Seven months after launching the Cisco BIG Awards 2012: 300+ entries; 13 semi-finalists and 6 finalists later, we finally announced the winners at Cisco House last Wednesday.

A momentous occasion for our British Innovation Gateway initiative, the winners were announced following a live Dragon’s Den style pitch by all six BIG Award finalists.

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Tags: BIG Awards, British Innovation Gateway, Cisco House, Snap Fashion, UK

A very warm welcome to Guy Denis, Industry Business Development Manager, to the Manufacturing Industry Blog!

Guy Denis at Cisco Live UK.  Come visit the folks at Cisco Live US, San Diego June 2012

Guy is a Cisco Sales Business Development Manager focusing on Industrial, Manufacturing, Energy, Utilities, Mining and Transportation customers. He has a wealth of experience in those and related industries: he works in a global sales consultancy role at Cisco working closely with customers to deliver innovative industrial networking solutions.

He started his career with 6 years of Army Service (with the British Royal Engineers) getting acquainted with a wide range of engineering skills,  before moving into the IP world. His academic qualifications include electronics, software and telecoms, and he is a graduate of the prestigious Royal School of Military Engineering in the UK. Read More »

Tags: Blog Cred, CIBU, cisco consultant, cisco live, Connected Industries, guy denis, Hannover Messe, IE2000, industrial, new blogger, sales development manager, UK

Since I was brought up in England and worked for three American Hi-Tech Companies in the UK, I was intrigued by the latest report to come out of the Centre for Industry and Government at the University of Cambridge titled “Public perceptions of manufacturing and efforts to rebalance the UK economy“.

In fact I’m grateful to the folks at Automation World for bringing it to my attention. Automation World is a good source of industry insight (readers might remember the article I contributed about the use of Social Media in Manufacturing, which I blogged about in January of this year:  How Social Media Improves Collaboration – Automation World, November 2011, and how they awarded Cisco ‘First Team Honors’ which you can read more about in the blog: Automation World First Team Honors Won by Cisco Systems for Leadership in Networking.

So, back to the point of this blog. The folks at the Cambridge Centre, lead by Dr. Finbarr Livesey, Director, Centre for Industry and Government IfM, University of Cambridge, come up with some interesting perceptions concerning the UK. Nearly 1,500 respondents suggests that manufacturing has become more High Tech and they believe that there is a strong requirement for more highly skilled workers.

There’s the rub. Read More »

Tags: Automation World, cambridge, Deloitte, education, recovery, skills, survey, UK, uk economy, us

A very warm welcome to David Bell, Industry Solutions Consultant Architect, to the Manufacturing Industry Blog!

David is a Cisco Consulting Solutions Architect, and has a wealth of experience with a  number of industries: he works in a global consultancy role at Cisco working closely with customers to deliver innovative industrial networking solutions. David has extensive experience in Manufacturing, Utilities, Mining and Transportation industries. Read More »

Tags: Blog Cred, Cisco Consultant Architect, Dave Bell, David k bell, Hannover Messe, IE2000, new blogger, UK

CIOs around the world are at the center of technology trends such as cloud, social media, consumerization of IT, and mobility. This is the third blog in a four-part series (Read Part I) (Read Part II) exploring and sharing how CIOs around the world are responding to these trends and creating new ways to innovate, grow, and deliver superior customer experience.

Back in 2006, Gartner Research predicted that no company would be able to build or sustain a competitive advantage over the next few years unless it capitalized on the combined power of individualized workers and social dynamics. The “Future Worker of 2015,” Gartner said, would collaborate more, work alone less in order to be successful. Read More »

Tags: Borderless Networks, Carrie Krinock, CIO, Cisco, cloud, collaboration, customer experience, Europe, Executive ViewPoints, innovation, Manufacturing, new business models, new revenue streams, operational excellence, Robbert Kuppens, SaaS, UK, WebEX