This is a guest post by Leader and Top Customer Storyteller Christine Johansen.
If you had a penny for each time the words “digital transformation” were uttered at Cisco Live yesterday, well, you’d have a pretty big pile of pennies. One of the most poignant examples of the power of digital transformation came just a few minutes into Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins’ keynote, when he chatted with Ford Motor Company President and CEO Jim Farley live from Detroit.
In a nutshell: Good things come when powerhouse companies share common visions for innovation and make amazing things happen. Cisco and Ford share these priorities, and Farley walked the crowd through some of the amazing things they can expect as a result.
Farley talked about the three big changes happening in the auto industry now:
- Electrification. The move to electric vehicles is also a move to simpler, more reliable vehicles with 20 to 30 percent fewer parts.
- Partial autonomy. While fully autonomous vehicles are still down the road a bit, Farley said partial autonomy is coming soon. And with it, you’ll get back hours you’d normally have to fully focus your attention on the road. “We have in the next couple years the chance to push a button in a Ford and for you to go to sleep in your car…that’s going to change our cars a lot.”
- Digitally transformed vehicles. Farley was saving his favorite for last: sensor-packed Fords will mean Ford can ship software to the vehicle constantly to make the product and experience better and wow customers. “That last one, in my mind, is so much bigger than the previous two,” said Farley. “It will rip through our industry and change our customers’ experience for decades to come.”
Typically, he told the crowd, it can take about four years and cost a billion dollars to engineer a new vehicle. But software changes everything. “The most exciting thing for me is in my career, for 40 years, I've never had the chance to improve the product, invent new capabilities for the customers after we launch the product. We’ve never been able to do it. So, moving to the digital product—that's the big deal…it’s going to completely change the game for Ford. In fact, it is so fundamental. I would say it's a re-founding of the company. It's a completely different kind of company we have to create because of that single change.”
When Robbins asked Farley how Cisco can help, he said continuing to improve connectivity and the security of the data—things Cisco shines at—are key for Ford.
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