Conduct Business Anywhere, Anytime
Mobility solutions let your employees conduct business anywhere, anytime, from any device delivering three key capabilities to the organization: insight, collaboration, and awareness. The technology underpinning mobility spans the spectrum of network capabilities: wired and wireless IP networks, unified communications, and location tracking solutions, each of which has integral security capabilities to protect both the device and the enterprise network.
Insight
Insight is the ability for employees to make accurate information-based decisions, complete business processes no matter where they may be, and meet customer needs on a timely basis. It is more than access to e-mail and other collaboration tools; it is the key information imbued with the timeliness and context needed to meet revenue goals, improve customer satisfaction, and interact with partners.
The technologies that support insight include:
- Both wired and wireless IP networking technologies that link the user to the corporate network to access applications and data
- Devices customized for the individual job role and environment, including laptops, tablets, ruggedized computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, mobile phones, and wireless IP phones
- Security solutions to protect the device, data, and corporate network, including VPN, antivirus, firewall, network admission control (NAC) appliance, and intrusion detection and prevention solutions
- Cisco and third-party applications that use network intelligence, including presence, location, identity, time of day, network type, and device type, to create contextually aware information delivery
Collaboration
Collaboration is more than simply trying to reach a colleague, partner, or customer by phone, e-mail, IM, or text message. Effective collaboration means reaching the person, not the device, quickly and simply in order to speed communication and decision making.
The technologies that support collaboration include:
- Unified communications solutions extended to mobile solutions, including smart phones or wireless IP phones, as well as to desktop IP phones and single-business-number-reach services
- Applications such as e-mail, voicemail, instant messaging, or text messaging
- Presence capabilities to understand who is available and whether they wish to be reached by phone, e-mail, IM, or text message
- Audio- and video-conferencing capabilities that allow users to share documents
Awareness
Awareness enables visibility into the key assets and people that are needed to complete work processes and meet customer commitments. Connecting these valuable assets into the network clarifies their location and status, reduces search time and procurement costs, and improves customer and employee satisfaction.
The technologies that support awareness include:
- Wireless LANs that allow the tracking of mobile devices and people throughout a building
- Active and passive RF identification (RFID) tags that report the movement of assets and the condition of the item, including temperature, humidity, vibration, and availability
- Location appliances that track usage, location, movement, and trends