Way back in March 2022, the government had to announce a lockdown due to the wide-spread of Covid-19, and that changed the way we all used to envisage our offices. Over the last 10 months, most of us have been working from home, and now there is a growing understanding that the future of the work environment is likely to be more hybrid in which some of employees might be working from home and some from offices.

To understand these changing trends and how modern solutions like Webex can empower organizations in Hybrid Work Environment, Tech Observer Editor Ankush Kumar talks to Pankaj Agrawal, Director, Collaboration Business at Cisco India & SAARC in a special Podcast.

According to Agrawal, 2020 has taught employers and employees that offices may not be a necessity to drive productivity, as work is an activity and not a place. Hybrid work and hybrid workplaces are location agnostic scenarios that enable employees to be productive irrespective of where they are working. We can be sure that the workplace has changed, not just for now but for the foreseeable future – with clear benefits for both organisations and employees.

Modern-day tools like Webex empower organisations and employees to be productive in secure remote work scenarios, with applications like video conferencing, meeting, and messaging, with thoughtful novelties like background noise cancellation and efficient functioning despite low internet bandwidth. 

Packed with powerful, intuitive modernisations like displaying member details by moving the cursor to the person during meetings and live polling for gauging audience comprehension where results are presented graphically for quality engagement by the speaker, Webex aims to make remote meetings 10X times better than face-to-face meetings.

IT industry was an early adopter of remote and hybrid work. During the lockdown, banking, finance, insurance, educational institutions, and even manufacturing, pharma, and public sectors like judiciary and police have adopted Cloud and remote work solutions. Travel to multiple offices/factories is now replaced with remote solutions and seamlessly integrating existing portals with Webex for continued productivity.

Upcoming innovations include Unified Webex Applications where meeting, messaging, video conferencing can happen from a single interface with AI-driven real-time translation for inclusive collaboration for global participants. 

To improve productivity, the AI-based Webex Assistant will take notes and share the summary of the meeting; self-learning Webex Highlights will prioritise more important messages based on past behaviour; or Webex Graph, which can provide insights about individual time consumption for appropriate course correction. 

Cisco believes that opportunities are evenly distributed around the world, but the human potential is not. We believe Webex drives inclusive participation. Using remote collaboration, we help in making these opportunities available to people with potential.

This Podcast is published under Tech Observer Brand Solutions initiative. Connect us at contact@techobserver.in to know more.