Drive the bottom line through Business Outcomes, powered by Digitization.

Mohandas Gandhi was spot on when he said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

These words epitomize what consumer's value today. Our society has become accustomed to completing tasks with the touch of a button (hah, I sounded like a true millennial right there). It's all about maximizing speed, while maintaining high levels of efficiency. Technology has accelerated the conversation of change into boardrooms across the globe. The underlining message is clear: change is no longer a recommendation, but rather an expectation.

On July 10^th, Cisco hosted Americas Distribution Summit at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas prior to Cisco Live US. The audience consisted of over 100 people across Americas Distribution and Cisco. Teams came from 2 different continents and 7 different countries. Together, our Americas Distribution team generates over$8.8 billion in revenue per FY, covering over 44 countries.

At the Cisco Distribution Summit held before Cisco Live US last month (from left to right) Bill Dyrek, Beth Kincaid, and Kim Christensen.

Why is this even more impressive?

Because 60% of all Distribution sales flow through these Distributors. These same folks will take their training and go out and enable thousands of Cisco partners.

The theme of the Summit was based on "Driving Business Outcomes" in the digital world of today. Moreover, it was about learning how to sell business outcomes to non-traditional IT buyers within the Lines of Business (learn more about LoB here). The importance to be ahead of change is imminent, which forces a shift in thought processes and visions across industries. Cisco has the opportunity to reshape the conversation in a massive way -deliver the digital capabilities needed to break down walls of old consumption models and forge into the new era of digitization.

 

 

Why Digitization?

Simple -it's the bread and butter solution for transforming businesses into the powerful and well-equipped engines of tomorrow. According to Accenture, digital transformation is already happening across every industry and will create a$24.6 billion opportunity by 2020.

I mentioned Cisco's opportunity to deliver on digital capabilities. These consist of business services that leverage technology to drive very specific business outcomes and change business models. The services include, Workforce Experience, Customer Experience and Business Operations.

 

Workforce Experience

Like in anything we do, our experience is critical. It becomes the basis by which we evaluate our time spent in an environment. Gallup Research demonstrates that companies have a 1 ? times higher earnings per share with workforces that are highly engaged. This is predicated around driving productivity, attracting and retaining talent and increasing the opportunity for a workforce to impact the business.

 

Customer Experience 

When a brand exceeds expectation over and over again, a customer develops into a loyal supporter of it. The same is true for increasing wallet share and creating new opportunities with the existing customer base. Gartner explains that by 2016, there will be a 50% increase in companies that say they will compete directly on customer experience.

 

Business Operations

While the humanistic experience companies have with employees and customers is important today, its value going forward is multiplied. Everyday we see how business processes, and the need for efficiencies and operational excellence, are driving business operations. The ability to drive predictive insights and drive more support for citizen services will play as the key business differentiator.

As we look forward, business models are already beginning to shift. According to Gartner by 2020, 90 % of Technology spending will be outside of IT.

Where is this money being spent exactly?

Lines of Business (LoB). This has created a tremendous opportunity for Cisco, as LoB develop new budgets specifically focused on digitization. Cisco and our partners are in a unique position to help unify the approach, share the tremendous experience we have gained over the years and in many ways help the lines of business realize business outcomes.

https://alln-extcloud-storage.cisco.com/Cisco_Blogs:ciscoblogs/CiscoDisti_BlogSketch2.mp4

 

Key Takeaway

It all starts with the network as the platform for Digitization. Digitization leverages technology as the enabler to drive new business outcomes through new business services and digital capabilities.

Want to learn more about Business Outcomes? Click Here.

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