.

Solution Overview

© 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Page 1 of 2

Five to Thrive Strategies: Unlock Employee Potential

Tough times require communicating clearly and helping employees unlock their potential for creativity and

innovation. Capitalizing on employee potential directly affects an organization's ability to retain top talent,

as well as improving revenue growth, competitive differentiation, and time to market for new products.

Tools and processes that emphasize communication between and among leaders and employees can

improve your company’s leadership and make employees more effective, innovative, and motivated. Here

are three ways to make that happen.

1. Help employees be more productive and innovative with collaboration tools: Give employees the power to

collaborate with each other wherever they are using solutions such as Cisco Mobility, presence, click to call,

remote worker, and other collaborative tools.

Cisco Accelerates Deal Approval Approximately 40 percent of all customer agreements at Cisco require special approval, and approximately half

require human intervention. Because they did not know when agreements had been approved, sales employees

had to check their status frequently throughout the day. By enabling real-time collaboration between sales and

approvers when a “hold” occurs, Cisco sales teams and channel partners can resolve issues more quickly, thus

accelerating revenue recognition.

2. Harness the collaborative power of all employees to maximize effectiveness and efficiency: Cisco

collaboration and video solutions enable you and your customers to increase interactions and the availability of

experts. Solutions such as Cisco WebEx, WebEx Connect, and Expert On Demand using Cisco TelePresence

allow you to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty without increasing resources.

Cisco Improves Sales Force Productivity

Cisco implemented a Network Enhanced Workspace initiative that combined multiple Cisco Unified

Communications solutions to 3,000 Cisco sales employees. Using mobile, video, and collaboration applications,

sales people reduced the average time needed to communicate by 65 minutes per day and achieved 17 percent

Solution Overview

© 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Page 2 of 2

higher revenue growth. At the same time, sales teams were able to spend more time with customers and

improve service delivery.

Cisco Improves Support for Mac Users

With more than 5,000 Apple Macintosh users at Cisco but no spare IT resources for supporting them, Mac users

began helping each other. A wiki portal was established to support Mac users with solutions, resources, and tips.

It has more than 750 contributors and 10,000 unique visits per month, and it replaces 40,000 email messages.

Cisco is able to avoid US$1.6 million in help desk costs annually and improves user productivity and uptime for

an annual value of $2.6 million.

3. Nurture employees by focusing on motivation and morale: Promoting a collaborative culture helps build

employee morale and therefore productivity. Tools such as wikis, videos, and blogs enable employees to voice

questions, concerns, opinions, and ideas, all of it feedback for innovation. Cisco Unified Communications

solutions such as Cisco TelePresence and WebEx can also play a strong role in promoting a community

atmosphere among employees across geographically remote locations.

Consumer Packaged Goods Company Builds Idea Supply Chain

With 138,000 employees in 80 countries, a leading packaged goods company wanted to include its customers,

partners, and academia in its efforts to continually innovate products. Using Cisco TelePresence, the company's

employees conducted 600 innovation meetings per month while avoiding 5,000 trips. The results added up to

more than US$29 million in travel costs, accelerated decision making, and a strengthened ability to innovate with

partners.

Unlocking Employee Potential

The Five to Thrive Unlock Employee Potential strategy represents a proven, sound approach. With employees as

their most valuable assets, companies that use collaboration technologies and their accompanying business process

to unlock their employees’ full potential will be the ones that navigate successfully through the tough times and

emerge as thriving companies in the upturn.

Printed in USA C22-540499-00 05/09