Webex returned to revenue growth last quarter, following 12 months of decline.
Indeed, in November 2022, year-over-year (YoY) growth fell by one percent.
From there, the slump worsened quarter-by-quarter, dropping ten percent, 13 percent, and 12 percent – respectively.
Yet, from out of the blue, Webex returned to the green last quarter, achieving a three percent bounce and bucking the troubling trend.
Announcing the news during an earnings call, Scott Herren, Chief Financial Officer at Cisco, said:
Collaboration was up three percent, driven by growth in calling and contact center, partially offset by a decline in meetings.
While the return to growth comes rather abruptly, it perhaps indicates that Cisco is seizing the chance to cross-sell its calling and contact center solutions to its larger Meetings base.
Yet, that’s only one factor. Cisco has also started to bundle Webex – alongside its security, networking, and observability offerings – as part of a hybrid work package.
Meanwhile, Cisco has significantly expanded its routes to market. For instance, its global base of partners authorized to sell the Webex Contact Center solution has gone from 300 to 3,000 – in little over a year.
As of this month’s WebexONE event, the vendor has gone even further to open up Webex to a wider audience with the announcement of two new CCaaS packages.
Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, suggests this underlines how Cisco has recognized a critical growth obstacle and is now methodically overcoming it.
"Their biggest problem isn’t product; it’s getting people to try the product again," Kerravala said during a recent conversation with CX Today.