PRESENTER<\/b>
\nAlex Goryachev
\nSenior Director, Corporate Strategy and Innovation Group<\/i>
\nCisco Systems<\/p>\n
SESSION ABSTRACT<\/b><\/p>\n
No company \u2013 no matter how big or established — can dominate innovation by itself\u00a0anymore because of the hyper-accelerated pace and complexity of change. Mass\u00a0disruption of industries and business models are the new and chaotic normal in this era\u00a0of mass digitization. Today, it\u2019s imperative that companies co-innovate customer\u00a0solutions to keep up and succeed at a time when unforeseen competition can come\u00a0from anywhere, any time. At Cisco, the most valuable co-innovation comes from\u00a0synergies realized by two vital and interdependent sources: external startups, partners\u00a0or even customers, and the entrepreneurial talent already inside the organization.<\/p>\n
KEY TAKE-AWAYS<\/b><\/p>\n Alex Goryachev: Our company was founded 30 years ago. It was two cables and a\u00a0desire to connect. Large companies are made for scale. Some companies missed out\u2014the companies that died. Listening to employees, customer and market trends is best.<\/p>\n In 2020, most of the Fortune 500 companies will be gone. What\u2019s driving that is a shift\u00a0in consumer behavior. We\u2019re seeing new business models everywhere. The pace of\u00a0change in increasing, and there are new business models, like UBER, LYFT, AirBnb,\u00a0Amazon, Prosper, and LiquidSpace. Amazon transformed the book market, then\u00a0electronics, and how we buy things, now they have retail pop-ups. It doesn\u2019t cost a lot of\u00a0money to start a business. There are way more businesses starting up than 10 years\u00a0ago.<\/p>\n Disrupt or be disrupted:<\/b><\/p>\n TAKE-AWAY<\/b> What is the solution? Think like a startup! We establish pockets of startups within the\u00a0company so we can move faster. Everyone has a common purpose. When people are\u00a0highly engaged and focused they can sometimes change the world.<\/p>\n Cisco Innovation Strategy<\/b> When we buy a company, we hope that we acquire all three of the above. We move\u00a0into partner mode. Today we think of partnership as a model. We are investing in our\u00a0partner companies. Right now we are accelerating. You get to work with startups.\u00a0As we discover startups, we don\u2019t want to acquire them. We want them to develop on\u00a0top of Cisco. It can be a university too. We have shifted from building to a solutions\u00a0world where we partner with many people.<\/p>\n Cisco Innovation Centers<\/b> Innovating with Employees<\/b> We want them to focus on the business outcome. If we think about drones, focus their\u00a0ideas on this area. We encourage people to form teams. The goal is to get people\u00a0thinking about their daily jobs. We follow a structured process and it has been\u00a0successful: 52 percent participated\u2014in a company of 30,000 people. We gave them\u00a0$1,000 for innovative projects. At first, there was a lot of resistance from managers. It\u2019s\u00a0going in the right direction. There are opportunities to work with like-minded people.<\/p>\n One catch: you cannot innovate within your day job. Not a rewards and recognition\u00a0program. We have spent $1 million dollars so far.<\/p>\n TAKE-AWAY<\/b><\/p>\n IMPLEMENTATION GUIDELINES<\/b><\/p>\n BEST PRACTICE<\/b><\/p>\n ACTION ITEM<\/b><\/p>\n Every day we wake up in a different world. We don\u2019t know who our competitors are. To\u00a0stay ahead of the curve, Cisco has implemented an internal entrepreneurship program\u00a0for their employees. Their participation rate of 52 percent of 30,000 employees was a\u00a0huge surprise to this 30-year old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PRESENTER Alex Goryachev Senior Director, Corporate Strategy and Innovation Group Cisco Systems SESSION ABSTRACT No company \u2013 no matter how big or established — can dominate innovation by itself\u00a0anymore because of the hyper-accelerated pace and complexity of change. Mass\u00a0disruption of industries and business models are the new and chaotic normal in this era\u00a0of mass digitization. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pdslog"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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\n<\/b>Lending has changed. People are no longer buying storage or infrastructure. Now, with\u00a0technology, you can start a business anywhere. It\u2019s a low entry point. Or you can\u00a0crowdsource a business. Every day we wake up in a different world. We don\u2019t know\u00a0who our competitors are. There are more consumers because of globalization. We\u2019re\u00a0noticing everything is super-fast. Our employees leave and start their own businesses.\u00a0Our competitors go in and out of business every day. In the past we had dominant\u00a0players we would compete with. Now there are small companies are chipping away at\u00a0our wallet. We are now competing with hundreds of companies. This causes so much\u00a0confusion. Everything is changing. This is the new normal.<\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Traditionally we were building stuff. We were selling to customers. Now, we buy\u00a0companies for three reasons:<\/p>\n\n
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\n<\/b>Our goal is to get an idea, customer, or startup and see if we can partner with them.\u00a0We\u2019ll make money, we are quick to monetize. We have 9 of these centers. They are all\u00a0over the world. The goal is to create a strategic presence. There are 5 \u2013 10 people in\u00a0these centers.<\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>In the past, there was no way to innovate outside the box, which led to many silos. We\u00a0put together a program that\u2019s structured. We work with our employees. We give them\u00a0themes to innovate. We give them resources and tools. Time off to implement their\u00a0ideas. The goal is to give everyone a role in innovation. How do you get everyone\u00a0aligned to innovation? Angel personas are important. We\u2019re building a role for\u00a0coaches, mentors, judges etc.<\/p>\n\n
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\n<\/b>FINAL THOUGHT<\/b><\/p>\n