You know how Microsoft and Cisco Webex Teams can support your team experience, user experience, and customer experience strategies. There’s only one question remaining – which of these tools will give you the UC 3.0 solution you need to boost your business experience too?
Business experience is all about making sure that you have the right level of control over the tools that your teams use. After all, all, for a new application or service to be successful, it needs to be secure, compliant, accessible, and even affordable. On top of that, it’s essential to make sure that you can convince your teams that they should be adopting new tools at a time when they’re already rushing through each day.
The Teams tool that you choose should always feature the following things:
- Administration support: Make sure that you have absolute control over your system with access to diagnostics tools, configuration and system programming services, and more.
- Integrations: The best workplace collaboration solutions are always ready to plug into your existing applications and business processes. SaaS and server-based software applications like Microsoft Office, CRM tools, Helpdesk, eCommerce services, file storage and more should all work seamlessly with your new solution.
- APIs: The rise of CPaaS is greater than ever in the current agile environment. If you want to make sure that you can create a complete UC 3.0 environment, then CPaaS will help with that. Through APIs and SDKs, you can embed your new collaborative solutions into your existing everyday processes.
- User adoption: Make sure that it’s easy for your teams to embrace the new tools and applications that you want them to use. Otherwise they’ll simply reject them. Companies like Cisco and Microsoft can provide training and videos to help with this.
- Compliance and Security: With so many regulations to keep track of today, including GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and ISO 27001, it’s crucial to ensure that all of your apps help to keep you on the right side of data privacy, and protected from fraud.
- Pricing and Licensing: Make sure your tool suits your budget. Both Microsoft and Cisco offer easy-to-understanding licensing, capex and OpEX payment options, and more. Before you invest in your new solution, make sure you know it’s ROI potential (Return on Investment), and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Cisco Webex Administration
Microsoft and Cisco take unique approaches to the concept of encryption. However, both companies take privacy and security very seriously. With Cisco Webex Teams, Cisco only ever decrypts consumer data within the client, so that data is always protected when it’s in the cloud.
Some Cisco fans argue that the business is responsible for helping to pave the way for greater focus on security in the digital landscape. With a strong history in Enterprise communications and networking, security has always been a significant part of what Cisco does. Every line you write on a Cisco whiteboard and message you send via Cisco Webex Teams is encrypted. Additionally, Cisco backs it’s privacy and security strategy up with proven certifications like ISO 27001, EPU model Clauses, Privacy Shield and more.
When it comes to compliance, Cisco is one of the market leaders. As a compliance officer with Webex, you’ll be able to access the Cisco Webex eDiscovery search and extraction tool available from the Webex Control Hub. This makes it much easier to remain compliant with things like GDPR, ISO 27001, and HIPAA regulations.
For Administrative purposes, Cisco places as much control as possible into the hands of the end-user. The Webex Control Hub provides complete access to all the tools and services you might need, with single-pane-of-glass management to simplify your day to day operations. Once you feel comfortable rolling your new tool out to your team, Cisco can help with training and user adoption too. There is an extensive range of documents, troubleshooting services and online classes to get you started.
Over the years, Cisco, just like any other online provider has experienced the occasional outage. Webex Technical Support is available to help with this, and you can keep track of what’s happening with the Webex services on the Support Centre too.
Although it’s difficult to find pricing for Cisco’s Webex solution online (you need to contact the a Cisco partner), Gartner claims that there are three options for customers. You can, however, find the price for Cisco Webex Meetings, which is available starting from £11.25 for up to 50 participants. For up to 100 participants, you’ll need the “Plus” service at £14.85 a month, and for 200 participants, you can access the Business package for £22.50 per month.
For a comprehensive UC 3.0 strategy, the Cisco Collaboration Flex plan is available. This provides cloud, on-premise, and hosted collaboration services in a single user-based subscription. Cisco’s licensing model is rather complex due to the amount of flexibility and sheer number of products and features they have in their portfolio, therefore, my advice would be to consult with a Cisco partner who can explain everything in detail to you.
Microsoft Teams Administration
Microsoft is another giant in the world of security and encryption. Remember, this is a company that has been building huge-scale solutions and operating systems for years. Security and compliance are second nature to Microsoft, and according to the brand, Teams is built on the enterprise-grade, hyper-scale cloud, complete with its advanced security and compliance features.
For encryption, Microsoft uses separate encryption cycles for transmitting and storing data. Teams uses the same security as the rest of the Office 365 platform, which means that it meets with HIPPA compliance regulations, ISO 27001 and 28018, and many of the other regulations that Cisco supports.
When it comes to admin tools, Microsoft doesn’t shy away from giving end-users the control that they need. The Microsoft Security and Compliance Centre provides access to things like two-factor authentication and eDiscovery. The Microsoft eDiscovery service means that you can easily find your electronically stored information for GDPR purposes, or to withdraw information for investigation. Audit logs are also available to enable managers to get a deeper insight into how tools and applications are used.
Through Admin portal, companies will have access to all of the information they need about their Microsoft Teams solution. Additionally, like Cisco, Microsoft is happy to support companies as they make their way into the ecosystem for the first time, with support through training and user adoption services.
Microsoft Teams also comes with troubleshooting and diagnostic log features that businesses can use to track the reasons for their outages. One of the most recent disruptions to hit Microsoft Teams happened on the 18th of February 2019, and it affected multiple data centre regions around the world.
Licensing-wise, Microsoft Teams offers a range of Office 365 options to suit a variety of budgets. There are packages available for Enterprise, Small Business, Education companies, and developers. What’s more, all of these prices are very transparent and easy to understand. There’s even a free option for smaller companies and freelancers. For the premium option, you can expect to pay anywhere from £9.40 per user per month.
Non-profits can enjoy significant discounts. Reach out to a Microsoft partner for specialist pre-sales advice.
Microsoft also adopts a ‘buy online’ approach which makes Teams easily accessible by the small business and SOHO (small office/home office) community. With a little bit of tech savvy, you can sign up and get started with a Microsoft Teams collaboration and cloud phone system experience rather quickly.
This is a key differentiator when comparing Microsoft with Cisco, however, don’t forget that Cisco have a wide network of service providers globally that will offer your small business a Cisco based solution, the challenge is locating the right one for you.
Read on.. Microsoft Teams vs. Cisco Webex Teams: Final Thoughts
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