 Live from Barcelona, Spain, it's theCUBE! Covering Cisco Live 2020. Brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. Okay, welcome back everyone. It's theCUBE's live coverage day four of four days of wall-to-wall action here in Barcelona, Spain for Cisco Live 2020. I'm John Furrier with my co-host Dave Vellante. We have a very special guest here to wrap up Cisco Live. The president of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia for Cisco, Wendy Mars, CUBE alumni, great to see you. Thanks for coming on to kind of put a book into the show here. Thanks for joining us. Great to have you. Great, absolutely great to be here. Thank you. So what a transformation as Cisco's business model continues to evolve. We've been saying brick by brick. We still think there's a big move coming. I think there's more action. I can sense the walls talking to us like Cisco Live in the US and more technical announcements in the next 24 months. You can see where it's going. It's cloud, it's apps. It's policy-based, programmability. It's really a whole nother business model shift for you and your customers. The technology shift and the business model shift. So I want to get your perspective of this year, opening Kino, you let it off, talking about the philosophy of the business model. But also the first presenter was not a networking guy. It was an application person, app dynamics. This is a shift. What's going on with Cisco? What's happening? What's the story? For all of the work that we're doing is really driven by what we see from requirements from our customers, the change that's happening in the market. And it is all around. If you think digital transformation is the driver, organizations now are incredibly interested in how do they capture that opportunity? How do they use technology to help them? But if you look at it, there's the three items that are so important. It's the business model evolution. It's actually the business operations for organizations plus their people. There are people in the communities within that. Those three things working together. And if you look at it with, it's so exciting with application dynamics there, because if you look for us within Cisco, that linkage of the application layer through into the infrastructure, into the network, and bringing that linkage together is the most powerful thing, because that's the insight and the value our customers are looking for. We've been talking about the innovation sandwich. You got data in the middle, and you got technology and applications underneath. That's kind of what's going on here. But I'm glad you brought up the part about business model, business operations, and people in communities. Because during your keynote, you had a slide that laid out three pillars. Yes. People in communities, business model, and business operations. There was no 800 series in there. There was no product discussions. This is fundamentally the big shift that business models are changing. I tweeted provocatively, the killer app and digital, the business model. Because if you think about it, the applications are the business, and what's running under the covers is the technology, but it's all shifting and changing. So every single vertical, every single business is impacted by this. It's not like a certain secular thing in the industry. This is a real change. Can you describe how those three things are operating with that context? Sure, and I think if you look from, so thinking through those three areas, if you look at the actual business model itself, our business models as organizations are fundamentally changing, and they're changing towards, as consumers, we are all much more specific about what we want. We have incredible choice in the market. We are more informed than ever before, but also we are interested in the values of the organizations that we're getting the capability from as well as the products and the services that naturally we're looking to gain. So if you look in that business model itself, this is about organizations making sure they stay ahead from a competitive standpoint about the innovation and portfolio that they're able to bring, but also that they have a strong, strong focus around the experience that their customer gains from an application, a touch standpoint that all comes through those different channels, which is, at the end of the day, the application. Then if you look as to how do you deliver that capability through the systems, the tools, and the processes, as we all evolve our businesses, you have to change the dynamic within your organization to cope with that. And then, of course, in driving any transformation, the critical success factor is your people and your culture. You need your teams with you. The way teams operate now is incredibly different. It's no longer command and control. It's agile capability coming together. You need that to deliver on any transformation. Never mind, let it be smooth in the execution there. So it's all three together. What I like about that, Marlon, I have to say, this is 10 years of doing theCUBE, you see that marketing in the vendor community often leads what actually happens. Not surprising, as we entered the last decade, it was a lot of talk about cloud. Well, it kind of was a good predictor. We heard a lot about digital transformations. A lot of people roll their eyes and think it's a buzzword, but we really are, I feel like, exiting this cloud era into the digital era, it feels real. And there are companies that get it and are leaning in. There are others that maybe are complacent. I'm wondering what you're seeing in Europe, just in terms of everybody talks digital. Every CEO wants to get it right. But there is complacency there. Financial services say, well, I'm doing pretty well, not on my watch. Others say, hey, we want to be the disruptors and not get disrupted. What are you seeing in the region in terms of that sentiment? I would say across the region, there will always be verticals in industries that are slightly more advanced than others. But I would say that in the bulk of conversations that I'm engaged in, independent of the industry or the country in which we're having that conversation in, there is a acceptance of digital transformation is here. It is affecting my business. If I don't disrupt, I myself will be disrupted and be challenged, help me. So I'm not disputing the end state. I need guidance, I need support to drive the transition in a risk-mitigated manner and the looking for help in that. And there's actually pressure in the boardroom now around what are we doing within organizations, within that enterprise, the service provider, the public sector, any type or style of company, there's that pressure point in the boardroom of come on, we need to move at speed. Now, the other thing about your model is technology plays a role in contributing. It's not the be all end all, but it plays a role in each of those, the business model, the business operations and developing and nurturing communities. Can you add more specifics? What role do you see technology in terms of advancing those three spheres? So I think, you know, if you look at it, technology is fundamental to all of those spheres in regard to the innovation, the differentiation technology can bring. I think the key challenge is one of being able to apply it in a manner where you can really see differentiation of value within the business. So in then the customer's organization, otherwise it's technology for the sake of technology. So we see very much a movement now to this conversation of talk about the use case. The use case is the way by which that innovation can be used to deliver value to the organization. And also different ways by which a company will work. Look at the collaboration capability that we announced earlier this week of helping to bring to life that agility. Look at the APD discussion of helping to link the layer of the application into the infrastructure of the network to get to root cause identification quickly and to understand where you may have a problem before it actually arises and causes downtime many, many ways. And I think the agility message has always been a technical conversation. Agile methodology, technology, software development, no problem, check that's 10 years ago. But business agility is moving from a buzzword to reality. Exactly. That's what you're kind of getting at. And teams, how teams operate, how they work. You know, and being able to be quick, efficient, stand up, stand down, and operate in that way. You know, we were kind of thinking out loud on theCUBE and just riffing with Fabio Gori on your team, on Cisco's team, about cloudification with Eugene Kim around just kind of real time. What was interesting is we were like, okay, it's been 13 years since the iPhone. And so 13 years of mobile in your territory in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, mobility's been around before the iPhone. So a bit more advanced, data privacy, much more advanced in your region. So you have a region that's pretty much, I think the tell signs for what's going on in North America and around the world. And so you think about that and you say, okay, how is value created? How are the economics changing? This is really the conversation about the business model is, okay, if the value activities are shifting and being more agile, and the economics are changing with SaaS, if someone's not on this bandwagon, it's not an in-state discussion. It's done deal. Yeah. But I think also there were some other conversations which are very prevalent here in the region. So around trust, around privacy, understanding compliance, if you look at data where data resides, portability of that data, GDPR came from Europe and has pushed out. And those conversations will continue as we go over time. And if I also look at the dialogue that you saw within World Economic Forum around sustainability, that is becoming a key discussion now within government. Here in Spain, from a climate standpoint and many other areas as well. Dave and I have been riffing around this whole, where the innovation is coming from. It's coming from your region, not so much the US. I mean, US has got some great innovations, but look at blockchain. US is like, don't touch it. Pretty progressive outside of the United States. A little bit dangerous too, but that's where innovation is coming from. And this is really the key that we're focused on. I want to get your thoughts on, how do you see it going next level? The next level, next gen business model, what's your vision? So I think there'll be lots of things. If we look at things like it with the introduction of artificial intelligence, robotics capability, 5G of course, on the horizon. We have Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona a few weeks time. And if you talked about with the iPhone, the smartphone, of course when 4G was introduced, no one knew what the use case for that would be. It was the smartphone, which wasn't around at that time. So with 5G and the capability there, that will bring again, yet more change to the business model for different organizations and the capability and what we can bring to market. And when you think about AI, privacy, data ownership, it becomes more important, some of the things you were talking about before. It's interesting what you're saying, John and Wendy. The GDPR set the standard and you see in the US, there's stovepipes for that standard. California is going to do one, every state is going to have a different standard. That's going to slow things down. That's going to slow down progress. Do you see sort of an extension of a GDPR like framework of being adopted across the region and potentially accelerating some of these sticky issues and public policy issues that can actually move the market forward more quickly? I think there will be, because I think there'll be more and more. If you look at this terminology of data as the new oil, what do you do with data? How do you actually get value from that data and make intelligent business decisions around that? So that's critical, but yet if you look for all of ours, we are extremely passionate about, where is our data used? Again, back to trust and privacy. You need compliance, you need regulation. I think this is just the beginning of how we will see that evolve. You know, Wendy, I want to get your thoughts because Dave and I have been riffing for 10 years around the death of storage, long-lived storage, but data needs to be stored somewhere. Networking is the same kind of conversation. It just doesn't go away. In fact, there's more pressure now. We get the smartphone, that was 13 years ago before that mobility, data and video now, super important driver. That's putting more pressure on you guys. And so, hey, we're networking. So it's kind of like Moore's Law. It's like more networking, more networking. So video and data are now big. Your thoughts on video and data. Video is for you. But if you look at the internet of the future, so if you look for all of us now, we are all so demanding as individuals around capability and access to that and into that of the future of the next phase, we want even more. So there'll be more and more requirement for speed availability, that reliability of service, the way by which we engage and we communicate, there's some fundamentals there. So continuing to grow, which is so, so exciting for us. So you talked about digital transformation. That's obviously in the mind of C-level executives. I got to believe security is up there as a topic. What's the conversation like in the corner office when you go visit your customers? So I think there's huge excitement around the opportunity, realizing the value of the opportunity. And if you look at top of mind conversations or around security, around making sure that you can maintain that fantastic customer experience, because if you don't, the customer will go elsewhere. How do you do that? How do you enrich at all times? And also looking at market adjacencies. You know, as you go in and you talk at senior levels within organizations, independent of the industry in which they're in, there are a huge amount of commonalities that we see across those of consistent problems by which organizations are trying to solve. And actually one of the big questions is, what's the pace of change that I should operate at? And when is it too fast? And when am I too slow and trying to balance that? Is exciting, but also a challenge for companies. So you feel like sentiment is still strong, even though we're 10 years into this bull market. You know, you got Brexit, you got China, tensions with the US, US elections. But generally, you see sentiment still pretty strong and demand pretty strong. So I would say that the excitement around technology, the opportunity that is there around technology, in its broadest sense, is greater than ever before. And I think it's on all of us to be able to help organizations to understand how they can consume and see value from that. But it's, you know, it's fantastic times. Yeah, Dave's trying to get some economic indicators. And we've seen a lot of them. I know he is. Well, I know you have to be careful. But really, the real thing I'm trying to get to is the mindset of the CEO, the corner office, right now, is that we're going to grow short term by cutting or are we going to be aggressive and go after this incremental opportunity? And it's probably both. You're seeing a lot of automation and cutting costs. It's both. And I think if you look fundamentally for organizations, it's the three things. Help me to make money, help me to save money, keep me out of trouble. You know, so those are the pivots they all operate with. And you know, depending on where an organization is in its journey, whether a startup, you know, in the middle or the more mature and some of the different dynamics and the markets in which they operate in as well. There's all different variables, you know. So it's mixed. Wendy, thanks so much for spending the time to come on the queue, really appreciate. Great keynote, folks watching. If you haven't seen the keynote opening section, it's got the good section in the business model. I think it's really right on. I think that's going to be a conversation that's going to continue. So thanks for sharing that. Before we leave, I want to just ask you a question around what's going on for you here at Barcelona. As the show winds down, you had all your activities. Take us in the day of the life of what you do. Customer meetings, what were some of those conversations? Take us inside what goes on for you here. Well, I tell you, it's been an amazing, it's been an amazing few days. So it's a combination of customer conversations around some of the themes we just talked about. Conversations with partners. There's investor companies that we invest in as Cisco that I've been spending some time with. And also, you know, spending time with the teams as well. The DevNet zone, you know, is amazing. We have the afternoon, the closing session where we've got a fantastic external guest who's coming in. It's going to be really exciting as well. And then, of course, the party tonight. And we'll be announcing the next location, which I'm not going to reveal now, later on today. We kind of figured it out already because that's our job and it's the break news, but we're not going to break it for you. We'll let you have that. Hey, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Wendy March, president of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia for Cisco. She's got her hand on the pulse and the future is the business model. That's what's going on. Fundamental radical change across the board in all areas. This is theCUBE bringing you all the action here in Barcelona. Thanks for watching.