager at StatSeeker, said: "In order to
avoid the expense of travelling back and forth overseas to meet with
customers and prospects or setting up international offices, StatSeeker
chose to sell directly to customers through online meetings and Web
conferencing. We implemented Cisco WebEx Meeting Center to deliver this
remote business model, which has helped enable our expansion into 22
countries. We use collaboration technologies to provide each of our
customers daily personalised service and support, regardless of their
location. Additionally, by significantly reducing the need for face-to-face
meetings, we have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in travel
expenses alone."
Likewise, Kinetic Securities, a financial advisory firm with a team of 50
working from Sydney and the Gold Coast, uses online collaboration to
increase the quality of its client interactions as well as to qualify new
business leads. Technology from Cisco WebEx was implemented to help ensure
it could frequently meet with and train clients via the Internet, helping
Kinetic Securities break down communication barriers and significantly
reduce travel costs. Cisco WebEx also helped Kinetic Securities to obtain
new business and has revolutionised client interaction, making the
company's team more available, approachable and accessible.
Jay Pace, a private client advisor for Kinetic Securities, said: "Being
able to connect with clients remotely at any time makes the company more
approachable and accessible, giving us a competitive advantage. WebEx is
also a great warm-up for prospects, allowing them to see us, hear about
what we do, and what we can offer them, virtually simulating the
face-to-face experience. We also use WebEx to communicate between our
offices, especially about product updates. Overall, the best part is its
cost effectiveness and allows us to gauge the prospects' interest level,
helping us decide whether it's worthwhile to organise a physical meeting."
Sara Adams, the Cisco Australia and New Zealand regional manager for SMB,
said: "Cisco believes online collaboration, built on the network as the
platform, is a key way for Australian SMBs to work smarter and better
compete, particularly at a time of significant challenges in the economy.
Whether it is communicating across time zones, increasing access to
training, qualifying leads or giving employees the freedom to work from
home, collaboration technology can meet the unique and diverse needs of
SMBs."
Adams said StatSeeker and Kinetic Securities are strong examples of
advanced Australian SMBs who are using online collaboration technology to
grow their businesses and simultaneously meet their flexibility and
productivity needs.
To further understand the collaboration needs of Australian SMBs, Cisco has
undertaken market research into the market, and today released the results
of the first phase.
In January 2009, Sweeney Research surveyed 400 senior employees at
Australian businesses with between 20 and 199 employees. The survey results
showed that SMB leaders are looking for more flexibility in where and when
they do their work but not at the expense of productivity or of the quality
of interactions with colleagues, customers and prospects.
Key findings of the SMB working practices survey include the following:
- Half of SMB senior employees agree that remote working provides a
better work-life balance. Those SMB leaders with younger employees (18- to
39-year-olds) and those that have children at home are more likely to
agree.
- One in 10 spends more than four hours a week travelling to and from
meetings.
- One in five commutes more than one hour every day to work.
- They work away from their primary workplace an average of five times
per month, with the owners or partners of SMBs working away from the
primary workplace even more frequently (35 per cent do so at least three
times a week).
- Nearly all have worked overtime, with almost half working outside of
their normal working hours every day.
- Also more than half take work home at least once a week, with 16 per
cent taking it home every day.
- The majority consider the morning their most effective time of the
working day.
- Business processes they identify as the most time consuming are
preparing reports and presentations, attending internal meetings, training
other employees, editing and approving documents, travelling, and attending
external meetings.
About the Research
Most of the research respondents were male (70 per cent) and most were in
their 40s and 50s (64 per cent), which is a reflection of the Australian
SMB senior employee profile. Almost all senior SMB employees (95 per cent)
work in an office, with less than one in ten usually working from home.
Over half (55 per cent) the respondents had children living at home, one in
three were from NSW and the ACT and one in four were from Victoria and
Tasmania. Industries represented in the sample included service and
consultancy (23 per cent), manufacturing (16 per cent), construction (13
per cent) and retail (11 per cent).
Sweeney Research is a leading Australian full service research agency with
offices in Sydney and Melbourne. For more information about Sweeney, visit
http://www.sweeneyresearch.com.au/
About Cisco
Cisco (
NASDAQ:
CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms
how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco
can be found at
http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, visit
http://newsroom.cisco.com.
Cisco, the Cisco logo, Cisco Systems, and Cisco WebEx are registered
trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in
the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks
mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The
use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between
Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Contact Information: Press Contacts:
Linda Horiuchi
Cisco
+ 61 2 8446 6343
lhoriuch@cisco.com
Carly Wright
Kinetics Pty. Ltd. for Cisco
+ 61 2 9212 3848
carly@kinetics.com.au