Business Resiliency Through A Year of Change – Cisco Blogs

3 Million Active Networks, 8.5 Million Devices, 1 Simple to Use Platform

Over the past year, as the world has faced uncertainty and hurdles, we have also seen incredible resilience, from organizations and individuals alike, as they have navigated through ongoing, unpredictable change. We have learned that we can be agile and adaptable in our working – and personal – lives. Now, as we look toward the future and what comes next, embracing transformation and evolving the ways we work, will be key in order to survive and thrive.

One year ago, on March 5, 2020, I stepped in to lead the Cisco Meraki business, less than a week before we sent 1,000 employees home from our San Francisco office for an indefinite amount of time. While it hasn’t been an easy year, I am incredibly proud of what our team has accomplished over the past year:

• 3 Million Active Networks: Meraki is now serving more than 3 million active networks around the world. This milestone is a huge testament to our ability to support over half a million customers as they take on challenges, especially during today’s changing business economy, while providing actionable, intelligent insights and the best experiences.
• Continued Portfolio Growth: We continue to uncover new use cases to help our customers tackle the inevitable changes to their business needs across industries including education, manufacturing, retail and beyond. Together, with our partners, we are delivering solutions to our customers that help them secure remote workers and prepare for a digital-first world. In July 2020, we completed the acquisition of Modcam, bringing their machine learning technology and incredible team to our smart camera portfolio. With this acquisition, we are expanding ways for businesses to continuously monitor their physical environments and create safer working places.
• Technology That Powers an Inclusive Recovery: Our evolved technology has also enabled us to expand our footprint in new and innovative ways, such as providing healthcare professionals, supply chains, contact centers and patients with meaningful insights and data. From protecting vaccine storage to enabling mobile vaccine distribution, as well as traffic flow safety, our smart camera and environmental sensor solutions have supported seamless storage and monitoring of vaccine distribution, both nationally and globally.

An Agile Platform Strategy for Managing Change

While every organization’s situation has been different, one thing has remained a constant: the need to be agile is imperative. Eliminating complexity, better integration of security, and the ability to automate processes have become a necessity. As many of us continue to work from anywhere, or in a hybrid environment, shifting workplace and customer needs present new challenges on a daily basis.

To provide valuable outcomes for our customers and address their ever-evolving needs, our cloud-first, comprehensive platform reaches over 190 countries and manages over 8.5 million Meraki devices. Built to be open and extensible, our platform powers over one billion external API requests weekly and serves a thriving marketplace of diverse apps.

With an evolved, intelligent, cloud-managed platform, customers can quickly adopt a digital-first model that enables them to move rapidly and deliver more value. It also enables customers to shed the complications while maintaining sophistication, and extend capabilities through our partner ecosystem.

Enabling a Trusted Workplace and Safe Return to Work

As organizations prepare for a safe return to the office, it is imperative to implement a strategy that protects employees from anywhere, on any device, and includes new capabilities like capacity level visibility and intelligent touchless experiences. We are continuing to develop solutions to help companies transform their workplace and ensure a safe and secure environment for their customers and employees. This includes:

• Intelligent physical security: Providing a safe return to on-site work for workforces is top priority. Meraki MV smart cameras and MT sensors provide reliable security monitoring and valuable insights, helping our customers address their physical security needs. Additionally, with Meraki MV and Cisco DNA Spaces, building managers can better understand location occupancy through footfall and presence, and enable proactive alerts and actions to keep employees safe – such as restricting door access in an office space when the density threshold is approaching.
• IT for the connected student experience: The last year has shown us that new learning approaches and delivery channels are needed to transform the student and teacher experience and provide them with the connectivity and digital resources they expect. Meraki’s cloud-managed, wireless Access Points provide students and faculty staff with seamless access to Wi-Fi and uncompromised security, while improving reliability and overall performance.
• Remote workforce connectivity: As organizations continue to support rapidly expanding remote workforces, Meraki Z-Series teleworker solutions are designed to securely extend the in-office experience – corporate connectivity, access to internal resources, etc. – to employees and IT staff working from anywhere. With simple-to-use self-configuration, businesses can enable fast deployment at remote locations, without any assistance from end-users.
• Enhanced security and user experiences, from anywhere: Meraki’s cloud-first platform delivers consistent security and experience for users from anywhere, on any device. Our platforms’ open APIs enable seamless integration across Cisco technologies and third-party systems. It also provides organizations with the flexibility to remove complexity from their digital transformation journey, allowing them to adapt their workplace infrastructure to meet the needs of their business in the future.

To learn more, register for Chris Stori’s session at Cisco Live on Tuesday, March 30 at 1:30 PM PDT:

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