HERNDON, VA--(Marketwire - June 25, 2007) - For government agencies and their employees
hoping to work remotely in order to meet congressionally mandated targets,
a new survey of federal information technology decision makers commissioned
by Cisco (
NASDAQ:
CSCO) has some encouraging news. More than three-quarters
of the respondents believe that coordination of a mobile or remote
workforce will be improved through unified communications -- the
integration of voice, video and data, delivered across a secure Internet
Protocol (IP) infrastructure.
Agencies will benefit from unified communications for their more critical
needs as well, as more than 90 percent of respondents believe it is
essential for disaster recovery and continuity of operations. As to
implementation, one-quarter of the respondents report fully operational
systems, and more than 20 percent are in early stages of rollout. The
survey, conducted by the research firm Market Connections, polled 200
information technology executives from both civilian and defense agencies
about their communications systems, business issues and challenges, and
status of unified communications systems and action plans.
"As we are seeing with dozens of agencies, unified communications is
essential to the transformation occurring within the federal government,"
said Bruce Klein, Cisco federal area vice president. "Agency employees are
driving mission objectives from anywhere, and the trend should continue as
they more clearly understand the benefits of unified communications,
including increased overall efficiency, responsiveness and productivity,
real-time communications, enhanced disaster recovery, location-independent
employees, and the ability to do more with less by making use of existing
resources."
Survey results indicate that state-of-the-art communications tools are
being widely adopted across the federal government as agency executives
strive to integrate secure, collaborative business processes and
applications into their communications infrastructure. Wireless laptops,
mobile devices and video conferencing systems
are all used by the vast majority of agencies. Nearly 50 percent of the
organizations now use instant messaging.
While these devices are overwhelmingly viewed as a "blessing rather than a
curse" in helping to improve communications within the agencies, they are
not a panacea. More than a third of the executives surveyed report having
delayed projects or missed deadlines as a result of not being able to
contact a co-worker.
Klein notes the responses indicate that many agencies have yet to
understand and develop unified communications and mobility strategies to
drive their business, and are still dealing with contradictory perceptions.
For example, although nearly all respondents believe that security and
system reliability would be improved through unified communications, the
survey found that the benefit is not always recognized across their
agencies. More than three-quarters of the respondents report that
perceptions and concerns over security pose a challenge to an
enterprise-wide implementation of an integrated system.
"While security-related concerns are most often reported as a challenge to
unified communications implementation, this is more of an issue in the
defense agencies, where security is naturally more of a concern," said
Aaron Heffron, vice president, Market Connections. "Civilian agencies are
more likely to be integrating one-to-one technologies such as instant
messaging and mobile devices, whereas defense agencies are more interested
in one-to-many tools such as audio and video conferencing."
Respondents note that the greatest vendor assistance would be sharing
knowledge of new solutions and products, with more than half saying they
would address future planning and implementation by using an outside
vendor.
Among additional findings of the survey:
-- More than two-thirds of respondents plan to have the capabilities to
provide real-time notification and identification of employees and instant
messaging or live chats in their agencies within the next 18 to 24 months.
-- Nearly one-third of respondents expect the development of wireless
networking access to require the greatest amount of their organizations'
resources.
-- Nearly 30 percent of respondents cite funding as the biggest challenge
to achieving communications goals.
-- Data/communication security and system reliability are the two highest
priorities cited by respondents.
-- From a functional standpoint, real-time notification and
identification of employees is the capability cited as most important in
any new communications system.
"We urge decision-makers to put less emphasis on tactical features and
focus on the bigger benefits of improving emergency response, linking field
operations to headquarters, and real-time response to citizen needs and
workforce productivity," said Brent Byrnes, federal unified communications
manager, Cisco. "We see this survey as a strong mandate for continued and
expanded investment in education of top-level benefits of unified
communications, such as further cross enterprise integration of security
services, and solutions that enable easy migration to converged, secure,
collaborative communication infrastructures."
View the complete survey at
http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/government/usfed_unified_comm.html, and
access a podcast at
www.cisco.com/go/fedpodcast.
About the Survey
In April 2007, Market Connections fielded a telephone survey of 201 federal
telecommunications decision makers. Respondents were asked about their
communications systems, the business issues and challenges they face, the
status of their unified communications systems and action plans, and their
perceptions of vendors/partners. There was an even split between defense
and civilian agencies. Nearly 60 percent of respondents identify their
primary job focus as technical in nature. Approximately 40 percent have
business operations roles within their agencies. All respondents are
familiar with the communications planning and implementation in their
agencies.
Located in Fairfax, Va., Market Connections is the federal IT market's
premier provider of full-service custom market research services.
Additional information is available at
www.marketconnectionsinc.com.
About Cisco
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NASDAQ:
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how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco
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Contact Information: Media Relations
Janis Langley
Cisco Systems, Inc.
512 402-9635
jalangle@cisco.com
Investor Relations
Liz Lemon
Cisco Systems, Inc.
408 527-8452
lemon@cisco.com