Cisco EMEAR svp talks digital transformation and channel opportunities

It is always a positive when a vendor promotes someone with a strong channel background into a leadership position because they can see the world through the eyes of a partner.

Cisco has decided that its EMEAR partner boss Wendy Mars has deserved the chance to become senior vice president of the region.

Her promotion comes a decade into her career at the networking player. The channel credentials pre-date that move with a spell prior to that at Cisco partner ThruPoint.

Mars spent a year in her position as EMEAR partner boss and the firm is currently seeking a replacement to fill her shoes.

“I know my way around, which is a good thing for me, also for our teams, but more importantly for our customers and partners as we engage with them and work with them," she said.

“Just this week I’ve been out and about in Lisbon with a number of our partners, and also in Berlin, spending time with our teams, customers and partners, so it’s great to hear some of the commonality of messaging and the opportunity that’s out there for us all," she added.

One of the main themes that she will be addressing in her new role is to try and encourage both partners and customers to get the most out of the digital transformation trend.

“We’ve spent a lot of time as individuals in the technology sector talking about the fact that there’s this digital transformation wave that is underway and what that means, and now our customers are actually in that, and it’s no longer about trying to justify the conversation, it’s the fact that that is moving ahead and they’re looking for help with capturing this opportunity," she said.

“That’s very exciting and really, working with our customers and partners, who are customers as well, is very important from us from a go-to-market standpoint, to work together to solve challenges in the market and in the business," she added.

Partners can expect more encouragement from Cisco to get involved with the increasing opportunities that are emerging in the market.

“At the end of the day the way in which the customer consumes is evolving and changing with cloud and multicloud-based environments – what does that mean and where does data reside? Data can reside in a SaaS platform, in a datacentre, on-premise, off-premise, in multiple different environments, so how do you ensure you reinvent the network to cope with that, but also how do you make sure you bring the world of IoT to life, you’ve [also] got to reinvent the network to do that," she said.