Was He Right?

Darren Sinden, Cisco Practice, avsnet

Over a year ago Graham Fry, our Managing Director, proclaimed:

“As-a-Service – I haven’t seen such a transformative change in our industry since the emergence of video communications.”

He was right. Through the power of subscription, I’m seeing customers in every industry transform their collaboration estates and simplify how they pay for solutions.

Our Cisco Master Collaboration partnership gives us unrivalled access to the company and from all the conversations I’ve had with people at the organisation, it’s clear that flexible subscription services are central to Cisco’s roadmap.

Recently we looked at two examples where cloud and “as-a-Service” are simplifying day-to-day management and removing the burden of growing a company’s collaboration estate cost effectively.

If you missed them, here they are again:

1. A quick dive into Cisco Meraki and its many case studies, including three compelling end-users that show the ROI possible with centralised cloud-managed networks.
2. Shining the spotlight on Cisco Umbrella, the industry’s first Secure Internet Gateway in the cloud – a truly transformative service from Cisco that redefines how organisations approach security.

Across the industry, businesses are trading CAPEX-heavy hardware for easy-to-use, flexible cloud and subscription services such as Cisco Webex Teams and cloud unified communications.

Adoption is occurring rapidly as more and more CIOs look to maximise their annual budgets, reduce unnecessary expenditure and rethink how their solutions are deployed to global teams.

While there’s a lot being said about how the workplace is changing, what’s also really encouraging to see is how our partners are adapting themselves.

Cisco is leading the charge in this brave new world with Cisco Flex. The company is a hotbed of activity and innovation as it redefines its portfolio, aligns solutions with customers’ expectations and enables companies to swap from older service plans or alternative plans to one easy to manage, cost-effective service.

This is really exciting as most organisations are only really getting started with the business benefits possible from migrating to subscription services.

That said, now collaboration and secure reliable networks are critical to businesses and their profitability, don’t just throw everything out the door and rush in head first.

Engage with a partner to ensure your adoption of anything ‘as-as-Service’ is carefully mapped out. Contact us today to find out how we can help.­