For many years, companies have sought better ways to involve customers, partners, and suppliers in their collaborative interactions without the burdensome requirements of scaling those interactions in person. The rationale for doing so is clear-meetings with external groups can mean faster decisions, improved customer intimacy and cross-cultural communications, and the ability to use scarce resources more efficiently or move products to market faster. Traditional videoconferencing using a video bridge-usually a service provided over a third-party network-is expensive and cumbersome, making it impractical and frustrating for many users.
Business Benefits
Cisco® has developed a better way for users to connect with customers, partners, and suppliers using the innovative Cisco TelePresence technology. Cisco TelePresence integrates advanced audio, ultra-high-definition video, and interactive collaboration tools with the underlying network as the platform to deliver an immersive meeting experience. Through this powerful combination of technology and design, local and remote participants feel as if they are in the same room. With intercompany Cisco TelePresence, you can now use your existing network to have a virtual meeting with anyone you want, any time you want.
Following are some benefits of Cisco TelePresence enabled for intercompany communications:
• Using your existing network and service provider connection to extend Cisco TelePresence meetings beyond your enterprise boundary, you can meet with your customers, suppliers, and partners. You do not need to build and manage a separate overlay network at additional cost or to deploy an outside connection that may not meet your security requirements.
• It maintains the simplicity of Cisco TelePresence features, such as "one button to push" to initiate meetings, allowing you to meet with others quickly and easily. Arranging meetings is as simple as making a phone call.
• It uses services in the network to guarantee quality of service (QoS) and bandwidth for a quality Cisco TelePresence experience, one that can securely and reliably span different enterprise and service provider networks using standards, encryption, and your existing firewalls.
Applications
Your most important business relationships extend outside your company, and they often require face-to-face meetings. With Cisco TelePresence enabled for intercompany communications, you can be more productive and more competitive: You can have some of your most important face-to-face interactions more easily, conveniently, and productively.
Applications for intercompany Cisco TelePresence abound. For example, two Wall Street financial companies can arrange a merger for their distant clients by holding joint, confidential, and frequent "face-to-face" meetings. Global manufacturing companies can conduct cross-functional meetings that include suppliers and partners without waiting for people to travel. Pharmaceutical companies can meet with physicians and patients together during drug trials. Any time you want your customers, suppliers, or partners face to face in highly secure communication around "one table," you can accomplish it with intercompany Cisco TelePresence.
Solution
Cisco TelePresence is enabled for intercompany communications via three components:
• Cisco TelePresence technology
– Cisco TelePresence System with endpoint security: Authentication and encryption
– Cisco TelePresence Manager for directory and "one-button" scheduling services
• Enterprise network
– Cisco Unified Communications Manager v.5.1 or later
– Network-management tools for monitoring, fault detection, and troubleshooting
– Billing and mediation capabilities
Unlike video conferencing solutions that require you and your contacts to use the same private network overlaid on top of your network, intercompany Cisco TelePresence takes advantage of your existing enterprise network and connections from service providers. How useful is the solution if you cannot call someone not on the same network? What about the scalability and cost of a proprietary model?
A well-managed, properly provisioned enterprise network can carry video, voice, and data traffic from one corner of an enterprise to the other while maintaining a quality experience. But this performance extends only as far as the edge of the corporate intranet, at which point performance guarantees disappear. Today's networks are islands: for data communications between enterprises, you must depend on best-effort intercarrier handoffs or the public Internet. For video applications, performance guarantees are particularly critical to successful use. That is why Cisco has worked with its service provider partners to develop this breakthrough Cisco TelePresence capability for intercompany communications.
