NIC Partners IT Insights

Tools to Help You Roll Out a Remote Working Environment - NIC Partners

Written by Doreen Fiola | Mar 10, 2020 11:45:04 PM

Supporting Customers During this Unprecedented Time

Amid the global increase in remote work driven by the outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), Cisco has responded quickly to help you make a difference. We know your top priority is to continue to operate with minimum disruption and for your staff, students, and others to be able to stay united.

To support our customers as they formulate business and school continuity plans and to quickly scale their ability to support work and learning from home, we’d like to share several Cisco offers that require no financial commitment.

Cisco Webex – Free 90-Day License

  • For existing customers with active Webex subscriptions, you can expand their subscription on a temporary basis at no additional cost via Control Hub.
  • For non-Webex customers looking to provide host meeting accounts to employees and require centralized administrative management and reporting capabilities
  • For individuals and small businesses that need an immediate solution to enable remote working, Cisco has made enhancements to their Free Personal Account offer.

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Expanded capabilities include: ​

  • Unlimited usage (no time restrictions)​
  • Support for up to 100 participants​
  • Offers toll dial-in (in addition to existing VoIP capabilities)​

In addition to this, Cisco has prepared a remote work rapid adoption communications pack – specifically to aid you with a comprehensive roll-out of remote working. This includes a ‘plan in a box’ for change management. You’ll also find a deck with a communications plan, editable assets and templates to be sent internally (including introductory emails), and tips on working remotely. This pack is extremely useful – we recommend you download it and use these assets to inform your organization.

Cisco is providing these free 90-day licenses to organizations that are not Webex customers in their time of need and helping existing customers enable a much larger number of remote workers by temporarily expanding their usage at no additional cost.

To read more about how you can enable distance learning and administrative collaboration securely here.

Online Classes for Customers

Many of your staff will be working remotely for the first time. To help them stay connected with team members and leadership, Cisco has a series of live and recorded online classes for customers during the months of March and April. Topics include: Best Practices: How to Work Remotely, Overview of Webex, Remote Classroom Best Practices (English) and (Spanish), Managing Teams Remotely, and Webex Adoption Masterclass

Large Scale Events

With the addition of so many remote users, there’s been an urgent need for large scale broadcast events for large numbers of users. In order to help facilitate this, Cisco and Vbrick are teaming up to offer free live streaming to companies impacted by the novel coronavirus.

Vbrick is offering Rev, the industry leading enterprise video platform, for free for a limited time to companies looking to leverage live streaming events to replace cancelled large scale destination events and to support employee, partner and customer communication. The offer includes three events for up to 500 participants each or one event for up to 5,000 participants. Watch this video to learn more about the event process and talk to your account manager or email sales@nicpartnersinc.com for more details.

Watch Video

Expansion of Cisco Free Security Offerings

When your number of remote users rises, you’ll also need to increase your security. To help you do this quickly and easily, Cisco has expanded their security offerings. They are now providing extended free licenses and expanded usage counts at no extra charge for three of their key security technologies that are designed to protect remote workers anywhere, anytime and on any device:

  • Cisco Umbrella protects users from malicious Internet destinations whether they are on or off the network. Because it is delivered from the cloud, Umbrella makes it easy to protect users everywhere in minutes. With this offer, existing customers can exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers, and new customers can access a free license.
  • Duo Security enables organizations to verify users’ identities and establish device trust before granting access to applications. By employing a zero-trust model, it decreases the attack surface and reduces risk. With this offer, existing customers can exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers, and new customers can access a free license.
  • Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client empowers employees to work from anywhere on company laptops or personal mobile devices. It also provides the visibility and control security teams need to identify who and which devices are accessing their infrastructure. Existing AnyConnect customers can exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers, and new customers can access a free license. To get started, existing and new customers should talk with us to get the requested usage counts.
Watch Webinar: Cybersecurity for Changing Times

Cisco Capital Financing Offer

Cisco has also recently launched their 2020 Business Resiliency Program to help customers acquire the solutions they need now while managing short-term cash flow and liquidity concerns stemming from the pandemic crisis. NIC Partners can help you get the technology you need for business continuity and relieve budget constraints by deferring payments for 90 days. Talk to your account manager today to find out how you can take advantage of this program .

Talk to your account manager or email sales@nicpartnersinc.com today to find out how you can take advantage of the Cisco Capital Program (available for all Cisco hardware, software and services). To read more about Webex Teams, please download the Webex Teams solutions overview.

Cisco Remote Work Solutions