What does Employee Communication and Engagement mean to you? Today, enterprises use a combination of paper bulletin boards and legacy tools including email and intranet. It’s safe to say that the content produced for the aforementioned channels are typically static, outdated, rarely updated, and untargeted. In an era where most knowledge workers spend a significant part of their time on their mobile phones often accessing external news and social media, relevant corporate communication should also be accessible via our mobile phones. Furthermore, deskless employees are disconnected from typical corporate communication channels and collaboration platforms. We believe that Dynamic Signal solves this communication gap.
With that said, we are excited to announce our investment in Dynamic Signal, a leading provider of Employee Engagement and Communication software. In our coverage of the enterprise collaboration space and also as corporate citizens, we are fortunate to have a firsthand view of the vast array of enterprise software tools that employees use in an enterprise (i.e. B2E). None of these software tools are specifically intended for employee communication and engagement. Dynamic Signal is well-positioned to help corporations to reach, engage, and connect with employees via whichever medium they prefer.
What is the opportunity?
Technology has changed how we consume information. Eighty-five percent of U.S. adults now get their news on a mobile device, yet, surprisingly, more than 50 percent of the U.S. workforce does not have a corporate email address. Even further, deskless employees have limited access to digital tools or whose roles do not require attention to traditional communication channels such as email. Given that employees are a company's most valuable asset, clear and timely communication with them is critical. In a world where rapid communication and availability of information is the norm, enterprise communications need to be modernized and significant opportunity exists to connect with all corporate employees.
Why should companies care?
Employee engagement lends to greater productivity and higher retention of employees. According to Gartner, research confirms that more informed employees outperform their peers by 77 percent and we believe that the eventual feeling of belonging will help reduce employee turnover. For the reasons above, we at Cisco believe that corporations are incentivized to adapt in order to drive business impact.
Dynamic Signal - A new way to collaborate
With its focus on communications and employee engagement, Dynamic Signal replaces existing communication tools with a simple mobile-first experience. Via their mobile phone, employees are able to receive corporate news, polls/surveys, video broadcasts, training, alerts, documents, executive messages, and HR-related data. With deep integrations into widely used system of records and other intranet and corporate networking tools, employees gain the ability to consume content within a dedicated app or other popular messaging platforms like Cisco Spark. Going forward, we also expect Dynamic Signal to leverage these integrations to add digital workflow functionality increasing the value of the platform to both employers and employees. In addition, employees are encouraged to promote their employer through “corporate-approved” messages via their Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts to help boost both the employee and company’s social media profile. Its modern UI looks and feels similar to what employees are used to consuming on other social and professional networks and is resulting in heavy usage by its end users. Ultimately, this enables employees to stay informed and creates a community-like sense of belonging within the corporation.
The rapid adoption seen by Dynamic Signal confirms that large enterprises (including Cisco) recognize how significantly employee expectations for communication have radically outpaced enterprise communication practices. At Cisco Investments, our mission is to support the modernization of the workplace and are thrilled to invest in Dynamic Signal to further our commitment to ushering in a new age of Collaboration.