Item: Webex Meetings
Rating: 7
Author: Randy Palmer

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

WebEx is used primarily by three departments across our organization:

Training - WebEx is used weekly for an online webinar training series for our whole client base.
Account Management - WebEx is used daily for system support and one-on-one training with clients.
Sales - WebEx is used multiple times a month for system demos to potential clients that don't use any of our products as well as current clients that are learning about a product that they have yet to use.

Pros and Cons

Teleconferencing is well-done and good-quality. We had left WebEx for another solution and came back in less than 12 months with the teleconference functionality being one of the main reasons why.
As a meeting host, I like the control that WebEx gives me of the attendees, especially if we are in a forum discussion and there is extra background noise that I need to mute out.

I don’t know if this is user error but we have issues at times with giving control of a computer to another participant during a Meeting Center session.
I would like to have more control over the video, specifically being able to make the video camera the source that is shared with others in a full-screen mode.
As the administrator, I would like to be able to have more branding control.

Return on Investment

We had a lot of upset employees and clients when we implemented another solution that turned out to not function as well as they were used to with WebEx.
We have a much higher rate of participation in online training classes with WebEx.

Alternatives Considered

Skype for Business (formerly Lync), RingCentral and Microsoft Teams

Microsoft isn’t trying to make S4B better because of other business plans. We were using it (and still do) because it is free with our Office 365 account. It’s a case of you get what you pay for. However, Microsoft is still working on Microsoft Teams which is starting to give WebEx a run for it's money. The main reason we are: first, still with WebEx is because the others that we have used/evaluated still don't quite match up, and second, employees in the company don't want to learn something new if it isn't going to work as well as what we already have.

Other Software Used

Skype for Business (formerly Lync), Microsoft Teams, Zoom

Reliability and Availability

I would have given it a 10 but lately we have had a couple of issues in which Cisco WebEx's Meetings wasn't available, including a period of time where they suspended our account (for no reason indicated...and I am the site admin so I should have been made aware) and we were not able to hold any meetings that we had scheduled with clients and potential clients. We actually had to use other online meeting platforms to conduct those meetings.

Scalability

The only reason why I gave it this score and not one that is higher is because we haven't had to scale the software differently across our company. All departments have the same access and availability because we want them to have the flexibility that they require for their meetings.

Performance

Last year I would not have been so kind. In fact, even this year we have had some issues and as we went into the pandemic quarantine mode with a large majority of our employees working from home and participating in online meetings considerably more than before, I was worried that there would be issues with audio quality, screen sharing/loading, and especially video/multimedia sharing and limited bandwidths. Interestingly enough, as our traffic increased, the quality did too.

Likelihood to Recommend

It is great for large group meetings. I have yet to have a bad meeting with this platform when there have been a lot of people (I consider over 50 to be a lot) on a session and almost all are joined through a toll-free dial-in teleconference.

I have yet to experience a scenario where it is not as well suited.

Ease-of-Use

Our organization hasn't really made use of these innovations as they were not very well marketed to us. They all seem like great innovations, but without the knowledge that they existed and how they could be used by individual users, it has made it difficult to really implement them.

The one innovation that we have seen used more than any others is the automatic noise suppression. That has been very helpful when we have had forum discussions and department meetings online. Having the noise suppression implemented has meant that the audio quality is better and everyone can be heard without static noises.

All-in-one Platform

We looked into using WebEx Teams but in the end were already using collaboration tools that our organization has with Office 365 products. If not for that, we would have looked more intently into using WebEx Teams throughout the company.

Security

This is an area that has definitely improved. A few years back we had a stretch of time when our meetings were being hacked by outside groups. Since we are a company that is involved in the financial and healthcare industries, security of data/information is of extreme importance to us. If we use tools that are not secure, we could be fined by the government for not following mandated security protocols. It turned out that the hackers weren't participating in our meetings and getting information that they shouldn't have, but they were instead stealing audio minutes from us. Once this was presented to Cisco WebEx technical support, changes were made to help make the process more secure. Those changes were initially made on our own company site settings, but followed with some updates on the Cisco WebEx side. Since this situation happened, we as a company have been able to host meetings and know that they were secure and that all participants could share information freely and without hesitation.

Glad to be back

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Webex Meetings