If Cisco Systems Inc. is to reap the benefits from its investment in resource management and network automation across the cloud computing landscape, it will need support from its partner network. The channel relationships that the networking giant has built over the years are a familiar resource to Wendy Mars (pictured), who stepped into her current role last fall as president of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia at Cisco after previously guiding EMEAR partnerships for the company.

The experience gave Mars an extensive understanding of the transformation taking place in enterprise computing today and the evolution of Cisco’s strategy to deal with it.

“It’s a massive transition that’s happening in the industry overall,” Mars said. “We’re not just changing for the sake of change. We’re changing because the market is asking us to do that.”

Mars spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Barcelona, Spain. They discussed key themes heard from customers experiencing digital transformation, the growing importance of data privacy on a global scale, and Great Britain’s potential departure from the European Union. (* Disclosure below.)

Delivering networking value

Cisco’s announcements this week, with a focus on extending its artificial intelligence-fueled, intent-based networking solutions, coupled with continued emphasis on enterprise security, are clearly designed to meet the need for change expressed by global customers.

“A constant theme we hear is the desire and appetite to gain benefit from transformation, the digital transformation, and what the value of that can be,” Mars explained. “Realizing the secure intelligent platform is absolutely resonating.”

Emphasis on data privacy, as exemplified by European requirements such as the General Data Protection Regulation, has also been a key element as Mars guides partner and customer relationships in EMEAR.

“The importance of your data and where it resides, being able to demonstrate the integrity and the quality of that data, is extremely important,” Mars said. “It’s only going to become more intense as we go forward.”

One of the major issues currently affecting the European marketplace is Brexit, a proposal for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in 2019. “We’re very familiar with working with these types of instances and situations,” Mars said. “The U.K. remains for us an incredibly important market and will continue to be.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event. (* Disclosure: Cisco Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE