Cisco chair and CEO Chuck Robbins on stage at Cisco Live in Las Vegas. Source: Cisco

LAS VEGAS – As the world has been dealing with “the new reality” of challenges, unpredictability, and crisis, people can see the power of technology, so Cisco chair and CEO Chuck Robbins expects that networking technology spending won’t plummet as low as in previous challenging economic times.

A decade ago, C-suite executives were more willing to stop spending on technology, such as IoT devices, when they went through a six-month slowdown, Robbins noted during a press/analysts conference at Cisco Live. But now, “I actually don't think that's going to occur at the same low,” since technology is no longer seen as a cost center," he said.

Network technology now helps businesses "both lower their cost and increase revenue at the same time, usually you get one or the other. So there's an understanding of the power of the technology,” he added.

There has been a monumental shift that now organizations see technology as a strategic core of their business — and they now have four priorities, including reimagining applications, powering hybrid work, securing the enterprise, and transforming infrastructure, Robbins pointed out during his keynote at Cisco Live.

Organizations are re-architecting their applications and determining whether they would be better run in the public cloud, private cloud, or consumed as software-as-a-service offerings, he said.

Plus, the hybrid work spans networking, security, collaboration, observability, and “all of those things need to be considered as we look at successful models for hybrid work in the future,” Robbins noted, adding that security is top of mind for many businesses.

The environments that organizations are navigating today “create a very complicated threat landscape … it's going to force us to rethink our security architecture,” he said.

“We have to really build these dynamic, agile networks that have security built in, that can accommodate any traffic pattern, any user, to any application anywhere,” Robbins said. He added that Cisco is focused on building those types of networks to help customers gain profitability and build a sustainable business.