Continued with its push on software and subscription driven services since it first introduced software lead “Network Intuitive” in June 2017, the hardware networking giant Cisco has now forayed into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning for finding new business opportunities. Today, US-based firm has launched two subscription based services – “Business Critical Services” and “Cisco High Value Services” – aimed at helping its customers in predicting network failure in advance, automating their IT process easily and making their digital transformation journey smooth. Both these services rely on AI and machine learning.
“Today's world is moving faster than ever, and to be successful, businesses must have the right blend of IT talent and services,” stated Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. “By leveraging AI and machine learning to address critical IT issues, Cisco's new services offerings will truly help our customers free up time to focus on the growing IT talent gap, and remain competitive into the future.”
Why a hardware giant is banking on software for growth? The answer is simple – the world is changing, so does the technology firm. Today, it is beyond a CIO or any IT person to keep a track on what happening with their IT infrastructures because the number of connections or signals have increased phenomenally and with IoT, it will further increase. But fortunately, the development in the area of machine learning and AI have enhanced human ability to oversee things. That is what Cisco is proposing – with the help of machine learning and AI, it aims to find IT failures, mitigates risk, reduces maintenance costs, and assists organisations in attaining the necessary skills to transform their businesses.
While Cisco Business Critical Services promises to minimise human error, reduce downtime and make compliance and security an integral part of business process. On the other hand, Cisco High Value Services is about offering technical and software support to IT department.
Why this is significant? Because, as IDC Chris Barnard said that ‘the landscape is evolving too fast for some businesses to keep up with digital transformation, as a result they rely on their larger vendor partners with the skills, expertise and capabilities to help address these talent gaps.' For networking, obviously it would be Cisco. From a young startups to large multi-national firms, more than 60% businesses and government organisations across the world rely on Cisco for networking.
“By leveraging IT vendors with strong knowledge and a breadth and depth in IT skill sets, organisations are able to get up to speed, adjust to changing market conditions and ultimately focus on innovation,” said Barnard.
