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Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1: Unlock the Full Potential of Collaboration Introduction: A More Collaborative Environment within Government and Education In a challenging economy, public sector organizations are under more pressure than ever to improve employee productivity, drive efficiencies, keep pace with technology, boost ROI, and forge closer relationships between employees, constituents, students, and the community at large.

Costs are always a concern, and these organizations are constantly exploring better ways to apply technology to keep their budgets in line while enabling employees to accomplish more with fewer resources. At the same time, there is a strong need to accelerate decision making, increase agility, and encourage innovation.

These challenges are emerging in both education and government, with workers and students becoming more mobile and geographically dispersed. Employees and students want to work or study from anywhere—home, the library, their dorm room, or wherever they find themselves. But they still need to remain fully engaged with their peers, managers, and teachers and have the ability to access the tools and information they need.

End-user expectations are changing as well. People expect informed, responsive service and a superior experience every time they interact—either in person, online, or on the phone. Maintaining a high level of end-user satisfaction is an ongoing challenge but also an opportunity. To meet these needs, government and education institutions of all sizes are embracing collaboration. A collaborative environment brings organizations closer together by empowering people to work and learn their way—anywhere, at any time, using the device or method that is right for them. It can help employees, students, and faculty feel more connected and engaged through frequent communication that keeps them involved and aligned with priorities, assignments, and the culture of the organization or institution.

The result is a more agile, innovative group that can communicate more effectively, make decisions quickly, and build a lasting advantage for everyone concerned.

Achieving Measurable Benefits Collaboration is fundamental to building a more engaged, efficient organization. With a collaborative environment, institutions can tap the full knowledge and expertise of their people by instantly bringing them together regardless of their location. This results in substantial benefits such as increased productivity and a reduction in operating costs through travel reduction, consolidation, and operational efficiency that extends across the entire organization. In a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, 75 percent of business leaders surveyed believed that in-person collaboration is critical to an organization’s success (Figure 1), and it has the potential to increase productivity by more than 20 percent (refer to “Power of In-Person”, Economist Intelligence Unit).

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Figure 1. In-Person Communication Is Critical to an Organization’s Success

Connecting the Workforce and Student Body to Enhance Productivity Collaboration helps organizations boost productivity by using the power of the intelligent network to bring people and information together more efficiently, shortening decision and learning cycles, and streamlining communication. The solution is ideal for today’s increasingly mobile society, enabling workers and students to stay productive and accessible on a smartphone, laptop, or tablet, whether they are working in a home office, a hotel lobby, an airport waiting area, or studying in a dorm room, laundry room, or library.

In a geographically dispersed organization, network collaboration makes it easy to quickly assemble virtual teams for rich, high-definition videoconferencing or web collaboration—from different offices, classrooms, or sites halfway around the world. By working face to face and beyond boundaries, employees and students can streamline workflows, promote development, and bring new programs to completion more quickly.

A collaborative environment can also engage employees and students better by giving them better access to the resources and information they need, as well as more flexible work and learning environments. Studies have shown that a highly engaged workforce will be not only more productive, but also more loyal and satisfied.

According to research firm BlessingWhite, engaged employees tend to stay employed at their place of work because of what they give to an organization, whereas disengaged employees stay because of what they receive from the organization (“2013 Employee Engagement Report”, BlessingWhite).

Effective collaboration extends beyond individuals and teams to produce a compounding effect that is accelerated by improved participation across the organization, for a dramatic ROI.

Empowering Groups to Spur Innovation Collaboration also has the potential to foster new levels of innovation. The boundaries of traditional government and educational organizations are expanding by increasing work with consultants, partners, suppliers, and even business entities to spark new ideas and bring new perspectives to projects. According to a recent study by IBM, 53 percent of CEOs in outperforming organizations partner exclusively for collaborative innovation (IBM 2012 Global CEO Study).

As public sector organizations move toward more collaborative relationships with external people and groups, the intelligent network can help them break down the barriers of time and location, and build more strategically-aligned

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organizations with the most knowledgeable, experienced people available. These nimble workgroups can accelerate the development of new ideas to drive efficiency, increase productivity and process improvements, and enhance student and citizen services.

Collaboration can also provide more flexible, innovative work options for employees, making them more empowered and engaged. For example, as consumer technologies become more advanced, more employees are choosing to bring their own tablets, smartphones, and other devices to work. The Cisco Connected World Technology Report found that 32 percent of employees rely on more than one mobile data device during a typical workday.

By supporting these Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) initiatives with a secure, collaborative solution, public sector institutions can free employees and students to work or learn their own way, from any location, and set the stage for innovation that creates sustainable opportunities.

Balancing Mission and Operational Concerns Although the benefits of collaboration are compelling, to be truly effective, a collaboration solution must not only address strategic mission objectives, but also meet an organization’s IT requirements.

To support an organization’s strategic goals, IT organizations need to be responsive to specific department or end-user needs, such as enabling specific applications or device platforms, while ensuring compliance, control, security, and interoperability. As consumer technology develops and people become more sophisticated, end users are taking a more active role in promoting IT priorities and demanding support for BYOD environments, instant messaging (IM), videoconferencing, and other collaborative initiatives.

Reducing TCO is also an important consideration for deploying a technology solution. A collaborative environment can help organizations improve data center efficiency by centralizing their operations on a single, converged network. It can also support new business models such as cloud and virtualization, enabling organizations to enhance their flexibility and agility while shifting costs to a more predictable, service-based approach. A converged, collaborative network can also promote phone and toll savings through Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking and more efficient session management.

Balancing priorities and IT’s operational concerns requires a holistic approach to collaboration, with a common architecture enabled by a single, comprehensive platform. The solution must deliver a rich, consistent experience for users, regardless of type of device or service they are using. At the same time, it must be efficient and simple to deploy and manage, supporting not just current mission needs, but future priorities as well.

Unlocking the Full Potential of Cisco Collaboration Cisco offers a complete portfolio of applications, solutions, and services that enable organizations to bring people together for smooth, secure collaboration (Figure 2). At the heart of Cisco® Collaboration solutions is an intelligent, converged voice, video, and data network backed by a world-class services and support organization.

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Figure 2. A Complete Portfolio for Secure, Transparent Collaboration

The Cisco Collaboration portfolio is built around four key categories:

● Unified communications provides users with dependable, consistent communications capabilities no matter where they are working or learning, with a complete suite of IP communications solutions and endpoints. Cisco Unified Communications provides a common network platform that enables organizations to manage voice, video, mobility, and presence services between IP phones and other endpoints. It also provides support for media-processing devices, voice-over-IP (VoIP) gateways, mobile devices, and multimedia applications.

● End-User collaboration lets organizations build the foundation to deliver a content-rich, user-centric experience that is key to strengthening satisfaction, building loyalty, and fostering growth. A rich array of customer care products enable groups to move beyond traditional call and support centers to engage more proactively with end users. Cisco customer Collaboration products help connect people with the information, expertise, and support they need—when and where they need it most.

● Cisco TelePresence® solutions enable organizations to support live, face-to-face communication with rich, high-definition (HD) video. Individual and multipoint meetings and lectures help scale knowledge, enhance training and education, extend expertise anywhere on demand, and provide a better work-life balance and learn-your-way experience.

● Collaboration applications provide a rich, contextual, interactive environment that focuses on people instead of individual applications or devices. Cisco Collaboration applications help organizations stay connected and productive with voice, video, web conferencing, messaging, mobile applications, and enterprise social software. Together, they enable people to stay productive anywhere, accelerate innovation, and improve decision making.

Anchored by a Transparent Approach to Collaboration Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1 is the foundation that enables all of these collaboration experiences, delivering the right collaboration experience to the right endpoint (Figure 3). Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1 provides session and call control for video, voice, messaging, mobility, IM, and presence.

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Figure 3. Cisco Unified Communications Manager: A Foundation for Collaboration

The latest release of this unified communications call-control platform lets organizations unleash the full potential of collaboration today and sets the stage for new services and applications as mission goals evolve.

Bringing Together People and Processes for Productivity Cisco Unified Communications Manager lets public sector organizations dramatically improve productivity with comprehensive unified communications that help workers and students communicate, work, and learn more effectively. It integrates smoothly with existing processes and applications, and is designed to transparently connect people using the device or medium they prefer.

With Cisco Collaboration solutions, people can communicate naturally using the web, voice, video, or IM sessions. And they can smoothly migrate from one method to another, regardless of how and where they are working.

Figure 4. Collaboration—From a One-To-One IM to a Five-Person Videoconference

For example, an employee could send an IM to a colleague in another office to ask if she has a moment for a short conference. If additional people are needed to resolve a problem, their short chat could escalate into an impromptu five-person videoconference or a Cisco WebEx® session—bringing in experts from multiple sites. Cisco Unified

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Communications Manager is the enabling platform that lets organizations assemble effective virtual teams from any location.

Here are more examples of how public sector organizations used collaboration to improve communication and lower costs:

• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) connected doctors and researchers using video, voice, and collaboration tools to expedite the review of medical data and make collaborative decisions quickly, without the need for travel. Citizen engagement improved with faster response times and access to expertise not otherwise available. These solutions have also helped improve employee morale and satisfaction.

• The University of Virginia (UVA) and James Madison University (JMU) used Cisco TelePresence to offer an expanded national security curriculum to students who would not have otherwise been able to take the class. Students from JMU participated in lectures remotely and interacted with the teacher and other students as if they were in the same room, when they were at a campus two hours from UVA.

• North Carolina Army National Guard significantly reduced the operating costs of their voice platform by upgrading to a VoIP solution from Centrex. Management of the network was simplified, and costs for moves, additions, and changes were virtually eliminated, freeing up IT staff to work on other, more critical projects.

Innovation Through Access Cisco Collaboration solutions enable organizations to become more agile and innovative by extending secure communications beyond traditional boundaries to external groups, partners, consultants, and the community. With Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1, collaborative organizations can employ best-in-class voice and videoconferencing to bring their students, faculty, and employees and their expertise—closer to colleagues and other institutions. For example:

• Wake Forest University implemented a university-wide collaboration infrastructure using Cisco Jabber Video™ and Cisco WebEx to extend learning to wherever students and teachers were located, maximizing interaction and transforming learning by integrating mobility into daily campus life.

• The Technical Colleges of Georgia upgraded to VoIP from Centrex to reduce monthly expenses by about 80 percent while moving beyond dial tone to include voice, videoconferencing, multi-party voice conferencing, unified messaging, presence, and fax services.

• The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) implemented a formalized telework program by leveraging the Cisco Collaboration portfolio. USPTO has realized significant savings in real estate overhead ($24 million/year) by managing the need for dedicated office space through teleworking.

• Anoka-Hennepin School District needed to facilitate better communication between teachers and administrators, while improving educational experience throughout the district. Cisco WebEx online meeting applications enabled greater educational opportunities for students through video conferencing and improved teaching methods.

Manageable and Interoperable Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1 was designed to enable organizations to realize the rich benefits of network collaboration—without compromising IT priorities. The solution offers flexibility to work smoothly

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with existing processes, applications, and services, together, with the scalability to grow and evolve as needs change.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1 features a simplified, user-centric licensing approach that enables organizations to easily manage licensing across multiple unified communications clusters and applications using a single tool. Licensing is based on the way people and students work and learn, and the tools they need, to help quickly choose the approach that is right for them (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1 Features a User-Centric Licensing Approach

To help organizations deliver a consistent user experience, the current release of Cisco Unified Communications Manager also provides Cisco Jabber feature parity, with video support for all network endpoints. To facilitate smooth connectivity between wired and wireless communication devices, Cisco Unified Communications Manager also offers fixed mobile convergence using standards-based IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) technology.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager is designed for smooth interoperability with other networks, devices, and services. The solution features expanded video endpoint support, as well as call admission control (CAC) to support improved bandwidth and management. It also includes integrated IM and presence, to enable organizations to deliver a full range of collaboration options under one simple, cost-effective management platform.

To enable organizations to get the most from their existing technology, Cisco Unified Communications Manager offers full investment protection, with support for incremental add-ons, without forcing users and administrators to change the way they work. Simplified administration makes it easy to support device moves, additions, and changes, and built-in assisted services, such as one-button recording, to help users save time and work more productively.

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Conclusion It is clear that effective collaboration can dramatically transform organizations of all sizes, to encourage improved productivity, innovation, and growth. But to take advantage of the promise of collaboration, organizations need to employ a holistic strategy, looking beyond individual applications and devices to encompass the entire network and the processes that employees use to collaborate.

Cisco employs an architectural approach to collaboration by using the network as the platform for business transformation. The Cisco vision for collaboration not only focuses on hardware or software, it also considers both elements, and how they work together and align with an organizations processes.

As a global leader in networking, Cisco offers the most comprehensive, best-in-class collaboration portfolio and flexible delivery model offerings in the market. This rich portfolio is built on open standards to preserve existing investments while offering ease of management across their environment. The entire portfolio is backed by robust advanced services and technical support to enable organizations to get the most value from their technology investment.

Cisco industry leadership and advanced technology play a vital role in all Cisco Collaboration solutions. By deploying a Cisco solution built around Cisco Unified Communications Manager Version 9.1, organizations take advantage of the latest collaboration tools and business models, and create a scalable foundation for new capabilities in the years to come.

For More Information Collaboration in Government - www.cisco.com/go/govcollaboration

Collaboration in Education – www.cisco.com/go/educollaboration

Printed in USA CXX-XXXXXX-XX 05/13

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