In line with its ‘Best-Connected’ strategy, business telecommunications service provider Kordia has become the first certified Cisco Webex Calling Service Provider in New Zealand.
As the only SIP-trunk approved provider of the solution widely used by enterprise customers, Kordia will also be able to serve value-added service providers in Australia and locally with trunking links directly into the Cisco cloud.
Murray Goodman, Kordia Head of Product, points out a massively increased demand for corporate-grade unified communications.
“With Webex, companies across New Zealand and the world have a secure, proven solution for all their collaboration requirements, from phone calls through to video conferencing and more.
“As the first certified Webex Calling Service Provider in the local market, Kordia is recognised by Cisco as delivering links into its cloud platform within tightly specified requirements for security, availability, and reliability,” says Goodman.
Webex was one of the first unified communication solutions to come to market. Founded in 1995, the service was acquired by networking giant Cisco in 2007. Cisco has steadily improved the functionality and capability of Webex through organic development and acquisition, with the most recent including BroadSoft in 2018 and BabbleLabs in 2020.
Goodman notes BroadSoft enhanced Webex’s cloud-based communications services such as voice, video, web conferencing, team messaging and contextual services, while BabbleLabs’ external noise removal and speech enhancement technology improved the effectiveness of spoken interactions.
The Webex cloud solution portfolio includes Meetings (video conferencing, webcasting, and online learning), Teams (for continuous, collaborative teamwork in one place), Cloud Contact Centre (with AI capabilities to enhance customer journeys), Headsets & Endpoints (including video devices, phones, headsets and on-premise unified communication) which leverages existing IT investments.
All Webex solutions integrate seamlessly with other Cisco products, including the popular Meraki networking range which Kordia also supports.
“We’ve seen many examples of free or ‘freemium’ video conferencing solutions causing security breaches and headaches for users. This risk is significantly reduced with Webex as it’s designed specifically for corporate communication has and has a 57 percent cloud calling market share in the enterprise.”
Effective and always reliable
On both sides of the ditch, enterprises of all kinds have come to rely on Webex for their communication requirements. With Covid-19 making work and study from home necessary, dependable collaboration has never been more necessary.
For event venue operator Cliftons, Webex has proven indispensable in a challenging time, effectively connecting teams from eleven venues in nine cities across New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore.
The company’s COO, Robert Boehmer, says Webex reduced the IT complexity of managing multiple phone systems across multiple locations while rapidly transitioning employees to a 100 percent work from home setup.
“We feel more like a team because we're acting like one. Webex has given us the collaboration tools to do what we need with the same experience when working remotely, or in the office,” Boehmer notes.
Brisbane’s Stuartholme School switched to Cisco Webex Calling as schools closed throughout Australia. The solution has proven crucial for keeping the school functional during global crisis, handling massive multi-party calls between students and teachers.
Even before Covid-19, teachers and staff at Stuartholme recognised the importance of reliable connectivity. They previously used an older system that didn’t have all the features they wanted, with minor changes needing to be logged with a third-party vendor before they were carried out. These frustrating limitations caused the school to look elsewhere for their communications needs, leading the school to a cloud-based solution.
Goodman says unified communications has truly come into its own throughout Covid-19 and with Kordia now being able to offer SIP trunks into Webex, the benefit it has provided to organisations in Australia is now also possible in New Zealand.
“It may have had its genesis in the 1990s, but it’s thanks to technology like Webex that we’ve been able to get through a challenging time whilst maintaining productivity. Webex remains the go-to solution for organisations which value dependability, security and privacy, and Kordia is ready to provide certified connectivity to make it happen.” Combined with our best-connected philosophy your business applications like O365, CRM or Google Docs, as well as your calling needs, are all cloud ready.
