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IMPACT, Cisco’s global sales conference, has been a new experience for us this year. Historically, we gather in-person in Las Vegas to learn, unwind, bond, and have a little fun with our teams from every corner of the globe. This year, the decision was made for IMAPCT to go virtual and those face-to-face opportunities were sorely missed; however, the virtual platform created an even larger opportunity to educate ourselves. Comments like, “Wow, I get to go to so many more sessions”, “Tons of information”, “I think I am full”, and my personal favorite “I think my brain is going to explode”, have been common. It was incredibly inspiring to see people adapting to our ‘new normal’ and finding new ways to bring energy into the sessions.

It’s exciting to see how Cisco is building the most powerful, innovative, and secure operational platform to enable enterprises, including those in highly regulated industries like financial services, to move confidently to the cloud. The vision to integrate the solution capabilities of AppDynamics, Tetration, ACI, Stealthwatch, Umbrella, and Duo – as well as recent acquisitions like ThousandEyes – into intuitive new platforms like Intersight and SecureX is rapidly becoming a reality. These platforms provide the broadest ability for enterprises to efficiently and holistically manage the dynamic IT operational environments of digital businesses. Cisco’s solution and technical breadth is unique in the industry, and as our sales teams saw again this week, we are uniquely qualified to bring these game-changing platforms to market.

We also must highlight that within the financial services industry, branches are a critical part of customer digital engagement. If branches are currently closed in your region, they will be opening back up. A majority of customers still enjoy interacting with a person face to face when building a new relationship, and Cisco has the technologies to assist both customers in the branch and those that prefer to nurture these relationships remotely through our Secure Remote Worker and Virtual Expertise Solutions. The innovation to deliver a more enjoyable and productive experience is being enhanced with our Cisco collaboration tools to improve background noise reduction through Artificial Intelligence Algorithms, WebEx Assistant translation, hands free voice assistant, and an all-around simplified user experience. The financial services demonstration video illustrating these capabilities will be added to our FSI page soon, check back here later this week to watch it for yourself.

Cisco IMPACT is something that excites us every year. It is an extraordinary experience where we all come together, knowing that Cisco will introduce capabilities that not only raise the bar in the industry but completely redefine the future. The most inspiring is our commitment to ensuring our sales teams have the skills necessary to confidently lead our customers through the inevitable transitions that need to happen. Coming out of IMPACT, the account teams are now armed with knowledge, passion, and a vision for the future and are ready to help you achieve your goals.



Authors

Ron Kjelden

Managing Architect, Retail & Hospitality

Business Transformation Team