Wachovia Chooses To Innovate With Cisco TelePresence

Cisco® (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced that Wachovia Corporation (NYSE: WB), the parent company of the nation’s fourth-largest bank and third-largest brokerage firm, has completed its first deployment of Cisco TelePresence. The company launched the pilot to enable virtual face-to-face meetings across multiple locations as an innovative approach to address Wachovia’s increasing geographic presence.

“We are using Cisco TelePresence to help our people be more productive with their time,” said Jim Ditmore, Wachovia’s chief technology officer. “We continue to grow geographically, and while there will always be the need for in-person meetings in our business, our employees now have a viable alternative to getting on a plane and being away from their families. We think this kind of flexibility further improves our differentiated customer service and overall competitiveness.”

Wachovia is deploying Cisco TelePresence to enhance collaboration and productivity within critical business functions. The first deployment includes two fully operational Cisco TelePresence 3000 systems connecting Wachovia’s Charlotte, N.C., headquarters with the company’s Richmond, Va., location, which also serves as headquarters for Wachovia Securities. Wachovia envisions multi-site meetings between additional domestic and international sites and within executive offices, following its successful pilot.

“We are proud of the fact that through implementing TelePresence technology and reducing travel needs, we can support our goal of expense reduction while also furthering our corporate commitment to environmental responsibility,” said Jim Kittridge, Wachovia Senior IT Leader and Telepresence product manager. “This technology will substantially change the way Wachovia employees communicate and collaborate across large distances.”

“Wachovia is very innovative in its approach to translating productivity gains into competitive advantage,” said Charles Stucki, vice president and general manager, TelePresence Systems Business Unit, Cisco. “We are very excited to be working with Wachovia while they blend Cisco TelePresence into their business as a critical tool for better collaboration between employees, customers and partners.”

The Cisco TelePresence system creates unique, “in-person” experiences between people, places and events in their work and personal lives. It delivers life-size images, ultra-high-definition video (1080p), spatial audio and a specially designed environment to create a “room within a room” meeting space.