300-810 techniques - Implementing Cisco Collaboration Applications (CLICA) Updated: 2023

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With a nearly $60 billion revenue run rate, growing at 14% and throwing off more than $5 billion in operating cash last quarter, Cisco Systems Inc. has an awesome business.

But customers are vocal about the complexity of Cisco’s portfolio and, if their concerns are not addressed head on, the company risks encountering friction beyond just economic headwinds. We believe Cisco’s challenges are most decidedly not product breadth and depth. Rather, the company’s mandate is to integrate the piece parts of its intricate offerings to create more facile and seamless experiences for customers.

In this Breaking Analysis and ahead of Cisco Live in Las Vegas June 4-8, we dig deeper into Cisco’s business and double-click on three key areas of its portfolio: 1) security; 2) networking; and 3) observability. We have spending data from Enterprise Technology Research and a guest appearance from SiliconANGLE contributor and market watcher Zeus Kerravala, principal at ZK Research.

Stocks of pure-play competitors outperforming Cisco year-to-date

Let’s start by doing some stock market comparisons.

The chart above shows year-to-date comparisons among Cisco, Palo Alto Networks Inc., Arista Networks Inc., Extreme Networks Inc. and the Nasdaq Composite. As you can see, the pure plays, as well as the NAS, are outperforming Cisco by a wide margin. That’s despite Cisco’s double-digit growth last quarter, 65% growth margins and a $200 billion market cap.

The reason is Chief Executive Chuck Robbins set modest expectations for 2024, which, when modeled out relative to Cisco’s longer-term outlook, suggest slowing momentum in the near- to mid-term. In addition, we believe the breadth of Cisco’s portfolio, while a key strength, also creates adoption challenges for the company’s customers.

What follows is a summary of how Kerravala interprets this data.

Kerravala sees this data as a nuanced comparison between Cisco, a behemoth with an impressive cash generation capability, and smaller companies such as Arista and Extreme. Despite acknowledging the somewhat fair comparison, he suggests that Cisco is handicapped because smaller entities may capture the benefits of a market trend more swiftly, Cisco’s broad scope often hampers its ability to do so. But Cisco throws off more operating cash in a quarter than these companies generate in annual revenue.

He used the example of Zoom Video Communications Inc. and RingCentral Inc., noting how Cisco’s performance paled in comparison two years ago, but the tide has turned since then, with the unified communications sector waning, but Cisco thriving in relative terms.

Kerravala believes Cisco’s breadth and stability make it a safe investment bet, but its size prevents it from realizing the rapid growth that smaller, more specialized companies can. The broad spectrum of markets that Cisco operates in implies a reduced likelihood of success across all these fronts simultaneously.

Watch Zeus Kerravala comment on the comparisons between Cisco and the pure plays.

Cisco’s business remains anchored in core networking

The table below represents the contribution of Cisco’s lines of business as reported in its financials. As we said at the top, 14% revenue growth is pretty astounding for a company of Cisco’s size. With tough comps ahead, it’s unlikely Cisco can keep up this pace.

Networking makes up more than half of Cisco’s revenue, but the company is growing its software contribution, which is just under 30% today, and its annual recurring revenue accounts for more than 40% of revenue, which gives the company better visibility on the future. This all helps prop up Cisco’s alluring 65%-plus gross margin model, which unlike many of its large incumbent competitors has held up well over decades. Moreover, Cisco’s shift to a recurring revenue and subscription model has been executed quite well compared with many firms (some much smaller, such as Splunk Inc.), which have struggled with that transition.

To break this down further, examining Cisco’s 10-K provides the following added context:

Secure, Agile Networks comprise core networking, switching, routing, wireless and compute. This includes products such as Catalyst, Nexus, Meraki and Cisco’s software-defined wide-area network products.

Internet for the Future includes optical networking, 5G, in-house silicon and optics solutions. This includes products such as the Cisco 8000, NCS 5500 and ASR 9000 series.

Collaboration includes Webex and call center solutions.

End-to-End Security comprises network security, cloud security, endpoint, threat management and zero-trust solutions.

Optimized Application Experiences includes AppDynamics, ThousandEyes and Intersight.

Here are Kerravala’s thoughts on Cisco’s portfolio, the challenges they face and what’s needed going forward:

Watch Zeus Kerravala unpack Cisco’s vast portfolio and how they can simplify.

Spending data underscores the macroeconomic impact on Cisco’s overall business

The ETR spending data for Cisco, at a high level, shows what virtually all tech companies are facing: a decrease in the percentage of customers that are spending more relative to last year.

The candlestick chart above shows the granularity of Net Score, ETR’s proprietary spending metric that measures customer spending patterns. Of the 1,700 information technology decision makers in the most accurate ETR survey, more than 1,000 are Cisco customers – so we have a nice sample. The lime green is the percentage of those customers adding Cisco new, the forest green represents those spending 6% or more relative to last year, the gray is flat spend, the pink is spending down 6% or worse and the bright red is churn. Subtract red from green and you get Net Score, which is the blue line.

You can see the steadily declining trajectory because of the gray and the reds increasing. The brown line is the pervasiveness in the overall data set, which has actually held up well. Cisco has a massive installed base and it is stable, although more customers are leaving than are being added within this survey. Remember, this survey doesn’t measure spending amount, only the percentage of customers in each bucket.

We asked Kerravala if this accurately reflects his view of the market and is the deceleration a function of economic headwinds, complexity or both? What follows is a list of his key takeaways:

• The competitive dynamics in the networking industry have significantly shifted, with Cisco now facing more formidable rivals such as Arista, Fortinet Inc., VMware Inc. and Extreme Networks.
• The entry of cloud companies and Aruba into the networking market introduces additional competitive pressures.
• These industry changes necessitate sharper sales execution from Cisco, as it can no longer rely on competitors’ missteps to retain its advantage.
• In light of this more complex competitive landscape, Cisco’s strategy must evolve to distinguish itself effectively and maintain its leading position.

I do think a lot of what you’re looking at there is more credible vendors are in market and that has forced sharper sales execution than it did before. In the old days, Cisco could just show up and be assured that its competitors would mis-execute. That luxury is no longer in play.

Watch Zeus Kerravala comment on Cisco’s spending momentum data in the ETR survey and the changing nature of the competitive dynamics.

Cisco’s center of gravity starts with core networking

Let’s drill into the segment data, starting with networks.

The chart above shows Net Score or spending velocity on the vertical axis and pervasiveness in the data set on the horizontal axis. The red dotted line at 40% indicates a highly elevated Net Score. We’ve highlighted Cisco overall and Meraki, a company Cisco bought in 2012 to help better control network devices.

As is evident, Cisco stands out as the clear leader here in both presence (X axis) with very respectable customer spending velocity on its products (Y axis). In fact, we saw earlier a 29% year-on-year revenue growth figure from last quarter in networking. That is amazing for such a large business. As Cisco works through its backlog, it creates uncertainty in the forecasts, but underlying demand for Cisco’s networking products is sound.

As well, you can see a number of other companies here, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.’s Aruba, Arista, VMware with NSX and a number of others, including Cloudflare Inc., which all are hovering near the elevated 40% line.

Kerravala laid out his thoughts as follows:

He is somewhat critical of Cisco’s approach to its Meraki and Catalyst product lines, not on the merit of their features and value but on the lines between them. He asserts that customers should not have to choose between them. He suggests a unified hardware line that offers customers the flexibility to manage it either through Meraki or the command-line interface, or CLI. Currently, a switch from Meraki to Catalyst necessitates a complete hardware overhaul, a problem that could be resolved by a common set of hardware compatible with both management methods.

Further, Kerravala notes that Cisco’s potential to integrate data center, campus and Wi-Fi certifications to Excellerate the user experience has yet to be fully realized. While some integration has occurred at the campus level, the data center side remains separate. He concludes that networks should deliver applications and experiences as a single, unified entity instead of being sold as separate silos, an approach that contributes to unnecessary complexity.

His key analysis points include:

• He believes Cisco should offer a unified hardware line for customers, which could be managed either through Meraki or CLI, mitigating the need for a hardware overhaul when switching between the two.
• By integrating data center, campus, and Wi-Fi certifications, Cisco could enhance the overall user experience.
• The current siloed approach to network products adds unnecessary complexity, which, while non-trivial, will be addressed by treating the network as a single, unified entity focused on delivering applications and experiences.

Watch Zeus break down the Cisco’s networking challenges and thoughts on how it can simplify.

Security is perhaps Cisco’s best upside opportunity

Let’s shift gears and look into the all-important and exceedingly crowded security sector.

Above we show the ETR spending data in the security market – same dimensions – Net Score on Y and Pervasion on the X. Microsoft Corp. is in the upper right and skews the data, but you can see Cisco has a major presence. As do Palo Alto Networks and Splunk. All credible on the vertical axis.

The leaders in presence are below the 40% line, but that’s expected for such large companies. The squiggly line represents Cisco’s path over the past 10 quarters. There is no debate that the company is very strong in security, but we believe it needs to do a better job consolidating the piece parts and simplifying customer outcomes.

Note that Cisco doesn’t have the spending velocity of the pure plays such as CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., Okta Inc., Zscaler Inc., CyberArk Software Ltd. and SailPoint Technologies Inc. — or even Cloudflare – but its Net Score is respectable. Cisco also just purchased Armorblox Inc., which uses artificial intelligence to reduce email and other risks.

In many ways we think Cisco could be a leader in the security supercloud, bridging on-premises, multiple clouds and edge security experiences.

The following summarizes Keravala’s thoughts:

Kerravala claims Cisco has succeeded in cybersecurity despite itself but has a great opportunity if it can address some of the stovepipe challenges.

The emerging observability opportunity

Let’s now dig into observability, which is sort of the confluence of log analytics, application performance management, monitoring and related fields. Cisco has a major stake in this business through its acquisitions of AppDynamics and ThousandEyes.

Before we look at the spending data, here’s what one customer said in an ETR roundtable about this topic:

This is a head of engineering… a customer who says I’m sticking with AppD. This person references the value of the ThousandEyes acquisition along with AppD and security. The application-centricity is an attractive dynamic to this Cisco shop. SecureX is Cisco’s integrated security play, which admittedly needs more and better integration. But basically in the second quote this person calls out the attractiveness and value of a single platform. If you’re a Cisco shop. And if not it’s a “free game” – perhaps implying a free-for-all of complexity.

AppD perhaps presents the biggest opportunity for Cisco since they’ve acquired it. I really expect AppDynamics to become the tip-of-the-arrow sale for Cisco… and I would like to see AppD become a lead sales tool across Cisco’s portfolio. I think it must (and will) happen -Zeus Kerravala

Watch Kerravala’s commentary on Cisco’s observability play with ThousandEyes & AppD.

Comparing key observability players’ spending profiles

Let’s get into the ETR data. ETR doesn’t have a full-stack observability category, but through this next view below we’re able to bring in various companies that are hovering around the space to see their relative positions.

It’s a similar chart above where we show Net Score against pervasiveness in the data. And we’ve plotted Splunk, Datadog Inc., Elastic N.V., Grafana Labs, Dynatrace Inc. and New Relic Inc.. You can see AppDynamics, which Cisco bought in 2017 for almost $4 billion. And it introduced Intersight shortly thereafter as a visualization and orchestration tool. But there were still holes in the portfolio as the market moved to full-stack observability, so Cisco bought ThousandEyes during the COVID pandemic for about $1 billion. Then it sort of strung them together with an overlay, but the story is not over.

Cisco has an opportunity to really take these pieces and integrate them across the portfolio in a potentially game-changing way. At least in the manner that one customer described earlier – especially for Cisco shops.

Kerravala’s primary argument is that the industry needs to to deliver on the vision of full-stack observability. Cisco has an opportunity to lead by streamlining its many panes-of-glass solutions into a unified, intuitive dashboard. The diverse range of visibility tools it currently offers could be more effectively utilized if they were integrated into one comprehensive system, with AppD serving as the principal lens. Operational specifics could then be accessed through drill-down features, allowing for a more organized and efficient user experience. This could be game-changing for Cisco.

Kerravala’s key takeaways on observability:

• Cisco must make good on its promise of full-stack observability.
• The current multitude of Cisco’s single-pane-of-glass solutions should be streamlined into a unified dashboard.
• AppD should be the main view, with the ability to drill down into the other specific tools.
• He recognizes that Cisco already has all the necessary components; the challenge lies in integrating them into a cohesive system.

Kerravala comments on Cisco’s many panes of glass.

What to watch at Cisco Live 2023

Kerravala just published a “Know before you go” post on SiliconANGLE, outlining his thoughts on what to expect at Cisco Live. Let’s review that and what we’ll be looking for next week.

Whither AI for Cisco?

A key question is how Cisco will handle AI. These days, brands run the risk AI washing, but if you bury the AI lede, you look less relevant. In our view, Cisco at the very least has to use AI to make Cisco infrastructure run better and more secure through automation and better management.

Here’s a summary of key points from our conversation with Zeus on what to expect from Cisco Live in terms of AI:

• We don’t expect Cisco to brand itself as an AI company like Nvidia Corp. or even IBM Corp.’s attempts to do so. Instead, AI will remain an integral part of their overall toolkit used to build their products.
• AI has been part of Cisco’s portfolio for a while. It underpins products such as intent-based networking and Encrypted Traffic Analytics, which uses AI to detect malware in encrypted traffic.
• The company’s collaboration portfolio is also AI-rich, but it is considered more of an operational tool rather than a product that’s sold separately.
• AI might be highlighted more during keynotes due to current hype, but it’s not the company’s primary focus.
• The use of AI, such as a ChatGPT-like interface, could be beneficial for Cisco’s operations, like using Webex to find information or for network operations to identify areas in need of upgrades. This would essentially make their portfolio more user-friendly.
• Natural language processing can simplify interfaces, relieving the load from high-level engineers and delegating tasks to tier one or two support.

The security opportunity calls for Cisco

We’ll be watching the security space closely. We believe it’s a mandate that Cisco integrate its vast portfolio across on-prem, all the major clouds and out to the edge. Palo Alto Networks has the leg up on consolidation in our opinion, but Cisco has such a major presence that it can do very well in this area, coming at the problem its strength in networking.

Here’s a summary of what we think Cisco needs to do in security and what we’ll hear at Cisco Live:

• Security is important because it offers the most substantial growth potential for Cisco, as it is a single-digit player in a market projected to be worth $75 billion-plus.
• Even a slight increase in market share, such as reaching 10%, would greatly boost Cisco’s revenue.
• The long-term vision is to have Cisco’s security share match its network share, and to have Cisco network and Cisco security working together for improved risk identification and resolution.
• We hope to see more integration of Cisco’s cloud security products to create a more unified and user-friendly experience.
• The security industry often makes the user the integration point, which can lead to confusion and inefficiency. This needs to be addressed by the industry at large and Cisco has an opportunity to attack this problem.
• Cisco is in a unique position to make security more user-friendly and seamless because it owns the network and can embed a lot of security features into it.
• We anticipate hearing more about Cisco’s progress on its vision for security and expect to see more of the product roadmap at the upcoming event.

Can Cisco be the supercloud network?

Core networking is always a the forefront of Cisco Live. I keep coming back to the supercloud concept – a singular experience across clouds in a cloud-native fashion. Can Cisco bridge the legacy world of apps and infrastructure with cloud-native?

• Cisco is not going to become a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services Inc., but it has the potential to be an abstraction layer that enables the concept of a “supercloud.”
• A network supercloud would allow customers to use multiple cloud providers, edge locations, and private data centers seamlessly as one logical cloud.
• Traditional cloud providers will not enable this, as their tools are specific to their platforms. Cisco, however, can provide network transport, security and optimization that transcend individual cloud platforms.
• Cisco can become the bridge between physical clouds and create a logical supercloud thanks to its work with cloud providers, telcos and tools such as ThousandEyes and AppDynamics.
• This process begins with networking, hoping to see more progress with the Meraki/Catalyst integration at the upcoming show. We are also looking for advancements in consolidating different versions of Wi-Fi and other disparate parts of Cisco’s networking story.

Collaboration: Hybrid work is still a big thing

What about collaboration? That business went from rocket ship to rapid deceleration post-pandemic, but hybrid work isn’t going away and it brings real challenges. Is this a game of integrating with your security portfolio to reduce risk? Or creating better and more simplified user experiences? We know that Jeetu Patel wants to make Webex 10 times better than any other platform.

• We believe Cisco’s primary challenge in the collaboration market is Microsoft Teams. Despite having a poorer user experience compared with competitors, Teams is widely adopted thanks to its inclusion in Microsoft licensing plans.
• Teams, however, can prove costly when additional features such as voice and security are added.
• Cisco has accepted the coexistence with Teams, allowing its devices to run Teams natively. This could be beneficial as companies are likely to use more than one collaboration vendor.
• We believe Cisco’s WebEx, loaded with extensive features, can offer a better experience for specific departments and expand its presence within organizations gradually.
• A suggested strategy for Cisco is to manage other collaboration platforms through the WebEx console, offering better management for those platforms and then gradually introducing their own solutions.
• In the context of observability, the application-centric view is crucial. Prioritizing network upgrades and security deployments based on their impact on application performance can provide quantifiable business metrics.
• Cisco’s AppDynamics offers a unique perspective into application performance that other infrastructure vendors may lack. This tool could be instrumental in making such decisions.

Application centricity is the opportunity in full-stack observability

Cisco we think has an opportunity to make some moves in full-stack observability, but the linchpin as Kerravala wrote on SiliconANGLE is the application-centric view of the world. The two main takeaways from our conversation on observability include:

• The application-centric view is crucial. Prioritizing network upgrades and security deployments based on their impact on application performance can provide quantifiable business metrics.
• Cisco’s AppDynamics offers a unique perspective into application performance that other infrastructure vendors may lack. This tool could be instrumental in making such decisions.

Every large tech company has to address ESG

And finally we asked Kerravala if he has ever been to a Cisco Live where Chuck Robbins hasn’t done his part to address environmental, social and governance issues? Here’s a summary of what we discussed:

• Cisco has a corporate goal to positively impact a billion lives by 2025. It’s making significant progress toward this goal through a variety of programs. It’s part of the Global Citizen group, and it conducts contests and provide financial support to entrepreneurs aiming to make the world a better place.
• Cisco’s products also help with sustainability. They are embedded with features such as EnergyWise, which shuts off the network when it is not in use and turns it back on when it is needed.
• Cisco’s custom application-specific integrated circuits are optimized for specific network functions, leading to lower power consumption.
• The company offers Power over Ethernet features to further support sustainability.
• At events such as Cisco Live, it has highlighted these sustainability features, and we expect to see more of this in the future.

We didn’t talk much about edge, but it’s a significant part of the future and we anticipate hearing more about it in the future.

Here’s the full conversation about what to expect at Cisco Live

Finally, theCUBE will be at Cisco Live in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay. We’re on the expo floor across from the Net Vet Lounge, which is Booth 1427. We have a small space so we’re doing the pop-up CUBE and we’d love to see you. By all means please stop by and say hello.

Keep in touch

Many thanks to Zeus Kerravala for stopping by the studio to share his knowledge. Thanks to Alex Myerson and Ken Shifman on production, podcasts and media workflows for Breaking Analysis. Special thanks to Kristen Martin and Cheryl Knight, who help us keep our community informed and get the word out, and to Rob Hof, our editor in chief at SiliconANGLE.

Remember we publish each week on Wikibon and SiliconANGLE. These episodes are all available as podcasts wherever you listen.

Email david.vellante@siliconangle.com, DM @dvellante on Twitter and comment on our LinkedIn posts.

Also, check out this ETR Tutorial we created, which explains the spending methodology in more detail. Note: ETR is a separate company from Wikibon and SiliconANGLE. If you would like to cite or republish any of the company’s data, or inquire about its services, please contact ETR at legal@etr.ai.

Here’s the full video analysis:

All statements made regarding companies or securities are strictly beliefs, points of view and opinions held by SiliconANGLE Media, Enterprise Technology Research, other guests on theCUBE and guest writers. Such statements are not recommendations by these individuals to buy, sell or hold any security. The content presented does not constitute investment advice and should not be used as the basis for any investment decision. You and only you are responsible for your investment decisions.

Disclosure: Many of the companies cited in Breaking Analysis are sponsors of theCUBE and/or clients of Wikibon. None of these firms or other companies have any editorial control over or advanced viewing of what’s published in Breaking Analysis.

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The workplace is evolving to be more flexible, with collaboration technology and other IT increasingly built into rooms and office spaces from the start, according to a Cisco Systems executive. The trend is not limited to large enterprises with massive real estate holdings, but also affects small to medium-sized businesses that want purpose-built solutions for their workers.

Speaking at a panel on emerging technology at the Cisco Live 2016 conference in Las Vegas, Mark Miller, business development manager for sales at Cisco Systems, said that over the past few years, much of the focus on the Internet of Things has centered on the consumer and industrial markets. However, in the next five years, he said, that focus is going to shift to the workplace, where the IoT is going to have a transformative effect.

An Evolving Workplace

Several trends are changing the nature of work, Miller said. More millennials are entering the workforce, with different expectations of how work should be done. There are evolving social contracts between employers and employees, with more job sharing, flexible work and contingent workers, which has spurred corporate real estate companies to develop elastic work environments that shrink or expand depending on the needs of a business.

The nature of work is also changing, as work evolves from process-oriented tasks that can be outsourced or automated. More work now requires collaboration and creation, Miller said, but the workplace has not evolved to keep pace. Additionally, an explosion of mobile devices and ubiquitous connectivity is also changing the workplace.

According to Miller, Cisco estimates that there is about 20 billion square feet of commercial real estate in the world, and expects that number to shrink by about a third in the years ahead. “The space that will be left over will be very different,” he said. “Collaboration is going to play an incredibly important role.”

Technology’s Role in the New Workplace

Miller said the IoT’s role in new workplace design lies in helping workers get their work done more efficiently, and enabling seamless mobility and collaboration.

Smart buildings are becoming more commonplace, and the technology that underpins them and runs through them is maturing, he said, with lighting, heating, communications and security now increasingly being run through a single, converged IP network.

Cisco has been focused on the changing workplace for some time now, and Miller said the company thinks the market is moving toward delivering “technology enabled” workspaces. What does that mean? Architecture firms and furniture companies are increasingly working with IT firms like Cisco to create prepackaged room solutions that sit on top of IP networks, especially for video conferencing and collaboration.

Big data and analytics — sometimes as simple as the information provided by users’ mobile phone locations — can let businesses know where in offices people are working most and how work is getting done.

Miller said that younger workers in particular want better integrated technology in their work lives — for example, why can’t a calendaring system be integrated with a user’s GPS coordinates on a mobile phone to automatically let colleagues know when someone is running late so they can shift a meeting time? Workplaces can also be tailored to a user’s preferences for lighting and air conditioning based on their presence status, he said.

“This is not an IT problem. This really takes technology, real estate and human resources coming together,” Miller said.

Small Business Opportunity

Miller said that when Cisco started looking at workplace transformation, it figured it would be a solution for large enterprises. “I would tell you that some of the most interesting activity going on right now is in small to medium businesses,” he said. “I think it’s partly a reaction, because they have to. They’re facing the same demands. The same trends are impacting them.”

Small businesses are craving prepackaged solutions, Miller said. “They want the answer at the end of the book,” he said. “They don’t have time to do big prototypes and pilots and proof-of-concepts.”

Cisco is working with architecture firms to create those kind of spaces, in which buildings and technology are designed together, Miller added. He said companies typically refresh their real estate portfolios every eight to 10 years, and that increasingly, business are looking to consolidate and transform their real estate holdings.

“This is a transformation that’s happened, is happening and is going to happen,” he said. “For every client, it’s going to be somewhat different.”

A whale with a lot of money to spend has taken a noticeably bullish stance on Cisco Systems.

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Cisco Systems Option Volume And Open Interest Over Last 30 Days

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Building on 2022’s legacy characterised by layoffs, numerous tech giants have succumbed to the practice of downsizing even in this year. This can be seen as a strategic response to combating the macroeconomic conditions and addressing the repercussions of over-hiring. However, beating the odds, there are a few companies that are steadily hiring. Here, we have compiled an extensive catalogue of open positions at companies that are actively seeking out professionals.

Microsoft

Microsoft is looking to add a partner research director, IDC who will oversee team management, emphasise the cultivation of diverse and inclusive team dynamics, collaborate with leaders and the wider organisation through cross-functional collaboration, and establish long-term growth plans in collaboration with geographically dispersed research teams. Additionally, they will devise research strategies and effectively supervise skilled individuals specialising in data science, machine learning, and threat hunting. The employee will be responsible for developing key metrics, forecasts, and reports, partnering with peer teams across geographically diverse research divisions.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Over 15 years of experience successfully managing result-oriented R&D teams that deliver solutions for customers.
• Experience in leading large teams and overseeing multiple levels of management.
• Exceptional communication skills across different groups and adept at issue management.
• Background in the protection/security industry.
• Proficiency in understanding attack patterns in identity, endpoint (Windows, Linux, Mac, and mobile), and cloud/SaaS systems.
• Familiarity with security incident response, forensic investigation, and threat intelligence.
• Experience speaking at security-focused conferences on threats and protective measures.

Location: Hyderabad, Telangana (Hybrid) 

Click here to apply. 

Read more: Data Science Hiring Process at Meesho

Cisco

Networking giant Cisco is in search of a skilled data scientist to add business insights to various customer experience entities. This requires a combination of extensive domain expertise and technological proficiency. The primary responsibilities include developing a deep understanding of the business domain and fostering collaboration among stakeholders. Additionally, the data scientist will assist in designing and developing solutions, implementing them effectively, and promoting data-driven decision-making. The ultimate goal is to drive significant business outcomes, such as revenue growth, cost reduction, and improved customer and employee satisfaction.

Minimum Qualifications:

• A master’s or bachelor’s degree in management, operations, statistics, mathematics, or computer science, along with a minimum of five years of professional experience.
• Strong background in various domains such as business consulting, statistical modelling, applied machine learning/AI and data-driven storyboarding.
• Candidate should possess proficient skills in SQL, R, and Python.

Location: Bangalore, Karnataka

Visit Cisco’s career page to learn more about it. 

Zoom

Online video communications platform Zoom has an open position for a data analyst to support important marketing, pricing, revenue, and compliance initiatives. The role involves identifying and measuring the impact on customer audiences on a weekly basis. The analyst will become an expert in revenue and subscription data for the online business, improving existing processes for increased productivity. They will also create dashboards to measure the outcomes of new growth initiatives and ensure the delivery of relevant insights to online partners. The analyst will conduct in-depth research and analysis to discover new business opportunities and use advanced analytics techniques such as incrementality analysis, forecasting, and modelling.

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree and a minimum of five years of experience utilizing data for decision-making. 
• Strong SQL skills along with excellent communication abilities, problem-solving skills, and a growth mindset suitable for a dynamic business environment.

Location: Bangalore, Karnataka

Check out the opportunity here.

JP Morgan & Chase

JP Morgan & Chase, a financial services company, is actively involved in AI development. Their AI software service, IndexGPT, aims to provide financial assistance. Currently, they are seeking a vice president – annotation (lead), conversational AI product. This role involves data labelling and annotation for machine learning models. Responsibilities include sifting through data, identifying relevant content, and applying accurate labels. Tasks include comprehending business objectives, establishing entity relationships, validating model results, and providing feedback for improvement. The role also includes developing workflows, processes, and KPIs for measuring annotation performance and ensuring quality. Collaboration with cross-functional teams to design data annotation projects and leadership in data annotation operations are key responsibilities. 

Minimum Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years of work experience, with more than seven years in data collection, analysis, or research, and around three years leading small teams.
• Strong knowledge and experience in the financial domain.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively to achieve project goals.
• Curiosity, diligence, and attention to detail, with a motivation for solving complex analytical problems and an interest in data analytics techniques.
• Interest in machine learning and the ability to develop a working level of domain knowledge in machine learning concepts.
• Understanding of model scoring parameters, including precision, recall, and f-score.

Location: Bangalore, Karnataka

Apply here. 

Read more: Believe it or Not, 55% of Digital Frauds Happen Via UPI

Accenture

Accenture is expanding its team with the addition of an AI platform engineer who develops applications and systems that use AI to Excellerate performance and efficiency. The primary responsibilities include building predictive models, developing advanced algorithms for data analysis, evaluating emerging technologies, identifying new data patterns, deploying models in production, and integrating front-end and back-end systems. 

Minimum Qualifications

• Proficient coding skills and familiarity with Python, R programming languages. 
• Prior experience in data analysis and a strong interest in utilising data for statistical modeling and extracting valuable insights.
• Experience working with machine learning data mining toolkits such as NLP, Semantic Web, R, Core NLP, NLTK, as well as information retrieval libraries like Lucene/SOLR. 
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, test-driven, collaborative, and iterative programming environment.

Location: Hyderabad, Telangana

Click here to apply for this. 

Employers and their workers are at loggerheads over returning to the office.

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On the one hand, many businesses are still paying to lease a large office space and understandably want their workers to use the money pit.

Plus, many CEOs Fortune has spoken to feel that staff work harder in the office where they can be seen—even if research consistently shows that staff can be just as productive from home.

But employees simply don’t see the point of wasting money and spending hours commuting to do the very same tasks that they’ve been proving for the last three years they can do efficiently from home.

Cisco’s CEO Chuck Robbins gets that.

“You’re going to tell somebody to go to the office and get on video and talk to people in another office all day long?” he said in an interview with Forbes. “They could do that from home.”

That’s why the tech giant is giving the traditional office an overhaul and building workspaces fit for the future of hybrid working—called “collaboration centers”—with just 10% of the space reserved for working alone.

Just last month Cisco unveiled its latest hub in Atlanta, exactly a year after opening its similarly smart New York space (which Robbins unveiled to Fortune at the time) with further plans to refurbish some of its other offices and relocate several of its underutilized offices to areas where they’ll get more employee foot traffic.

The office is 90% for communal gathering

In the year since opening its 58,000-square-foot space in Manhattan, Robbins learned that workers don’t want to go into the office to then work on their own.

“When employees were showing up, they weren't going in private rooms. They were just sitting at tables,” he said. “They wanted to spend time [with coworkers] and they wanted those interactions.”

Story continues

So Cisco decreased the amount of space for individual work from 30% in its New York office to 10% in its new Atlanta space. The majority of the hub’s square footage is dedicated for meetings, communal gatherings, and team-based work.

Plus, as Cisco’s own research found that up to 98% of all meetings will include at least one participant attending remotely, hybrid collaboration hasn’t been forgotten.

For example, the meeting rooms in its new Atlanta office have been decked out with the latest video conference system that follows each speaker's voice and points the camera to whoever is talking.

Meanwhile, even the furniture is aimed to help workers collaborate, whether they are in-person or dialing in remotely, with slightly curved conference room tables to maximize each person’s visibility on screen.

You have to earn your workers commute

After having splashed out the cash on such a lavish space, you’d assume that Cisco is now mandating workers make full use of it.

But actually, employees are “not going to come five days a week,” Robbins told Forbes, while adding that even pre-pandemic some 15% of Cisco employees already worked remotely full-time.

Instead, the company is hoping it will get its return on investment just simply by making the office worthy of its workers' commute.

“We're trying to create a series of events in offices” to get people on-site, he adds, including all-hands meetings and a leadership summit for Black employees.

It all comes down to “What’s your return on commute?,” according to Robbins—and that’s a worthy question for employers trying to entice their workers back into the office.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Artificial intelligence has emerged as the hot syllabu in collaborative communications technology for 2023, fueled in no small part by the buzz around OpenAI's generative AI tool ChatGPT. Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can generate and/or suggest content in response to prompts – e.g., documents, email, meeting summaries and identifying trends in data.

Typically, generative AI-based applications are hosted in the cloud (because they require a massive amount of memory and processing power) and are accessed through APIs that allow users to input text and receive the output.

However, that's not the only type of AI that has tremendous potential to Excellerate collaborative communications. There are also client-device systems, where data can be stored locally. What these different types of AI show is that in addition to assessing which AI tools are right for an enterprise, another question to answer is how these tools will impact an operation's data storage and security.

Recently, No Jitter (NJ) spoke with Lorrissa Horton, SVP/GM and Chief Product Officer for Collaboration software at Cisco, during which she shared some of her thoughts around the use of generative AI in the enterprise and the concerns around where data's being stored and accessed.

Horton drew a distinction between generative, cloud-based platforms and client-/device-side AI systems by citing some of the AI systems Cisco/Webex has developed and/or acquired over the years – e.g., the AI used to blur the background behind us during the Webex call and the audio intelligence technology (acquired via the purchase of Babblelabs in late 2020).

Horton also demonstrated the audio AI that is embedded in the Webex client by crinkling a plastic wrapper. Without the audio AI enabled, the crinkling wrapper was quite loud; with the AI enabled, the crinkling all but vanished.

“I’ve put this to the test probably every day since I've been living in a renovation for like four months. You name the type of truck and it's probably sitting in my backyard,” she said. “But I’ve been doing all of my customer meetings, and nobody could hear any of it.”

That benefit is obvious from a work-from-home and collaboration standpoint, but what’s perhaps less obvious is where that AI processing is happening – on the device or in the cloud. Horton says that there are “certain pieces where the compute's just too hard to do on a laptop or on a device, so it does get sent to the cloud. We let people know this is what's happening, and we require [users to accept] a separate disclosure.”

(For reference, here is a link to Webex security, a link to Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI data, privacy and security disclosures. And here is a link to OpenAI’s Trust Portal which describes OpenAI’s API security and privacy practices.)

One emerging question around generative AI solutions is how these technologies factor into disclosures and the potential need for explicit consent for summarizing meetings, analyzing data, etc.

“I think this is an area where nobody has an answer right now,” Horton said. “Obviously [Microsoft] has said, hey, with Azure AI, here's how we separate pieces. And I think some of the other foundational models are also trying to stand up similar concepts around what [data] stays and what goes, but at the end of the day, if a query has to get processed that query has to go somewhere, so at a minimum it's being seen. Whether it’s being stored and then reused for learning, I think that's up for debate.”

Many companies, and countries (such as Italy), have restricted and/or banned the use of ChatGPT. A few examples include JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Samsung, Verizon and Amazon. There are also open questions as to how much access ChatGPT has to copyrighted information –there are multiple lawsuits around this issue. In the U.S., the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a request for comments on AI system accountability measures and policies that the NTIA will then use to “draft and issue a report on AI accountability policy development, focusing especially on the AI assurance ecosystem.” The comment period closes on June 12, 2023.

The tension between how to use a technology and how to keep data safe is one that technology companies are still wrestling with.

“There are things I would want the model to know about, or to be able to answer, without [that data] escaping my enterprise,” Horton said in response to a question about using a generative AI model. “I don’t want to tell the world about the finance meeting I just had about our numbers, even though I want it to process that finance data.”

Webex is advising their customers based, at least in part, on their own internal practices around generative AI.

“For our own company, we said it’s fine to test it out – like taking public information and seeing how well it summarizes. You’re learning from that experience and that gives us ideas of how we could leverage the models – but we’ve cautioned against putting any corporate information in there,” Horton said. “With regard to customers we’re advising the same thing. I don't think you can stop anyone from playing with it. Every board is asking questions. Every CEO is being asked what they’re going to do with large language models. Basically, you need to be careful and think through how you're going to integrate them.”

And it should be noted that there are multiple different LLMs either available now or to be released soon. Which also does account for updated versions of existing models that provide additional functionality – as one example, GPT-4 is currently being trialed.

“But the question remains,” Horton continued, “how much better…how much different are those different versions compared to the risk? That’s an ongoing conversation.”

To help people work smarter, combat burnout and drive more inclusive work experiences, Cisco Webex has announced advancements to the People Insights feature. Available through the all new Webex, and accessible through a personalized and private view, People Insights aligns with the goals you personally set for your meetings, work-life integration, connections, and focus time.

Designed with a people-first mindset, the insights are available from three points of view: Personal, Team and Organizational. All are underpinned with privacy and security to ensure this information is only available to you.

The pandemic is having a profound impact on the way we work. From the disruptions we’re navigating (including meeting fatigue) to the opportunities in reimaging how we work. With 58 percent of office employees anticipating they’ll work eight or more days from home each month, and 98 percent of meetings expected to include remote participants, a new hybrid way of working is emerging. It’s more critical than ever before for people to have the tools to help them thrive, wherever they are physically working. One of the biggest areas of opportunity is to help people better manage their time and working relationships.

With a window into the trends and insights of how we work, individuals and leaders can now recalibrate how they use time, who they work with and uncover blind spots. For example, gaining visibility into how many meetings you accept but don’t attend, your tendency to multi-task during meetings, who you most frequently collaborate with, the percentage of meetings taking place outside of your team’s preferred working hours, or silos in your organization that need support. Learn more in this video.

“At Webex, we believe it all starts with you – from the people you interact with to the networks you build and nurture," said Reem Asaad, Vice President, Cisco Middle East and Africa. “We’re focused on helping people achieve more positive, productive and inclusive work experiences, whether they are seated across the table or across the screen from their teammates. Having meaningful insights that let you seamlessly collaborate and build quality connections, while also helping you focus your time in the best way possible will change how we think about productivity and prioritize well-being in a hybrid workplace.”

People Insights drives positive employee experiences and can help people prioritize their well-being at work in the following ways:

• Personal Insights: These insights, available only to you, surface daily trends and interactions (such as key collaborators and activities), so that you set and monitor your personal preferences. This lets you tailor your collaboration with coworkers and focus your time on what matters most. For example, how often are you accepting meetings you never attend, multi-tasking during meetings or not sharing your video? People Insights will help you decide when to decline or reschedule meetings to ensure you meet your personal work preferences and goals. It also helps you fully engage (visualizing your multitasking and video sharing habits during active meetings) so that you can be more mindful about giving others your full attention and presence.
• Team Insights: These insights supply each team member a view of patterns between connections, collaboration habits, and work-life integration for the entire team – while maintaining privacy. The benefit is a stronger and more inclusive work experience for all team members and enables a team to jointly adjust practices and grow relationships as a collective for the benefit of everyone. For example, you can become a good steward of your team’s wellbeing by looking at what percentage of meetings are taking place outside of your team’s preferred working hours – or you can facilitate strong working relationships by making sure you and your team are connecting with the right people and teams.
• Organizational Insights:  Organizational Insights supply you a bird's-eye view of your organization’s collaboration trends and patterns to help you spot silos and identify teams that may benefit from additional support or an increased focus on inclusivity. For example, if you move to a new business model or organizational design that requires new ways of collaboration, you can monitor how the model is working and take action where you see gaps.

Cisco is helping businesses transform their workforce and workplace to create an inclusive future of work, by helping to build adaptable, engaging, and trusted work experiences for employees, customers, communities, and their ecosystem. The breadth and unmatched experience Cisco offers, spanning networking, security, cloud, and collaboration, delivers a complete solution that empowers a workforce to work from anywhere, at any time while ensuring a workplace is always a trusted environment where employees feel safe.

As part of Cisco – with 600 million monthly participants and connecting 6 billion calls every month –  Webex is one of the few platforms with the global scale to drive this transformation. Webex has a rich history of helping employees innovate and remain productive wherever they are. In the last 6 months, Webex has delivered 400 new features. Since the pandemic, Webex has not only continued to help businesses thrive, it has also been an integral platform for governments to continue to lead remotely, doctors to meet with patients safely, and educators to teach students at a distance.

Enabling the Hybrid Workplace
As a remote meeting participant, have you ever struggled to read the room to gauge how people are responding? With the hybrid workplace blending remote and in-office interactions, it’s important to create an inclusive experience for all participants. To address this, Cisco Webex has previewed a future capability called "People Focus" which uses machine learning and AI technology to individually re-frame meeting participants who are spread across a meeting room. The feature will make remote participants feel more connected by providing a close-up “cropped” view of each person in the room, and will be available later this year.
In related news, Cisco also announced new cloud pricing for Webex desk and room devices, making intelligent collaboration experiences even more affordable for every space with up to 50 percent lower costs. Cisco Webex also recently announced availability of features, devices and tech integrations to deliver seamless collaboration and smart hybrid work experiences. More information is available in this blog.

Artificial intelligence has emerged as the hot syllabu in collaborative communications technology for 2023, fueled in no small part by the buzz around OpenAI's generative AI tool ChatGPT. Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can generate and/or suggest content in response to prompts – e.g., documents, email, meeting summaries and identifying trends in data.

Typically, generative AI-based applications are hosted in the cloud (because they require a massive amount of memory and processing power) and are accessed through APIs that allow users to input text and receive the output.

However, that's not the only type of AI that has tremendous potential to Excellerate collaborative communications. There are also client-device systems, where data can be stored locally. What these different types of AI show is that in addition to assessing which AI tools are right for an enterprise, another question to answer is how these tools will impact an operation's data storage and security.

Recently, No Jitter (NJ) spoke with Lorrissa Horton, SVP/GM and Chief Product Officer for Collaboration software at Cisco, during which she shared some of her thoughts around the use of generative AI in the enterprise and the concerns around where data's being stored and accessed.

Horton drew a distinction between generative, cloud-based platforms and client-/device-side AI systems by citing some of the AI systems Cisco/Webex has developed and/or acquired over the years – e.g., the AI used to blur the background behind us during the Webex call and the audio intelligence technology (acquired via the purchase of Babblelabs in late 2020).

Horton also demonstrated the audio AI that is embedded in the Webex client by crinkling a plastic wrapper. Without the audio AI enabled, the crinkling wrapper was quite loud; with the AI enabled, the crinkling all but vanished.

“I’ve put this to the test probably every day since I've been living in a renovation for like four months. You name the type of truck and it's probably sitting in my backyard,” she said. “But I’ve been doing all of my customer meetings, and nobody could hear any of it.”

That benefit is obvious from a work-from-home and collaboration standpoint, but what’s perhaps less obvious is where that AI processing is happening – on the device or in the cloud. Horton says that there are “certain pieces where the compute's just too hard to do on a laptop or on a device, so it does get sent to the cloud. We let people know this is what's happening, and we require [users to accept] a separate disclosure.”

(For reference, here is a link to Webex security, a link to Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI data, privacy and security disclosures. And here is a link to OpenAI’s Trust Portal which describes OpenAI’s API security and privacy practices.)

One emerging question around generative AI solutions is how these technologies factor into disclosures and the potential need for explicit consent for summarizing meetings, analyzing data, etc.

“I think this is an area where nobody has an answer right now,” Horton said. “Obviously [Microsoft] has said, hey, with Azure AI, here's how we separate pieces. And I think some of the other foundational models are also trying to stand up similar concepts around what [data] stays and what goes, but at the end of the day, if a query has to get processed that query has to go somewhere, so at a minimum it's being seen. Whether it’s being stored and then reused for learning, I think that's up for debate.”

Many companies, and countries (such as Italy), have restricted and/or banned the use of ChatGPT. A few examples include JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Samsung, Verizon and Amazon. There are also open questions as to how much access ChatGPT has to copyrighted information –there are multiple lawsuits around this issue. In the U.S., the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a request for comments on AI system accountability measures and policies that the NTIA will then use to “draft and issue a report on AI accountability policy development, focusing especially on the AI assurance ecosystem.” The comment period closes on June 12, 2023.

The tension between how to use a technology and how to keep data safe is one that technology companies are still wrestling with.

“There are things I would want the model to know about, or to be able to answer, without [that data] escaping my enterprise,” Horton said in response to a question about using a generative AI model. “I don’t want to tell the world about the finance meeting I just had about our numbers, even though I want it to process that finance data.”

Webex is advising their customers based, at least in part, on their own internal practices around generative AI.

“For our own company, we said it’s fine to test it out – like taking public information and seeing how well it summarizes. You’re learning from that experience and that gives us ideas of how we could leverage the models – but we’ve cautioned against putting any corporate information in there,” Horton said. “With regard to customers we’re advising the same thing. I don't think you can stop anyone from playing with it. Every board is asking questions. Every CEO is being asked what they’re going to do with large language models. Basically, you need to be careful and think through how you're going to integrate them.”

And it should be noted that there are multiple different LLMs either available now or to be released soon. Which also does account for updated versions of existing models that provide additional functionality – as one example, GPT-4 is currently being trialed.

“But the question remains,” Horton continued, “how much better…how much different are those different versions compared to the risk? That’s an ongoing conversation.”