Event Archives

Date: Thursday, September 08, 2016
Location: Santa Clara

There was a buzz of excitement going into the Alliance Regional meeting in Santa Clara on September 8th. John Chambers, the Executive Chairman and recently retired CEO of Cisco Systems, was on the scene to share some key insights and wisdom from his brilliant career and vision for the exciting future ahead. Perhaps the sense of anticipation was due to the fact that John was voted one of the best performing CEOs in the world by the Harvard Business Review in 2014 after growing Cisco from $70 million when he joined in 1991 to $47 billion in 2015. The room was packed.

John began by noting that 40% of the companies operating today will be gone or will be irrelevant within 10 years. The driving factor, he pointed out, will be attributed to a “digital revolution” driven by the Internet of Things combined with advanced data analytics. He put it quite simply: those companies that have a strategy to thrive in this “digital” environment and execute it well will prosper. Those who don’t, will fail. The main threat to corporate viability, as John sees it, isn’t that the world is “digitizing.” To the contrary, the business environment has always been in flux from the industrial revolution to the first computer. What is different this time – what is dangerous, even – is the speed at which it’s happening. For companies that means move it now, or lose it. He asked the audience, “What is your digital strategy?” Pencils scribbled furiously.

When discussing the success of Cisco, John underlined the importance that he and Cisco place on listening to customers, partners and employees. For example, that is why he believes so strongly in the importance of ensuring airtight security in Cisco’s products; its absence a non-starter for any client and he knows that from speaking with them. Success came to Cisco, he explained, because they focused on the market and upcoming technology transitions, instead of only reacting to competitors. He guided his team to catch inflection points of the market and technology trends, instead of burning endless cycles on what the competition was cooking up and trying to get a leg up.

John closed his talk with some interesting a-la-carte reflections on Silicon Valley and technology. Meg Whitman, in his mind, succeeded in saving Hewlett-Packard because she was motivated by the belief that the company needed saving for the “good of the Valley.” John expressed confidence in the future of Dell, thanks to the visionary financial architect found in CEO Michael Dell. On the technology side, John sees major potential in storage, particularly combining flash with networking to create major opportunities. He also predicted that Cloud vs. Enterprise computing will eventually reach a balance and that the right solution is usually a mix. And, bringing the talk full circle, John underscored again that the Internet of Things is the opportunity of a lifetime and every business needs a strategy. Given his stated goal of Cisco becoming the number-one information technology company in the world, you can bet that John already has his plans in gear.