The media and entertainment industry is moving through a hugely transformative phase as it embraces IP and cloud technologies to address new challenges in an increasingly competitive, and complex, market environment. This digitization process is having an impact on all regions of the world, and its effects are particularly profound for media and entertainment businesses in the Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia (EMEAR) region with strong traditions and deep roots in the past.

Just three years ago, Cisco established a division that focuses exclusively on media within EMEAR, with the objective of bringing thought leadership, innovation and industry-focused solutions from the Internet world to the media industry in this region. Our heightened focus on EMEAR is already helping some of our major media customers here to embrace this digital transformation - and make it a reality.

As part of our efforts to provide direct support to our EMEAR customers, we regularly organize media days and industry webinars at Cisco offices around Europe. So far during 2018, we have held four media days in London and Paris that attracted an average 100 attendees per day, and which enabled us to show customers and partners how Cisco is leading the digitization of the media industry. A core part of our strategy is to help media companies in EMEAR with the move to IP at all levels of their businesses: production, content acquisition, distribution, customer interactions, enterprise security and collaboration.

Aside from our work with broadcasters and production companies, we collaborate with a range of industry partners to ensure that the main vendors in the media ecosystem are able to fully exploit IP production networking, virtualization and cloud infrastructures - all based on the solid foundations that Cisco brings.

The next big outing for us and our EMEAR media customers is, of course, IBC. Indeed, the annual broadcasting event in Amsterdam has become an important date on Cisco's calendar over the years. This year, we'll be showcasing how we are accelerating the industrialization of the media ecosystem with our Media Blueprint, a set of IP-based infrastructure and software solutions, to help the adoption of cloud and IP technology in the media industry.

At IBC, we'll explain what we see as the key elements of this industrialization process: reinventing the network with programmable and automated IP networking for media production and distribution, the powering of virtualized media production workflows in multi-cloud environments, the protection of infrastructure, applications and workflows from cyberattack and the creation of more meaningful immersive collaboration experiences.

You'll also be able to meet Cisco media experts throughout the event - just come along to our stand in Hall 1 (1.A71). In addition, our executives will be participating in some of IBC's key conference sessions. For example, Edna Conway Chief Security Officer, Global Value Chain, will be focusing on the topic, "embedding security in your business", during theCyber Security Forum Programmeon Thursday. We're also a Platinum Sponsor of the Devoncroft Executive Summit, titled "The Business of Media Technology", to kick off IBC on Thursday.

Of course, as this is Amsterdam, the opportunity to sample finely brewed beer is one not to be missed! We will be holding our very own beer reception in our booth on Sunday, when you can enjoy Dutch and Belgian beers with your colleagues, account teams and Cisco executives. Proost, as they say in Amsterdam - and hope to see you there.