Companies spend billions every year on hardware, software, and services to power connections between people. From email and calendaring to video conferencing and contact center solutions – and everything between – collaboration tools make up a massive industry. And the industry is always disrupting itself.
Team collaboration is one such disruptive solution, rising up from yesterday’s siloed collaboration applications into a new way to connect people, content, and processes. It’s an essential part of an always-on global business environment, fueling agile teams.
I became the general manager for Cisco Webex Teams earlier this year. As the market evolves from beachhead to mainstream adoption, my primary goal is to make Webex the go-to team collaboration solution for organizations of all shapes and sizes. I am fortunate to inherit an amazing team and an amazing platform.
I’ve spent a lot of time listening and learning. Here’s insight into what I value about Webex Teams – and more important, feedback that customers and partners have shared with me.
One seamless interface connects teams across organizations: We’ve built the solution in a way that surfaces all your spaces within a single interface. It’s simple to get anyone into your Webex Teams spaces. And unlike other tools, you don’t have to navigate separate organization accounts or switch between tabs.
People are increasingly seeing productivity come from teams that blend internal and external participants. Ensuring that all your team workflows exist in one place might sound trivial, but it has a big productivity impact. For me, this is essential: It’s important to me that I’m one message away from anyone, no configuration necessary.
Video quality matters: I am based in Seattle with team members in the Silicon Valley, Galway, Shanghai, and beyond. I thought it would be challenging to manage such a distributed workforce.
I came from Microsoft. I’m not sure how many of you have used Skype but, for me, the video quality left a lot to be desired. It doesn’t come close to Webex. With Skype meetings, video was more the exception than the rule. Frankly, the mix of Microsoft Teams and Skype users made it even more complex (never mind adding external participants).
After experiencing the quality of Webex video within Teams, I know why every meeting is a video meeting. In fact, when I met some of my staff in person for the first time, I almost forgot that we had only met over video before. It is a powerful way to work that’s highly effective.
With one core meetings platform, Webex Teams users benefit in many ways. For example, native interop with SIP endpoints (even proprietary Skype for Business users) means that no matter what app or device you’re using, it’s one click to join a Webex Teams meeting. And not just you, but up to 100 other video users (soon to be more…).
Having an amazing integrated hardware and software experience: I often start a meeting on my phone, then move
to a Webex device with a simple swipe when I enter a room. This seamless, blended experience saves time and keeps things moving when I’m moving. I can save whiteboards, share content, and more without having to adjust settings and cables or open other apps. One fully integrated solution means I get a single experience no matter where I’m working, plus added benefits when I’m near a Webex-registered device.
Multitasking on a new level: Today, multitasking seems to be a means to survival. Webex Teams has been critical to my success. I can now talk to my team, work on documents with others, and join meetings from one app. It’s easy to see urgent items regardless of what I’m doing. Switching context from presenting in a meeting to replying to a customer question has never been easier.
Best yet, I can move between meetings more easily. With our meeting experience specifically built for teams, anyone can start a meeting, even if I’ve scheduled it. If I have to leave early, everyone can continue without any dependence on me. After the meeting, everyone stays connected with persistent messaging, file sharing, and more.
Building new experiences
As a leader I’m even more excited about what’s next. As team collaboration evolves from early adopters, DevOps teams, and test groups to broader knowledge-worker bases, there’s huge opportunity for Webex Teams to have a direct impact on the way people connect. To this end, I believe in a core maxim: The further apart we work, the more we need enterprise communications to feel more human and natural.
Video meetings are the best way to keep connected. But messaging features like GIF sharing, integration with the latest emoji palettes, link previews, seamless app integrations, and more are becoming essential to the Webex Teams experience.
We are working on many new features and will release them with the controls IT teams need. We want to deliver the best experience at scale, while also making it as secure and configurable as you expect.
We are investing in building even better experiences to “meet people where they work.” That means enabling richer integrations with other tools so that you don’t have to disrupt your workflow at all to work in Webex Teams. By connecting with more of the tools you use in your daily work, productivity can truly soar.
Who we are: Cisco Team Collaboration Group
Even though I’m relatively new to Cisco, it’s clear that the team here cares more about customer and partner success than any team I’ve worked with before. We stick together when things are flowing as well as when things get bumpy. We listen. We adapt. We know we can only build a more human and intuitive collaboration solution if we’re fully invested in our craft and each other. So, thank you to my team. And thank you to those of you I’ve met so far for your honesty and support.
We cannot wait to keep adding to our platform and making Webex Teams your favorite way to get work done.
If you aren’t using Webex Teams yet, download it now or start a free trial for your organization.
Tell us what you like and what you don’t. We’re always listening.
While the video quality is good with Webex the recent outage has left our company nervous. Teams prevented us from accessing rooms and files for well over a week.
I look forward to you making the very necessary changes and offering better functionality in the bright future you paint for Webex Teams.
Thank you for your comment and being a valuable customer. We also spend a majority of our time in Webex Teams so we completely understand how critical it has become for organizations and how important reliability is. Thank you for placing your trust in us.
Webex Team is absolute crap. Messages are not arriving on time. Voice quality is bad and sometimes not working. I wonder how this even became an app.
Thanks for your comments JL. We value your feedback and I would like to understand more. Will you please email me with the best way to contact you at blogs-support@cisco.com. I look forward to your message.
One of my favorite features is Teams automatically posting the meeting recording in the space right after the meeting ends. Simple right? When you add up the time it takes to copy & paste the link or download & upload the recording & then multiply that for each meeting, I could have used that time for another meeting or not be late to my next meeting. Thank you for quickly jumping in, listing to customers, and all the hard work behind the scenes to add these kinds of workflow enhancements that make work not feel like work. I am truly looking forward to all that's to soon come & I am glad you are here.
When are you going to offer free Webex Teams like Microsoft. When are you going to support federation type interop with Microsoft Teams. You guys should not just focus on yourselves like Apple and think how you can work together.
Thanks for your comments John. We do offer a free version of Webex Teams that is available on Webex.com that is enjoyed by many users today. As customers require expanded capabilities, they can move up to a paid version. On your other question, we too believe compatability and interop is important. We are working hard to leverage open API’s to allow integrations with many 3rd party apps, including Microsoft. On message interop, as there is not a common message protocol used by vendors, companies such as m.io are bringing capabilities to the market to bridge together this capability.
What's is happening with Jabber? Will Webex Teams replace it? If so, are you planning to add Jabber's capabilities to Webex ?
Hi John. Jabber continues to be an important part of our portfolio and we will continue to invest in capabilities. Jabber also remains an important product for many of our onPrem and HCS calling customers. You will continue to see investments in VDI as well as design updates that bring the experience similar to the rest of our portfolio. At the same time, we will begin to leverage many of the Jabber capabilities that have been implemented over the years and bring them natively into teams for those customers looking to move fully to the cloud. We are excited about what will be coming from both products later this year and in 2019.
Hi Lorrissa. Our company is running in parallel Webex Teams and Jabber. Are you open for suggestions? It is good idea to use one program instead of 2. I would like to see some Jabber capabilities in Webex Teams too.