Digitalisation is changing the rules and companies need to rethink their strategies in the digital connected world, according to Cisco UK and Ireland CEO Phil Smith.
Smith told an audience at Interop London that "40% of companies won’t exist in ten years if they don’t digitally transform themselves", something that "offers endless opportunities".
Cisco estimates that by 2019 there will be 3.9 billion global internet connected users, representing 51% of the world’s population adding 24.4 billion devices with an IP address connected to the internet.
The CEO said that every company is becoming a digital company, giving the example of Amazon, Uber, Tesla Motors and Airbnb.
For the CEO, companies like eBay, McDonalds, Axa, Tesco and Google, prove the need for the introduction of a Chief Digitisation Officer (CDO), "a role that didn’t exist a few years ago".
He said: "Digitalisation is right at the heart of everything at the moment, fundamentally making the sector think about how to change and improve customer experience.
"You start having connected people when we have peer-to-peer (PtP) sharing."
This PtP ecosystem will deepen the integration of self-managing systems within people and "when people start getting connected, it’s very powerful".
Smith added: "Imagine someone needs to send something to Scotland. The person will give their parcel to another person that has been rated by others just like hotels are with Airbnb.
"It is a different world now when we start moving to a connected things world."
But to achieve this, network’s bandwidth need to be improved overall, although operators need to understand that "internet is not just about quantity, is about quality".
He said: "There’s still a long way to go to build and upgrade networks for general use overall and the IoT.
"We want perfect bandwidth connectivity. Not just focus on quantity, but quality of connections."
