Cisco has started 2025 with a roar, launching a new, local Point of Presence for its Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center services in South Africa.

At a recent event in Randburg, the company joined forces with Amazon Web Services to offer a burst of hope and what seemed the next step in its vote of confidence in South Africa and its future.

The development could not have come at a better time. Although just a month old, already 2025 has been marked by natural disasters globally, political upheaval in developed nations and the unwelcome return of loadshedding and continuing water crisis locally. 

However, proving that there is good news if you are willing to look for it, Cisco continued on from last year with technological developments locally that are unmissably positive.

The company explained that the Point of Presence (PoP), which leverages AWS data centers, is intended to empower organizations of all sizes to embrace immersive hybrid work models and deliver exceptional customer service experiences.

That is the broad sweep of benefits though. More specifically, the PoP enables voice and video calling traffic to reside within South Africa for Webex Calling, which helps enhance call quality, reduce latency, and strengthen security resilience for customers. This will also enable businesses to transition to cloud calling confidently with an enterprise-grade experience.

Ahmad Zureiki

Ahmad Zureiki, the Director of Collaboration Solutions at Cisco for the Middle East and Africa, noted that numerous customer experience environments are highly fragmented, with data being dispersed across multiple locations. This  produces an all too familiar scenario, where you end up speaking to different agents and having to relate your data to each one from scratch.

The reason for this is that the specific data pertaining to a customer's case is somewhere else. ''Our AI platform addresses this by bringing all the data pertaining to the caller in front of the call centre agent, and can even suggest answers to the customer's question, and cater the answers to make them most relevant to that particular caller, '' he elaborates.

For Webex Contact Center customers, the PoP provides a variety of cloud-based services, all backed by Cisco's robust and reliable communication infrastructure. Additionally, the PoP features an AI-powered platform that integrates seamlessly with Cisco's cloud calling solutions.

Zureiki enthused that the announcement is an exciting milestone for its South African customers.

''With Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center, we are providing them with the opportunity to streamline their infrastructure and costs, while delivering a comprehensive and flexible customer and employee experience,” he explained.

Shane Heraty

The Power of Partnerships

Shane Heraty, the MD for Cisco in Africa, explained that its partners are essential to Cisco's success and its continuation. It is a bold statement, when you consider that Cisco is currently worth in excess of 244 billion dollars.

He noted that a whopping 95% of the company's business on the African continent is delivered through local ecosystem partners.

Heraty continued that Cisco, which was started by a husband-and-wife team in 1984, has been part of every transition into the information age. This is largely due to the fact that company has been deeply involved in network connectivity, which enabled the internet, and subsequently powered the cloud era.

'' As a vendor, we are truly uniquely proficient to deliver at the velocity our customers require in the AI era,'' he asserted.

''However, looking at our latest announcement, this is the most excited I've ever been about our portfolio and our ability to deliver to customers and enable profitable business for our partners and our service providers as well,'' he enthused. 

Benefits beyond boundaries

As much as the announcement signified a boon for contact centres, it also  goes beyond benefiting that sector to positively impacting other businesses.

“As South Africa’s contact center landscape evolves, expanding our capabilities allows us to support businesses of all sizes and strengthen our capacity to serve multinational customers based in the country and operating throughout Sub-Saharan Africa,” explained Zureiki.

Beyond the launch, Cisco’s announcement is exciting as it follows what has become a trend of investing in the region.

Late last year, in partnership with ForgeX, the company launched its latest incubation hub, new EDGE centre in Johannesburg. The company’s EDGE (Experience, Design, Go to Market and Earn) centres serve as hubs for incubation, innovation and education. They are also evidence of the investments Cisco is making into local skills development and the South African economy.

Smangele Nkosi

Opportunities and Potentials

This launch, barely a month later, demonstrates that Cisco is not slowing down. I asked the company about the company’s investments into South Africa, what it means and why Cisco appears to be particularly positive about South Africa now. 

Smangele Nkosi, the GM/Country Leader for South Africa at Cisco, noted that from Cisco's perspective, organisations can both do good and do business. Although some may only be interested in doing business, Cisco, she stressed, wants to do both.

''We see an intersection of community of people and the technology that we actually provide in the markets, and we take seriously the issue of contributing to the markets that we operate in,'' she explained.

To that end, Nkosi explained Cisco partners with governments in the variety of countries that the company operates in to ensure that the organisation is delivering their digital strategy moving forward.

''Our purpose is to connect people and drive a connected future for all, and we are particularly proud that we've managed to make over a billion connections based on our platforms in Southern Africa,'' she added. One of the reasons for the company's optimism about the potential in South Africa comes from the nature of its population, which is predominantly youthful, and can particularly benefit from further digitalisation across the country.

Another potential comes from AI. ''Our research has shown that companies are spending between 10 and 30% on AI development. We believe that, with our platforms, that presents a significant opportunity that must be tapped into to develop Africa further,'' she continued.

The Road Ahead

Heraty added that increased connectivity itself brings with it an array of opportunities, which is why Cisco has been initiating projects such as its Engineering Academy and Country Digital Acceleration Program. 

''Once a child, individual or business is connected, they can then get educated, experience the world and access business opportunities, and there are still opportunities to expand that access on the continent,' he added.

Additionally, another opportunity is around smart city technology. As Johannesburg in particular and other municipalities in the country have experienced first-hand in the past years, there are challenges around water, utility, transport and delivery of healthcare, and making those essential services available in rural areas as well as urban ones.

''We see a real uptick in our ability to support that transformation into smart and digital cities, so that those very valued resources can be delivered as effectively as possible to citizens,'' he said.

One of the obstacles to progress and opportunity comes as no surprise: cyberthreats, with Heraty stressing that there is a lot of work to be done on cybersecurity.

''In 2021, 10% of the continent's GDP was lost to cyberattacks. As to what's next from us, cybersecurity is something we will be addressing with another platform launch in the next few weeks,' he promised.