Digitisation not slowing down, despite economy: Cisco APJC chief

The current global macroeconomic conditions are not slowing down an organisation’s digitisation efforts, according to Dave West, president Asia Pacific Japan China at Cisco.

At Cisco Live in Melbourne, West said he speaks with many CEO, CIOs and CTOs across the region and while they are worried about macroeconomic conditions having an impact on the business, they aren’t letting it impact their technology strategy.

He said, “What are they going to do, stop rolling out applications to the cloud because it’s going to give them better economics for their business? Stop building the applications to support their customers or their suppliers? Stop building services that make their employees or workforce more productive?”

West said these leaders cannot stop the digital efforts as they are core to the business, instead, they will compromise and cut somewhere else.

“They will continue to invest in technology, they may slow some areas down that are not as vital to the business but they are absolutely going to go fast [in digital investments]. Most of them tell me that they are not moving fast enough, they need [Cisco’s] help to move faster.

“They'll look to us to lean in harder to help them digitise, even from what they’re seeing in geopolitical dilemmas and macroeconomic conditions, that’s what I’m hearing from our customers,” he added.

Jeetu Patel, EVP, general manager, security & collaboration at Cisco said there will still be spending on certain technology during an economic downturn.

He said, “They have to spend on infrastructure to keep themselves connected, they have to spend on keeping themselves safe and secure, and they have to spend on really figuring out hybrid work.

“We are not in a demand-constrained world, we are in a constrain of do we have enough supply? Are we going to make sure we are going to meet the needs of the customers? Those are the things that we are focusing a fair amount of budget on.”

Athina Mallis travelled to Cisco Live in Melbourne as a guest of Cisco.