'Life isn't always centred around a desk'

We are all taught to share from an early age, yet as we get older the simple sharing of a bag of sweets or the odd toffee has for some of us turned into a more complex problem of sharing documents and data.

Black Tomato's people spend a lot of time out of the office trying to find the ultimate holiday destination, and our aim was to help them stay in touch, even when they are on the other side of the planet from each other.

There were a few key things Cisco have done to help them overcome what is a very modern working challenge – namely, that life isn't always centred around a desk or even an office.

Firstly, we have placed all of the tools Black Tomato need to be mobile and flexible on their laptops.

The main tool is Cisco Communicator - this means they can use one click from an email to place a call with their laptop using their desktop phone extension. The benefit is that Black Tomato can receive customer calls and customers will never know that their local call is being received on the other side of the world.

When I am on business travel, I find this tool invaluable as I can not only place calls back to the office but reach all of my voicemail in the same way.

It's not always easy to get everybody together in the same place, especially with Black Tomato's worldwide customer base, but the aim was to use their network to make this easier.

Another tool that we are discussing is Webex. It's a powerful tool which I use for virtual meetings. It allows me to share content such as presentations, video and webcasts to my own team who could be in many locations.

You can also record meetings and share the content with people who were unable to attend which is really useful for busy diaries.