Cisco and NBN will collaborate to offer Australia's small and medium businesses (SMBS) the ability to connect to business nbn and take advantage of solutions that can support digital transformation initiatives.

This is the first of a series of investments as part of Cisco's Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) initiative that was announced last week. The $61 million initiative aims to boost digital transformation in Australia by helping to create jobs, boost workforce skills, and enhance the country's economic competitiveness as a whole.

For SMBs, the CDA investment means a renewed focus on educating and building awareness about opportunities to access business and enterprise-grade technology.

Retail service providers and ICT channel partners can bundle these services and deliver them to the market.

“There are clear opportunities for RSPs and ICT Channel partners to build offers and digital solutions for eligible SMBs which can be bundled with nbn services and help them realise the potential of digital enablement,” says Boal.

Cisco and NBN Co will also deliver joint go-to-market and digital marketing activities that promote how SMBs can transform their business through business-grade services from nbn, rather than consumer-grade connections.

“Small business plays a crucial role as the backbone of our Australian economy and represents a fast growing IT market. We're not just helping to connect eligible SMBs to business nbn, we are helping to transform SMBs digitally whilst connecting, simply and more securely,” comments Cisco Australia and New Zealand vice president Ken Boal.

Cisco says there are now more than 500,000 businesses connected to the nbn access network, with 20,000 more joining every month.

“With almost three in four businesses now able to connect to the nbn access network there is an enormous opportunity to educate the market,” says NBN Co chief executive officer Stephen Rue.

“We encourage businesses to speak to their providers to see if tapping in to the network with business nbn could help them streamline operations, leverage state-of-the-art applications and potentially increase their bottom line.”

Rue adds that NBN Co focused its efforts on building a wholesale product and service suite that providers can tailor to their business customers.

“This includes high and symmetrical download and upload speeds designed to support critical video and data applications, optimised voice services and optional premium service levels to support retailers to keep businesses up and running,” Rue explains.

“We look forward to working with Cisco to provide support for their business customers migrating to the nbn access network and help them to leverage transformative solutions to grow their operations.

SMBs should speak to their provider about how business nbn services can potentially enable new capability, for example:

• Transform the SMB's customer experience and adoption of technology to help SMBs communicate and collaborate with their customers. 
• Productive and effective decision making, greater flexibility and cost savings. 
• Access applications faster, moving to and from the cloud. 
• New innovation capability and scale to global markets.

"Digitally enabling the small business workforce is imperative for Australia to grow and be more competitive. Our far-reaching partner ecosystem provides education, advice, services and solutions that eligible businesses need as they transition to the nbn access network,” Boal concludes.