SAN JOSE, Calif., October 22, 2002 - Cisco Systems, Inc., today advances its small to medium-sized business (SMB) strategy helping customers create a sustainable and competitive advantage, improve operational efficiencies, increase employee productivity, and ultimately increasing revenues and profitability. The strategy combines all crucial elements of Cisco solutions and services, including intelligent services, growth technologies, strategic partner assistance, world-class service and support, financing options, and enhancements to its Cisco Internet Business Roadmap tool and solutions-selling program.
AMI-Partners, a New York based research and consulting firm focused on global small and medium sized businesses, estimates that the United States alone boasts more than 7.6 million SMBs, defined as companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Together, they employ almost two-thirds of the entire U.S. workforce and will spend an estimated $223 billion dollars in IT and Telecommunications products and services in 2002.
"It's no understatement to say that small and medium-sized businesses play an enormous role in driving the world economy," said Peter Alexander, vice president, worldwide commercial marketing segment, Cisco Systems. "These businesses are successful because they are focused and agile, thanks largely to their investments in effective technologies. A growing number of SMBs are now ready to take their businesses to the next level. They are prepared to implement networking technology solutions that will significantly improve the way they share information internally and externally, while boosting the stability and overall performance of their companies."
Moving Business Online to Maximize Revenue and Profitability
Companies of all sizes are moving their business processes online to cut costs, increase and sustain efficiency, improve employee productivity, and maximize revenue streams. To meet the unique needs and requirements of these growing businesses, the Cisco strategy is to deliver manageable networking platforms, architecture blueprints, and best-in-class technologies through intelligent services such as high-availability, Quality of Service (QoS), and security running over Cisco IOS. Software. This, in turn, enables SMBs to deliver cost-saving and revenue-generating services enabled by solutions such as customer care, e-procurement, sales force automation, financial management, web hosting and e-commerce, workforce optimization, and Web marketing.
Cisco SMB solutions and services help customers create a sustainable and competitive advantage, while improving operational efficiencies and effectiveness, resulting in increased revenues and higher profitability including:
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Intelligent Services
- Security - authenticating users, restricting access and isolating traffic en route to destination
- QoS - prioritizes and directs traffic to minimize congestion and ensure applications receive necessary bandwidth
- High-Availability - helps employees and customers access the network anytime, keeping productivity at its highest
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Growth Technologies
- Core networking routers and switches - provides a high-level of efficiency for network applications improving employee productivity
- Security - seamlessly integrates all Cisco technologies
- IP Communications - lowers total cost of network ownership by combining voice and data on a single network
- Mobility/Wireless - allows employees to work productively at work, at home, or on the road
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Strategic Partner Support
- Cisco's alignment with technology partners provides an integrated end-to-end solution to help achieve maximum productivity
- Cisco Channel Partners use their expertise to help assess needs, recommend solutions, and manage the implementation, integration and ongoing maintenance of mission-critical applications
- As more SMBs are moving to outsource networking requirements with service provider managed services, Cisco is actively working with them to provide customer premise equipment and infrastructure technology
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Service and Support
- Maximizes return on investment by offering technical support services that helps ensure the network operates efficiently and remains highly available, providing a safety net for their network investment
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Financing Options
- Cisco offers flexible financing plans and competitive rates allowing SMBs to finance an entire solution, including products, services, maintenance and support
In addition to outlining its SMB strategy, Cisco also introduced new tools and educational resource enhancements to its Cisco Internet Business Roadmap program to help businesses grow and to help enable their networks to evolve efficiently, reliably, and securely.
The Cisco Internet Business Roadmap helps growing businesses develop an individualized roadmap of e-business technology solutions and strategies. This unique and comprehensive planning tool helps SMBs generate customized Internet solutions adoption and rollout plans. Users complete a simple online business and technology assessment. With this tool, businesses of any size can quickly and easily identify the combined hardware, applications software, and services solutions that best fit the needs of their company.
"The Cisco Internet Business Roadmap assessment validated my current business strategy and suggested new solutions to consider moving forward," said David Roessler, director of IT, Quay Corp. "It sparked new ideas and conversations both internally and with our Cisco representative."
To learn more about the Cisco Internet Business Roadmap tool, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/cibr.
To learn more about the comprehensive Cisco Internet Business Roadmap channel selling program, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/cibrchannel.
