SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Cisco has announced that leading Australian small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are using Cisco WebExTM collaboration tools to aid their expansion, improve productivity and reduce expenses by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Two Cisco WebEx customers, StatSeeker and Kinetic Securities, are amongst the leading SMB adopters of collaboration technology in Australia and are benefiting significantly from using the network as the platform for communications. They are typical of the kinds of businesses identified in a recent Cisco WebEx survey of SMB attitudes towards improving work-life balance. The survey, shows, for instance, that half of senior employees in Australian SMBs agree that remote working provides better work-life balance.
StatSeeker, a Brisbane network-monitoring company that employs 17 people, has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel avoidance by using Cisco WebEx collaboration technology. StatSeeker has also used the Cisco WebEx collaboration technology to underpin its expansion outside Australia, where it estimates that 98 per cent of its customer base operates.
Martin Reed, global operations manager at StatSeeker, said: "In order to avoid the expense of travelling back and forth overseas to meet with customers and prospects or setting up international offices, StatSeeker chose to sell directly to customers through online meetings and Web conferencing. We implemented Cisco WebEx Meeting Center to deliver this remote business model, which has helped enable our expansion into 22 countries. We use collaboration technologies to provide each of our customers daily personalised service and support, regardless of their location. Additionally, by significantly reducing the need for face-to-face meetings, we have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in travel expenses alone."
Likewise, Kinetic Securities, a financial advisory firm with a team of 50 working from Sydney and the Gold Coast, uses online collaboration to increase the quality of its client interactions as well as to qualify new business leads. Technology from Cisco WebEx was implemented to help ensure it could frequently meet with and train clients via the Internet, helping Kinetic Securities break down communication barriers and significantly reduce travel costs. Cisco WebEx also helped Kinetic Securities to obtain new business and has revolutionised client interaction, making the company's team more available, approachable and accessible.
Jay Pace, a private client advisor for Kinetic Securities, said: "Being able to connect with clients remotely at any time makes the company more approachable and accessible, giving us a competitive advantage. WebEx is also a great warm-up for prospects, allowing them to see us, hear about what we do, and what we can offer them, virtually simulating the face-to-face experience. We also use WebEx to communicate between our offices, especially about product updates. Overall, the best part is its cost effectiveness and allows us to gauge the prospects' interest level, helping us decide whether it's worthwhile to organise a physical meeting."
