A Cisco representative argues that the Internet has moved technology from the basement to the boardroom, making data the most valuable asset. The company partners with Salesforce to turn real-time customer insights into rapid innovation, and shifted into blade servers based on data-driven strategy.
The Internet just fundamentally has truly changed the world. It really is a great equalizer. You know, I've been in technology for 28 years and I have never seen things move as rapidly as they do today. When I started, I joked that in it we were relegated to the basement. And technology has taken such a prevalent role now within our customer base that it's moved from the basement to the boardroom. And every customer is trying to figure out how does technology fundamentally redefine their overall business strategy. It's about the people at about the process. It's about connecting new things to the Internet. And this is where the relationship between Cisco and Salesforce is so critically important. Because the most important technology asset that our customers have is their data. If you look at where we're headed, from 15 billion to 50 billion to 500 billion connections, garnering insights from that data requires new processes. It requires people to think about working differently. And we just call that the Internet of everything. For every single company, they see this Internet of everything as the future. And I think actually it isn't the future, it's now. Honestly, people have to think this way or they're not going to survive. That is very similar to something that Cisco was at the center of when I first started in 1995. And we find ourselves at the center of that again in 2015, only faster. If you think about the dynamics that we deal with on a daily basis, the rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape, the rapidly shifting global economy, it creates not only an opportunity but an obligation to truly help our customers. And that's going to require a very intelligent network that we can provide. It's going to require a level of security that we can provide. And at the same time, Salesforce has this tremendous platform that helps us take the data that we have and actually expose even greater insights. You can use analytics to get down to what does that individual customer need. We would not have that picture if we didn't not only have Salesforce, but didn't embrace Salesforce. The ability to have a flexible platform that I can customize without all the pitfalls of customization of the past creates an environment where you're co innovating in a very adaptive, rapid pace. You can really use Salesforce to understand in a real time way what's occurring in our business. We sold no servers five years ago and now we're number one bladeserver in the US, number two globally. You can't do that unless you really understand the trends that are beginning to occur. What pipeline you're beginning to see build. Salesforce is the single source of truth about how you look at the future. The data unto itself is not valuable. It's the insight that you can gain from that data that really matters. Salesforce is the platform that our teams use to engage with our customers in ways that we never have been able before. And if you can make that connection, then they're off and running with you.
