Cisco Founds Innovation Alliance With Eleven Partners In Germany

'Digital change,' 'digital transformation' and 'Industry 4.0' are ongoing topics for German companies - yet engaging them in concrete projects is often difficult. With the Innovation Alliance, Cisco and 11 medium-sized IT companies want to help German SMEs embark on the digitization journey and maintain their competitiveness with simple, concrete steps. The Innovation Alliance is an important component of the Cisco® digitization program 'Deutschland Digital.'

Cisco is partnering with system integrators, software developers, managed service providers, distributors and consultants within the Innovation Alliance in Germany. The alliance brings together a broad range of expertise that can be tailored to the specific challenges of midsize businesses. With 12 companies, over 40 sites across Germany, more than 2,000 employees and over 1,000 digitization projects, the alliance is the largest hub for digitization for small- and medium-sized businesses in Germany.

Those who want to promote digitization must first understand how decision-makers think about it. For this reason, the Innovation Alliance initially surveyed 500 top decision-makers from medium-sized companies in Germany. The resulting study (in German) looks at how digitization affects a company's daily routines. In most cases, the perceived problems are bigger than the actual technical challenges. To share the findings of the study, along with numerous best practice examples, the Innovation Alliance is starting a road show(German) across the country.

'We want to help German businesses remain competitive. That is why we are bundling our expertise in the Innovation Alliance, creating a central point of contact for German midsized companies,' says Carsten Heidbrink, managing director Commercial Sales at Cisco Germany and co-founder of the Innovation Alliance. 'We are convinced that digitization is a huge opportunity, if properly understood and pragmatically implemented. With the Innovation Alliance, we will be showing examples how SMEs can benefit from digitization.'

The Innovation Alliance is a key pillar within the 'Deutschland Digital' program. Within the Deutschland Digital framework, Cisco is planning to invest USD 500 million by 2021, to accelerate digitization in Germany. The program focuses on innovation, security and education.