Cisco wanted to modernize its underutilized and outdated actual property portfolio to help new and future methods of working. By leveraging its personal, distinctive networking and collaboration applied sciences, Cisco was in a position to remodel its PENN 1 office house in New York Metropolis into a good, data-driven surroundings that optimizes house utilization, improves consumer expertise, and serves as a mannequin for Cisco places of work worldwide.
In right this moment’s world the place many staff can work from anyplace with a steady web connection, getting staff into an workplace will be a battle. Why drive whenever you can sit comfortably in your personal house (and sweatpants)? This employee mentality catapulted into fruition with the pandemic. Years later, the workplace is not the first-choice house for a lot of staff. Actually, it should “earn” the commute. So, how did we create an workplace that staff wish to and revel in going to with no mandate?
Rightsizing actual property in a post-pandemic world
For years, our actual property portfolio had been underutilized and outdated. We knew this even previous to the pandemic once I started main the Sensible Constructing enterprise at Cisco. However the pandemic introduced additional readability. With the altering insurance policies, we noticed a larger have to downsize, and discover solutions to questions we by no means had to consider reminiscent of:
- How many individuals are utilizing a sure flooring at any given time?
- What’s the air high quality of the utilized areas?
- If an worker makes the commute to an workplace, will a workspace be out there to them?
- Will I have the ability to work comfortably and effectively whereas I’m within the workplace?
We knew the info we would have liked to reply these questions and make knowledgeable selections existed on the wi-fi community. Nevertheless, it wasn’t available or straightforward to entry. So as a substitute of counting on inconsistent badging knowledge, we started to take a look at how we might use the community to unify the disparate elements throughout our infrastructure and visualize spatial knowledge so we might harness the total energy of the Cisco expertise in our places of work. And we had the right workplace to begin with— PENN 1 in New York Metropolis.
Divesting to speculate
Our formal design course of usually concerned our companions, together with architects and Mechanical Electrical Plumbing (MEB) corporations. Nevertheless, when that was halted as a result of pandemic, we introduced the method within Cisco and began interested by the issue in a different way and put the tip consumer expertise first. We knew that the best way we used house was eternally going to alter, and the notion of “divest to speculate” was constructed within the finance group. The purpose was to put money into key workplace areas and create hubs versus a number of underutilized areas.
Because it usually goes, organizations transition portfolio when it comes to house each ten to fifteen years — the usual size of a company lease. As a part of this pure evolution and “divest to speculate” technique, we selected to close down seven places of work across the New York Metropolis space to put money into the modernization of PENN 1 and our new hybrid work mannequin. The purpose was to create an workplace that will be a magnet for workers and prospects, a spot they might come to collaborate, meet, have fun, and extra.
To get began, we took a unique method than typical. As an alternative of designing the expertise across the house, we constructed the house round the expertise. We introduced collectively the very best collective information of numerous minds and experiences from Cisco IT and Office Sources (WPR) to discover a solution to unify our expertise and create a platform that will be versatile sufficient to adapt to the longer term. We wished to make sure we might simply make adjustments and improve the expertise over time with out the necessity to rebuild an workplace.
Unlocking the info for insights and motion
To do that, we would have liked to get a greater understanding of how the house was getting used, and how much infrastructure we might leverage to get perception, whereas making certain the worker expertise can be the very best that it might be. It wasn’t simply concerning the house. It was additionally concerning the new methods of working, our sustainability and wellness targets, in addition to making the important knowledge out there to the fitting groups to help these initiatives. If we did it proper, we’d create a workspace that might scale for future wants and developments.
Right here’s the attractive factor. With our highly effective portfolio of networking, collaboration, and safety options — this knowledge already existed in our IT surroundings, we simply wanted to unify it to bridge the hole between Operational Know-how (OT,) Data Know-how (IT,) and actual property. We have been in a position to do that with Cisco Areas, which allowed us to extract and combination the info in a approach that made sense and was reportable to ship outcomes for everybody.
Cisco Areas is a single scalable, dependable cloud platform that digitizes house and makes them safer, smarter, extra sustainable, whereas delivering seamless experiences.
Implementing Cisco Areas at Penn 1
Cisco Areas integrates the info from the community and collaboration gadgets and visualizes it right into a customizable dashboard to tailor to the wants of the precise groups extracting the info for his or her individualized targets. We unified knowledge throughout all the Cisco portfolio utilizing:
- Cisco Areas: PENN 1 finish customers have a 3D floorplan enabling insights into occupancy, air high quality, CO2 ranges, temperature and humidity, and the flexibility to view and maintain open workspaces and rooms. It runs on Webex collaboration gadgets all through the power.
- Cisco Catalyst 9000 switches and entry factors: 43 Cisco Catalyst 9166 Wi-Fi 6E APs are deployed in a high-density design to supply wonderful protection and seamless roaming and maximize location-detection capabilities to permit Cisco Areas to watch occupancy in several areas of the ground. They’re additionally geared up with built-in temperature, humidity, and air high quality (VoC) sensors to supply knowledge on environmental efficiency.
- Cisco Collaboration Units The PENN 1 workplace is supplied with 92 Cisco collaboration gadgets (Desk Professionals, Desk Cameras, Precision Cameras, Room Bars, Room Kits, and Board Professionals) to make sure each house is video enabled for an inclusive hybrid work expertise. Cisco Room Navigators allow seamless room reserving, calendar view, assembly data, and assembly extension with real-time occupancy visualization.
- Cisco Meraki good cameras: The 27 Meraki MV12 cameras convey bodily safety and superior analytics and insights.
- PoE (Energy over Ethernet): We energy every little thing from lighting and shades to environmental situations over the community and accumulate sensor knowledge to feed into Cisco Areas and energy the Sensible Workspaces utility.
By combining these Cisco merchandise and options, it allowed us to create wonderful worker experiences that ship a sustainable, but constructive working surroundings, conducive to each collaboration and particular person work.
Delivering outcomes throughout the enterprise
With the brand new hybrid work design, we diminished the ground plan of PENN 1 by 25% by way of house optimization. Each room was constructed with function to amplify the intersection of individuals and house, whatever the office anybody is bodily in. We used the info from our total expertise stack to energy quite a few outcomes and advantages together with:
- Combined presence enablement: 100% of areas within the new workplace are actually video enabled, and we elevated the variety of collaboration areas by 40%. We’re connecting folks in new methods after they’re within the workplace, whereas nonetheless being inclusive of distant members, as 98% of conferences may have not less than one distant participant.
- Area optimization: We enabled 2X the variety of folks to be seated in half the house, with a wide range of completely different room designs tailor-made to cater to a wide range of completely different working kinds and desires, with out compromising consumer expertise.
- Wellness and consumer expertise: With 20% of the world’s inhabitants being neurodiverse, we designed the workplace to cater to various sensory and house wants with acoustics and personalised gentle and temperature controls.
- Vitality effectivity and sustainability: Vitality decreased by 36% purely from the change in design, with out considering the ground plan discount. We turned all linked endpoints into an vitality networking micro-power grid that’s absolutely tracked, managed, and monitored and eradicated the necessity for 3,000 lbs (about 1360.78 kg). of metal and 1,000 lbs. of copper wiring materials by deploying PoE infrastructure.
- Value effectivity: We skilled a 5% discount in CapEx, and saved $250k in development prices.
1 is now a real testomony to the distinctive energy of our portfolio, and the outcomes enabled by way of the unification of networking with collaboration and safety. With wonderful experiences turning into the norm for our workforce and easy accessibility to data-driven insights for knowledgeable enterprise determination making, the office is absolutely geared up to face the check of time and ship outcomes for workers, prospects, IT, and everybody throughout the enterprise.
Paving the trail towards chance
The PENN 1 workplace in New York Metropolis proudly stands for example of what the way forward for workplaces can appear like, and the mannequin we use as we develop different places of work all over the world. The platform we constructed with PENN 1 is identical mannequin deployed at our places of work in ATL, Washington DC, Milan, London, Paris, and shortly to be Austin. What’s most enjoyable, is the convenience with which we may also help our prospects obtain comparable outcomes.
With Cisco Areas, every little thing turns into a sensor. For the primary time, we’ve digitized actual property with the info units from present Cisco expertise that permit us to optimize house like by no means earlier than. This units the stage for wayfinding, asset monitoring, utilization, and extra. With Cisco networking in place, there may be highly effective knowledge we may also help you leverage. When you have Cisco networking and collaboration gadgets, that set expands. The pliability permits us to fulfill our prospects the place they’re and layer on high of what they have already got.
Our workplaces give folks a motive to come back to the workplace, enabling higher collaboration in all places. We’ve already confirmed that we will do our particular person work from anyplace. However we’ve amplified the expertise with expertise as an asset that may present insights to not solely IT, however different influencers and patrons within the market whether or not it’s actual property or the pinnacle of retail operations.
We’re altering the conversations we will have with our prospects round what’s potential and shaping the way forward for good constructing expertise with the ability of unified knowledge.
To study extra, try this video, learn the PENN 1 case research, and discover Cisco Areas
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