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Cisco Designed portfolio expands to focus on empowering small businesses for the "New Normal"SAN JOSE, Calif., May 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Next week at the CiscoLive! digital event, Cisco will unveil the latest updates to its Cisco Designed portfolio including support for five of small businesses biggest technology challenges. As companies look towards different forms of limited reopening they are adapting to the next normal and technology will play a key role in supporting new ways of doing business. According to a National Small Business Association survey of over 980 small businesses, between March and April the number of business owners and their employees working remotely has doubled, a trend that is widely expected to continue. Small businesses are increasingly becoming a target of hackers so it's no surprise security has become the top small business IT concern. In addition to securely enabling a remote workforce, Cisco and its partners are committed to supporting small businesses in the following areas. - Work from home: how to meet and collaborate with employees and customers securely "Small businesses are investing in mobility because it contributes to cost savings, increases market reach, improves productivity and establishes better ways of working," said Anurag Agrawal, Analyst, Techaisle. "Security remains the top constraint for accelerating remote work adoption as small businesses struggle with data protection and mobile management. The Cisco Designed portfolio of small business-focused solutions directly addresses the needs and threat vectors for secure workplaces, better collaboration, simplified manageability and organizational productivity empowerment." At CiscoLive! Cisco will announce new products and solutions to support small business customers with the following:
Recent additional steps from Cisco to support small businesses include a range of financing options such as the Business Resiliency program from Cisco Capital allowing organizations to access technology to support business continuity and invest for recovery, deferring 95 percent of the cost until January 2021. Cisco launched free Webex and security offers for businesses as they jump started their secure remote working experience. Cisco also joined the "Stand for Small" initiative, partnering with American Express and a growing group of companies. Cisco joins more than 60 other leading companies across media, technology, consumer goods and professional services, focused on providing meaningful support to small businesses as they navigate the impacts of Covid-19. Stand for Small brings together valuable benefits on a single, easy-to-use digital platform. It allows small businesses to access relevant products, information, tools and services. Learn more about Stand for Small. What customers are saying about Cisco Designed "As a small business and nonprofit, we have noticed that we can be even more vulnerable to security threats compared to enterprise level organizations. We have seen a sharp and significant increase to security threats in the last year," said Elizabeth Whamond, Director of IT, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. "Being able to work with Cisco and our partners to easily deploy all of the necessary security solutions we need to mitigate this kind of risk has been invaluable to the team and instead allows us to focus on our mission of ensuring our community has the food they need to thrive." "In-person team collaboration has always been critical to giving our clients the best possible product," said Bryan Shetsky, CEO Lamark Media. "However, at the onset of the pandemic, we were able to move our entire company to remote in two days thanks to the secure collaboration technology we had in place and we have been even more productive as a remote workforce. With the right technology, the right security and the right components, we have learned that we can run a very successful business even when all of our employees are remote. Cisco has been a great partner for us because they have all of the technology components you need from collaboration to security to networking." Additional Resources:
About Cisco Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow's digital opportunity today. Discover more at thenetwork.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco. Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word "partner" does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cisco-designed-portfolio-expands-to-focus-on-empowering-small-businesses-for-the-new-normal-301065679.html SOURCE Cisco |