WWT Intros Collaboration Labs

PRESS RELEASE — ST. LOUIS, Mo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–World Wide Technology (WWT), a leading integrator that provides innovative technology and supply chain solutions to large public and private organizations, today announced WWT Collaboration Labs, a state-of-the-art environment for testing and validating enterprise collaboration tools and services. WWT will be discussing this new testing environment at Cisco Live, Cisco’s annual IT and communications conference.

WWT Collaboration Labs empowers partners and customers to capitalize on the disruption anticipated in the unified communications and collaboration (UCC) market. Gartner predicts massive changes both in how enterprises use UCC and in the tools themselves¹. Enterprises risk missing significant opportunities to boost productivity if they don’t address these pending changes, from collaboration delivered as-a-service to AI-infused chat bots. According to Gartner, “understanding the digital disruptions taking place in the UCC market will be critical to successful planning.”

WWT Collaboration Labs delivers that understanding to an oversaturated market of collaboration tools and vendors. It is a dedicated testing environment within WWT’s Advanced Technology Center (ATC) for collaboration technology, covering everything from group chat to video conferencing.

Enterprises can test, validate and customize new collaboration tools before they are rolled out within their organizations. They can evaluate a number of “what if” scenarios to arrive at the solution that is right for them without any overhead risks or the need of building out a testing environment on their own. As a fully scalable environment with pre-configured components, WWT Collaboration Labs can mimic any real or proposed sandbox scenario within seconds.

WWT Collaboration Labs also offers self-service capabilities through an online portal that clients can access from anywhere in the world. Once a customer has logged into the portal, they receive full access to demonstrations of more than 60 leading collaboration solutions, such as Cisco Spark. Peer-to-peer pairing is included for troubleshooting and experimentation. Once testing is completed, the collaboration solution can be put into a live customer environment immediately without any technical hiccups. WWT even manages employee training to ensure rapid cultural adoption.

“WWT Collaboration Labs puts UCC innovation in the hands of enterprises without any of the risk, uncertainty or complexity associated with new technology,” said Joe Berger, collaboration practice director at WWT. “We give them a controlled environment to try out disruptive technology without it actually disrupting their business. They can come and test drive the latest collaboration tools to see if it works for them before committing. With risk factored out of the equation, WWT Collaboration Labs has the potential to drive UCC adoption to new heights.”

Currently, 210 enterprises customers are using WWT Collaboration Labs with participation up 55 percent in just the past 6 weeks. In a survey of users testing Cisco Collaboration Tools, 58.5 percent felt the tools made them more efficient/productive before using the adoption services in WWT Collaboration Labs. After adoption, 73 percent felt the tools made them more efficient/productive, a 15 percent increase.

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¹Source: Digital Disruptions in the Unified Communications and Collaboration Market, 2017

About World Wide Technology
World Wide Technology (WWT) is a technology solution provider with more than $9 billion in annual revenue that provides innovative technology and supply chain solutions to large public and private organizations around the globe. While most companies talk about delivering business and technology outcomes, WWT does it. Based in St. Louis, WWT employs more than 4,000 people and operates over 2 million square feet of warehousing, distribution and integration space in more than 20 facilities throughout the world. For more, visit www.wwt.com.