网络硬件巨头思科爱上软件

    您一直在致力于推动让员工在办公室外协作办公的技术，但是现在，一些企业正试图让员工回到办公室。您在自己的客户中有没有发现这种做法？

    我们并没有看到这种做法。如果企业确实必须让员工聚到一起，同时必须改造自身时，这种做法可能算是一种势在必行的策略。而在思科，我们的领导团队每年会有两次大聚会，其它的时间我们也能随时沟通——在机场用iPad就能参加视频会议。我可以在家召开会议，我也确实是这么做的。因为我是全球高管，我可以每天10点开会，同时还能在孩子睡觉前照看他们。我们绝大多数客户都在设法让自己的办公空间虚拟化，让商业模式更灵活，同时关注更大范围的全球市场。除了支持一个高度虚拟的工作环境，没有其他方式可以做到这一点，否则就会让员工抓狂。我们都知道，不远万里飞到班加罗尔出差是什么滋味。我们在圣何塞，与班加罗尔差不多正好隔着半个地球。去那儿出趟差真是太远了。

    很明显，作为高管您肯定得使用自家产品，但要让这种做法成为思科公司文化的一部分，您是怎么做到？

    这需要自上而下地推动，由约翰•钱伯斯挂帅统领。公司各部门都有一套考核标准，确保大家主动推动这些变化。当我开始掌管思科的全球销售业务时，我在经济衰退开始时做的第一个决策就是，取消许多人都喜欢的规模庞大的年度全球销售会议，转而利用网真系统举行全球视频会议，不再让大家都坐飞机飞到会议地点。对我们这种规模的公司来说，这种开销太大了。

    那大家作何反应呢？

    他们刚开始肯定不喜欢。这样他们就没法和同事面对面交流了。不过几年后他们表示，这种做法在某些方面更有好处。他们喜欢能实时点评报告人的现场报告，喜欢在在线谈话中看到自己同事的对话。这些都是在真实的会议室里无法获得的实时互动体验。我们在培训、领导力、营销和通讯等领域有大量应用协作技术的案例，它们都已经成为行业的标杆。世界各地的人都可以通过WebEx参加会议。现在我的WebEx也能加入网真系统了，从WebEx就能进入网真会议，所以看起来大家获得的几乎是一样的体验。

    译者：清远

    You've been pushing technology that allows employees to collaborate outside of the office, but some companies are trying to get them back into the office. Are you seeing similar efforts from you customers?

    We're not seeing that. When you really have to pull people together and you really have to transform a company that may be one tactic to doing it. At Cisco we bring all the leadership team together twice a year, but between those points we see them all the time -- in virtual meetings, from iPads in airports. I can hold meetings from my home, which I do. Since I have a global job I can hold a meeting at 10 o'clock and still see my kids before they go to bed. The vast majority of our customers are looking to virtualize their real estate and are creating flexibility in their business model and looking at more global markets. You can't do this any other way but by supporting a very virtualized work environment, or you will drive people crazy. We all know what it's like to fly to Bangalore. We're in San Jose, and if you took a knitting needle and stuck it straight through the world you would miss Bangalore by about 20 minutes. It's a long trip.

    Obviously you have to eat your own dog food, but how do you make this part of the Cisco culture?

    It's top down, driven from [CEO] John Chambers. There were metrics put in place for parts of the company to make sure they were driving for these changes. When I was running worldwide sales at Cisco, the first decision I made at the beginning of the recession was to cancel our big, annual global sales meeting which everybody loves and do a virtual meeting over TelePresence around the world, instead of all getting on a plane, which at our scale costs a lot of money.

    How did people react?

    They didn't like it. They missed their interaction with colleauges. But in the subsequent years they said in some ways it was better. They liked the ability to comment on a presenter's presentation in real time and watch their colleagues dialogue in an online chat. You get a real-time interaction that you couldn't achieve in a real room. There are examples across the board where we've used collaborative technologies in education, leadership, marketing, and communications that have really set the bar. We have people join meetings anywhere in the world on a WebEx connection. And now my WebEx can join my TelePresence, and from my WebEx I can appear in a TelePresence conference, so it looks like you're part of the same experience.