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CISCO – Data, Digital and AI… the journey

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Data, Digital and AI… the journey Dr. Christian Vogt, is Cisco’s Chief Innovation Officer of Data & Analytics, responsible for driving the adoption of digital, analytics, and artificial intelligence at Cisco…

Written by

Andrew Woods

Produced by

Craig Daniels

C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

www.theinterface.net

cross the globe and every sector, enterprises are looking to transform their operations

and offerings through the harnessing of data-driven, digital technologies. For many, the necessity to digitally transform is seen as a competitive edge in the marketplace. For others, it is simply a case of transform or die. Either way, no one wants to, or could afford to, ignore the potential of digital. But, away from the headline-grabbing technologies that drive this trend, what does innovation and transformation actually look like at ground level? Cisco is an American multinational technology conglomerate that sells networking, collaboration, and cybersecurity hardware and software. Cisco’s technology is utilized in industries as diverse as smart cities and transporta-

improve its own innovation while boosting

tion, healthcare and manufacturing, finan-

growth and profitability?

cial services and retail, government and education. Cisco helps its clients to adapt to an

We caught up with Dr. Christian Vogt, Cisco’s Chief Innovation Officer of Data & Analytics at his Silicon Valley office.

ever changing world by providing the

Christian is responsible for driving the

building blocks of a digital ecosystem that

adoption of digital, analytics, and artificial

allows more agile and efficient commu-

intelligence at Cisco, and for incubating

nication alongside operational prowess.

and scaling the capabilities needed to

But what about Cisco itself? What does

accomplish this, both inside his organ-

transformation look like inside this Silicon

ization and across the company. Some

Valley giant, and how does it successfully

of these technologies are developed

harness data-driven, digital technology to

by Cisco’s own engineers, while others

C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

are the result of built-in partnerships. To achieve the latter, Christian has established an open-innovation arm that partners closely with world-class startups and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and beyond. “My goal is to make us a more data-driven, digitally enabled, and artificial-intelligence-powered company,” Christian explains. “There are essentially three reasons behind this,” he reveals. “Firstly, we want to drive growth and profitability right across the company. Secondly, we want to accelerate Cisco’s transformation to a recurring-revenue company,

www.theinterface.net

Understanding customers better with the Snowflake Data Cloud

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? The world is seeing an explosion of data growth. A plethora of devices are generating data, video, and audio content, and our way of life globally relies on countless embedded devices such as RFID tags, IOT devices, smart vehicles, and security equipment, as well as the ecosystems they interact with such as our homes, shopping malls, traffic grids, and cellular networks. Enterprise data at Cisco has also grown over the years. The appetite and demand within the organization for data-driven insights has also grown exponentially as Cisco realized the potential of driving growth and business outcomes with insights from data, revealing new business levers and opportunities.

“Customer service agents can now immediately pull case reports and support Cisco customers on average 20x faster than with Hadoop.” DAO/CX

With the business pivoting towards an accelerated datato-insights cycle and the demand for analytics exploding, it quickly became apparent that the technology landscape would need to evolve rapidly to meet demand.

“The Snowflake GUI has saved days in query development time. New application onboarding is seamless and allowed us to immediately onboard [geospatial] Cesium reporting on Snowflake.” SUPPLY CHAIN, T&Q

With Snowflake handling Cisco’s data warehousing workload, performance has significantly improved across multiple dimensions including reporting and transformations. Transformation jobs that would take 10+ hours to run are now done within an hour, a 10x performance improvement. This provides Cisco business teams with more-current data on their dashboards, allowing for more accurate insights based on the latest data. Reports are, on average, 4x faster, with a 4x concurrency improvement as well, which gives Cisco analysts the flexibility to run reports in parallel based on business needs. The simple SQL-based technology has reduced the overall time to develop new capabilities or enhance existing ones. Cisco’s enterprise stakeholders report an approximately 30% productivity improvement, allowing faster time to capability, which was a key goal with this journey.

After significant evaluation, Snowflake was chosen for Cisco’s enterprise data processing and analytics. Early POCs indicated that Snowflake was 2–4 times faster than Hadoop for complex workloads, and the fact that Snowflake was ANSI SQL-based yielded several advantages including a larger qualified talent pool, faster development cycles, and improved time to market. Snowflake’s platform also offered a higher concurrency and lower latency compared to Hadoop.

“By retiring redundant applications during the cloud migration, we were able to save $350K in FY20 and future costs of $100K a year for data processing.” TAC OPS, CX

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C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

pivoting from a purely systems business

is important. Then we jointly prioritize

to increasingly a purveyor of subscrip-

based on alignment with corporate strat-

tion software and network-as-a-ser-

egy, as well as potential and feasibility.”

vice. And thirdly, we want to drive data

One of the key decisions Christian

literacy across the company, by moti-

and his team have to address pertains

vating and enabling our colleagues all

to build-versus-buy solutions. “Some

across Cisco to make decisions based

solutions must be built in-house, while

on, and communications through, data,

others are better developed through

while also measuring results and impact

partnership,” he reveals. “However, if it’s

based on data too.”

a ‘buy’ decision, we go and find potential

Christian leads two teams that work

partners and do our due diligence. Once

hand in hand to accomplish these three

one or two partners have been short-

objectives. One is a team that acts as a

listed, we proceed to arrange a pilot. And,

trusted partner to the business functions

if everything goes well and the pilot is

on all things involving digital, analytics

successful, we scale the use of the tech-

and artificial intelligence. Cisco Venture

nology in terms of number of users and

Labs works closely with business leaders

geographic footprint.”

to discuss and prioritize opportunities to

Another key part of Cisco Venture

generate value from these technologies.

Labs is an external network of startups,

“We then go out and find solutions for

venture capital firms and academia,

each opportunity, do our due diligence,

which enables Cisco to not only iden-

and finally pilot and scale the use of the

tify potential partners to work with, but

solutions in production,” says Christian.

to stay on top of emerging technol-

“These business leaders are our stake-

ogies including novel use-cases and

holders, and we meet with them on a

best practices for deployment. “We

regular basis and use these conversa-

learn much from our external network,”

tions to understand what is working well,

Christian explains. “The startups,

what is not working well, and where they

venture capital firms, and universities

face challenges that can be addressed

are our external network, and the lead-

with new technology. We also use the

ers of Cisco’s various business functions

meetings to explain what these technolo-

are our internal network. We are in the

gies can, and cannot, do for them. There

middle: essentially acting as the match-

is a lot of hype, of course, and so the latter

maker. So, that is one team.” www.theinterface.net

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Learn at alation.com/cda C i s c o – more Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

Christian’s second team, Community

forward, a significant portion of the value

Success, drives data literacy across the

created from our data would come from

company, for all roles and at every level.

advanced-analytics and artificial-intel-

“We do this with a portfolio of educa-

ligence applications,” he explains. “So,

tional programs, an array of global events

we wanted to drive the adoption of these

that run on a regular basis throughout

technologies beyond a pilot here and

the year, and various tools we provide to

there, and instead operationalize them at

help data practitioners be successful and

scale.” However, deploying advanced-an-

collaborate efficiently. A big part of being

alytics and artificial-intelligence applica-

data-literate is about asking the right

tions requires a very different and signifi-

questions, understanding which data is

cantly more comprehensive process than

relevant, and interpreting data critically.”

deploying data and business intelligence

Two and a half years ago, Cisco

tools. “These are not just new technol-

decided to establish its Data & Analytics

ogies,” Christian says. “You also need a

Office as the company wanted to be

new approach, and a set of fresh capa-

more data-driven than they had been in

bilities, to deploy these technologies

the past. “The initial focus was very much

successfully at scale,” he explains. “The

on data,” Christian explains. “The office

typical data and business intelligence

defined and implemented the master data

tools are dashboards and comparatively

as a ‘single point of truth’ for the company,

straightforward to deploy, but this is very

established data governance, and began

different to when you move to advanced

to provision self-service tools to let busi-

analytics and artificial intelligence

ness analysts across Cisco consume the

because these use cases are generally

data. Then, the office started to develop

operational and embedded into business

a range of business intelligence appli-

processes, which means you will end up

cations that make use of the data, help-

changing the way people work, day to

ing leaders across Cisco to make more

day.”

informed decisions.” Christian’s entrance to Cisco coincided

The deployment of advanced-analytics and artificial-intelligence appli-

with the company’s decision to lever-

cations therefore requires a consulta-

age advanced analytics and artificial

tive approach. You cannot simply build

intelligence more meaningfully across

the application and wait for adoption;

the company. “We realized that, moving

you also need to help your business www.theinterface.net

stakeholders through the change. This is the hard part that many companies struggle with. “The journey we go through, together with our business stakeholders, which prioritizes, validates, operationalizes, and scales these technologies, is as important as, if not more important than, the technologies themselves. We call it the ‘stakeholder journey’. This is reminiscent of the term ‘customer journey’ that our colleagues inside go-to-market functions use because, at the end of the day, our stakeholders are the internal customers of the Data & Analytics Office. Executed well, one successful initiative of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence will generate demand for further initiatives. So, in a way, the stakeholder journey becomes a flywheel for the adoption of new technology.” According to Christian, everything starts with the external network: startups, venture capital firms, academia, leading vendors, likeminded corporates – in order to identify emerging technologies, novel, high-impact use-cases for these technologies, and proven best practices for deployment and scaled operationalization of these use-cases. “Some technologies we build ourselves, some come from leading vendors, and a good portion come from startups at the cutting edge of innovation,” he explains. “One reason C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

www.theinterface.net

“ At the end of the day, this needs to be a needs-driven exercise. You need to find problems that are really keeping people up at night – stuff that is not working today – and then find a solution” — Dr. C h ri st i an Vogt C h i ef I n novat ion Officer of Data & Analy t i c s , Cis co

behind working with venture firms, and

by investors. At that stage, startups will

not just with startups, is because they are

also have a number of paying customers

our amplifier. They help us find the start-

already. The sweet spot for us is series

ups we are looking for.”

A and series B. Why? Because, at these

There are a number of key criteria

stages, the startups have, on one hand,

Cisco uses to select startups to work

already proven themselves, whilst on the

with. “We ignore the whole seed-stage

other hand, they’re still young enough to

startup space because, for us, there is too

treat you as a priority customer.”

much risk. We want startups to have gone

Armed with all this information, Cisco

through two funding rounds, meaning

also reaches out to its internal stake-

they have already been endorsed twice

holders. The goal? To build a trusted

C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

relationship with leaders across Cisco

To get the discussion started, Christian

for whom digital technologies, advanced

and his team might bring a few examples

analytics, and artificial intelligence

from the startup space that could poten-

could be a game-changer. “The goal is

tially be interesting for them just to get

to become the trusted advisor for all

the discussion going and get the “crea-

things advanced analytics and artificial

tive juices flowing”. “At the end of the day,

intelligence for our business stakehold-

this needs to be a needs-driven exercise.

ers,” says Christian. “And that includes

You need to find problems that are really

a number of things, such as education.

keeping people up at night – stuff that is

‘What can this technology do for me? And

not working today – and then find a solu-

what can it not do for me?’”

tion. Therefore, in your discussion with www.theinterface.net

your stakeholders, you should get to a

is aligned with corporate strategy, you

point where you start to understand the

can be certain that people will invest the

stakeholders’ work. What is working well,

resources to make it successful. If some-

what is not working well and where these

thing is not aligned with corporate strat-

new technologies and digital intelligence

egy, you can be certain that, after the

can help them.”

initial excitement, this will quickly wear off

Having identified these use-cases, there is then a need for prioritization. “You can’t start everywhere at once,

and people will lose track of it. So, it has to be aligned with corporate strategy.” The other two dimensions are potential

and so you prioritize upon three criteria:

and feasibility. Potential in terms of the

potential, feasibility and alignment with

return-on-investment Cisco can extract

corporate strategy. The latter is impor-

from this, and the feasibility of just how

tant, yet often overlooked. If something

likely this will succeed. “Has this business

C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

still high feasibility. And the third would be the ‘big bets’ or use-cases with high potential and low feasibility. These are the riskiest ones. Then, almost as a part of this, you decide if this is going to be bought off the market or built in-house. It doesn’t make sense to build in-house if a good fit already exists. And by a good fit, I mean, it’s a technology that does what it’s supposed to do, that scales and is sufficiently customizable to Cisco’s needs. Will the team make a good, trusted, longterm partner for all of Cisco? If that is available, there is no reason in the world to reinvent the wheel in-house. It would always take you longer and you would nearly always pay more overall, end to end. If a partner is not available, or if the use-case is very Cisco-specific, then you have to build it yourself. And we have a stakeholder already done something

team of data scientists, data engineers

with artificial intelligence in the past?

and software engineers who can do this.”

Have they had experience with change

Ensuring you have the right team in

management and transforming the way

place is crucial to any pilot of a new

they work? Maybe they have used some

technology, and at Cisco an emphasis

other digital technology before. Using

is placed on a cross-functional group of

this prioritization criteria, you will know

early adopters needed to make things

pretty quickly which use-cases are the

happen. “We work with data, and data is

no-brainers; the ones keenly aligned with

sensitive,” Christian explains. “There is

corporate strategy, with a high return on

a lot of sensitivity around it in terms of

investment, and a high feasibility. The

privacy and legal requirements, and so

second pocket would be the low-hang-

the team is always very cross-functional.

ing fruit; the ones with less potential, but

More often than not, it includes not just www.theinterface.net

the IT organization, but security too, as both have to sign off on this, in validating the new technology to reach our security standards. It’s actually quite rigorous at Cisco, as you can imagine. The privacy office is also included, if personal data is involved, be it from employees, suppliers, or customers; human resources is also going to be a part of this. In some countries, the workers councils are going to be part of this too. And then, obviously, you have the procurement organization as well and sometimes legal is also involved. So, now we have IT, infosec, privacy, legal, HR, workers councils, procurement, and the Data & Analytics Office. That’s a highly cross-functional team. And for many of these products you actually have to have someone from each of these organizations at the table. So, the best way to do this is if we have a contact person, a liaison, inside each of these organizations.” The big difference between piloting an application and operationalizing that application at scale is that now you can’t just work with the early adopters anymore. Now everyone has to use the application, and this is where change management becomes paramount during this stakeholder journey. “You need to work hand in hand with your business stakeholders to make sure the C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

“ The journey we go through, together with our business stakeholders, which prioritizes, validates, operationalizes, and scales these technologies, is as important as, if not more important than, the technologies themselves. We call it the ‘stakeholder journey’” — Dr. C h ri st i a n Vogt Ch i ef I n novation Officer of Data & Analy t i c s, Cis co

www.theinterface.net

“ You need to work hand in hand with your business stakeholders to make sure the employees understand what is happening and how to use it. They actually get a little excited about it as well” — Dr. C h ri st i an Vogt C h i ef I n novation Officer of Data & Analy t i c s , Cis co

C i s c o – Data , Di gital and AI… t h e jour ney

employees understand what is happening and how to use it. They actually get a little excited about it as well. As part of this, it’s usually a good idea to talk and write about it as well. Essentially, frame it as a success story, which at that point, it is, because they’ve already shown through the pilot that this is working. And then you publish this, at least internally, maybe even externally, as this will kill two, if not three birds, with one stone. Number one, by just publishing it and making it a success story, you get the employees excited. The second benefit is, because you’re publishing this at least internally, other potential stakeholders will see it and might come to you and say, ‘Hey, can we do something like this as well?’ So, it becomes a marketing tool for yourself. And, thirdly, if you choose to publish this externally, the same applies for your external network. Startups, venture capital firms, perhaps universities might reach out to you, or at least it will become easier for you to reach out to them, in order to sign them up for your external network. And this closes the circle. Because by publishing your success, you actually seed the next success too.”