One noted economist believes "the real impact of the electronic revolutions has already occurred."  We could not disagree more. With over 2B more people and 37B more things planning to join the Internet by 2020, our economic analysis identifies a potential "value at stake" of$14.4 trillion. This number equates to the impact of increased connectedness that the Internet of Everything (IOE) will make possible for private-sector firms over the next decade.  What does that mean?  A potential 21% aggregate increase in profits for the global private sector between 2013 and 2022.

Every day Cisco works with customers to address their technology opportunities and challenges as they focus on driving growth, improving customer experiences and increasing their productivity.  But it's not just the technology that is driving the benefit to their business -corresponding shifts in strategy around people and information management is driving the gap between the leaders and the followers. In 2013 alone, over$600B in profits are flowing to some of those leaders as they take advantage of the Internet of Everything  -the intelligent connection of people, processes, data and things

It's not just our technologies that help customers achieve amazing things in their organization,. With our role as architects for our customers IT strategy, we also have a window on how they use everyone else's technology.  We see, first hand, what happens when they connect the unconnected  -both people and things -and how these connections generate more data and require new processes as "everything" comes online. We wanted to better understand how the Internet of Everything can help businesses create economic value and how to design a roadmap to take advantage of the increased connectedness.

Today, we're releasing the results of the Cisco IoE Value Index that begins to tackle these questions.  This index is a global survey of 7,500 business and IT decision makers providing a sense of how well businesses worldwide are doing in their efforts to realize their share of the value at stake in 2013. We surveyed executives from large and midsize firms across nine different industries in 12 of the world's largest economies, which together represent approximately 70% of global GDP.

How much value are we talking about here? From a business perspective, the results of the IoE Value Index tell us that private firms will capture a staggering$613 billion in profits in 2013.  How?  By taking advantage of Internet of Everything to increase efficiencies and create better customer experiences.  Some highlights to note:

• The majority of participants in the study believe that employment levels and wages will either grow or stay the same as a result
• The Internet of Everything will also improve information security.
• Respondents from firms in emerging markets were particularly bullish on IoE , underscoring its potential to help firms increase their competitiveness in the global economy.
• The study estimates that firms in the United States ($253.0 billion), China ($76.9 billion), and Germany ($54.4 billion) will realize the greatest level of profits from embracing IoE in 2013.

That's a lot of growth, but the global economy could benefit so much more! Amazingly, that$613 billion represents only 53% of the$1.2 trillion total value at stake for large and midsized businesses in 2013, Global businesses are potentially leaving the other 47% - or$544 billion -on the table! It's incredibly exciting to think about how much upside is out there for businesses as they adapt and take advantage of increased connectedness.

This only scratches the surface of the interesting information the study reveals. To learn more, see the "Top 10 Insights" and FAQ from the study or access the full report on the IoE Value Index.  You can also use our unique data visualization tool on a new site we're launching today,InternetofEverything.com, to really dig into the results. You can use the tool to compare results by industry, company size, or country, and even to create custom, shareable views of the data.

We're excited to share these results with you, and hope you find them valuable in understanding how your business can benefit as we continue to connect the unconnected.