Digital disruption is more than a buzzword. It’s a real problem. Even the most entrenched, complacent companies are realizing that offering customers mobile apps and online access is not a fad, but as a necessary response to the cultural sea change in how society communicates.

“Our business models as organizations are fundamentally changing,” said Wendy Mars (pictured), president of EMEAR at Cisco Systems Inc.

Mars spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Barcelona. They discussed how to adapt to the challenges of cloud, as well as Mars’ vision of the market from the perspective of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia. (* Disclosure below.)

This week theCUBE spotlights Wendy Mars in its Women in Tech feature.

Coming together at Cisco

Mars’ career started with a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of York, followed by an master’s degree in operational research from Lancaster University. She then joined global finance company Morgan Stanley & Co LLC as a technologist, working in its offices in London, New York, and Tokyo.

Settling in New York, she spent over a decade at information-technology consulting company Thrupoint Inc., rising to become the company’s chief technology officer. In 2008, she joined Cisco as director of systems engineering, moving back to Great Britain to join the company’s EMEAR division. In August 2018, Mars became the president of EMEAR.

As leader of EMEAR, Mars is responsible for over $12 billion of annual sales and managing operations across 123 countries with over 13,000 employees in the region, according to her official biography.

That’s impressive regardless of gender, but Mars’ down-to-earth personality makes her accomplishments seem achievable. Her LinkedIn and Twitter accounts show her support of women and minorities, as she congratulates and encourages others. As an executive sponsor of Cisco’s Connected Women community, she is responsible for driving initiatives to encourage diversity within the company and the technology industry.

Although there is no company, so far, that has broken the gender and diversity divide, Cisco is working to get there. The company rose to be ranked second on the Forbes Best Workplaces for Diversity List for 2019, and the list of executives for the U.S. comes close to meeting the 50/50 gender equality mark.

With this week’s feature, Mars joins Cisco’s Susie Wee in the list of theCUBE’s Women in Tech alumni.

Cisco links businesses

Coming together is a theme that Cisco can easily embrace, in workplace diversity, mission and technology. In fact, “building a bridge to possible” was the new branding unveiled in 2018 as the company embraced cloud and moved toward being a software company.

“[Cisco] connects businesses; that’s been their mission from day one,” Furrier said during theCUBE’s keynote analysis at Cisco Live.

In 2020 the message is still the same, with the company remaining focused on transitioning into the new demands of networking brought about by cloud. “They’ve got to take that message, bring it up to where the applications are driving business model changes and results,” Furrier said.

Mars agreed: “For us within Cisco, that linkage of the application layer through into the infrastructure, into the network and bringing that together is the most powerful thing because that’s the insight and the value our customers are looking for.”

Companies are under pressure to go digital, and technology is not the answer

EMEAR stands for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia. Overseeing a territory that spans such a diversity of cultures in all kinds of industries opens Mars to a unique perspective on the most important topics preoccupying businesses.

The current focus is one that is mirrored across the globe. “The bulk of conversations that I’m engaged in, independent of the industry or the country, is that there is an acceptance that digital transformation is here,” Mars stated.

The question is no longer “to go digital, or not to go digital,” it is how to drive the transition safely and efficiently. “There’s that pressure point in the boardroom of: ‘Come on. We need to move at speed,’” Mars said.

Making money, saving money and staying out of trouble are the main objectives of any business according to Mars. But while technology is the fundamental basis of transformation, it not the place to start when it comes to fulfilling those basic needs in the digital marketplace. Instead, Mars lists three key areas in which businesses need to evolve in order to successfully transition to a digital way of working: business model, operations and culture.

The successful digital transition

Business models have to fundamentally change to keep pace as consumer demand takes control of the market. “We are all much more specific about what we want,” Mars told theCUBE. “We have incredible choice in the market. We are more informed than ever before, but also we are interested in the values of the organizations that we’re getting the capability from, as well as the products and the services.”

Market competition is the traditional force that drives businesses operations — the processes, tools and systems that make businesses flow smoothly. And in a digital marketplace, it is consumer-facing technology, such as mobile applications, that are important. This makes user experience the driver for innovation, both in and outside the workplace

“Sixty-one percent of us admit the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning is actually go straight to our digital device before we even talk to anybody … [and] when they don’t work, 44% of us admit that we actually use bad language,” Mars said in her keynote speech during Cisco Live in Barcelona. “The internet truly has built our expectations sky-high.”

As business models and operations evolve, so must the people within those organizations. “In driving any transformation, the critical success factor is your people and your culture,” Mars said.

And digital transformation has broken down the silos that used to divide departments, making cooperation critical to business success. “The way teams operate now is incredibly different. It’s no longer command and control. It’s agile capability coming together,” Mars said.

Europe leads in innovation

Innovation travels from east to west these days. Europe led the world in the key areas of data privacy and security with the GDPR, and Mars sees this as an area that will continue to evolve. “We are extremely passionate about where our data is used,” she said. “You need compliance; you need regulation.”

A new focus is on using technology not only to drive economic value but for the good of society. Companies will need to pay attention to how they develop and use technology sustainably, as well as ethically and with inclusivity and diversity, according to Mars.

“The European Commission …  promised to try and get Europe from a continent standpoint to be carbon neutral by 2050. And also here within Spain within the new government, one of the top three priorities is actually on climate change,” she said during her keynote speech.

And as for future innovations around 5G technology? Mars advises keeping an open mind. “When 4G was introduced, no one knew what the use case would be,” she said, as the smartphone was not yet around when 4G rolled out. “[5G] will bring again yet more change to the business model for different organizations and the capability and what we can bring to market.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Cisco Live. (* Disclosure: Cisco sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE