Buzz Off

Oliver Chapman grills Cisco’s Joachim Mason on partnership power, portfolio innovation, and the buzzwords that drive CIOs crazy.

Creators and Guests

Host
Oli Chapman
Head of Networking and Security at Computacenter UK
Guest
Joachim Mason
Managing Director, Partnerships, Cisco

What is Buzz Off?

Straight talk on networking & security!

Every week there's a new phrase, trend or acronym dominating the networking & security conversations. Too often, the buzzwords get in the way of what you really want to know: What does it actually mean? Why does it matter? And how will it help my organisation?

That's where Buzz Off comes in. Hosted by Oli Chapman, Head of Networking & Security at Computacenter, we bring together experts from leading technology and security organisations to explore the biggest topics shaping the industry today.

But there's one rule: leave the buzzwords at the door. No jargon. No marketing speak. No hiding behind industry clichés.

Instead, expect honest conversations about today's challenges, emerging technologies, evolving threats, and the practical steps organisations can take to stay secure, connected, and successful.

Hello and welcome to Buzz Off.

My name is Oliver Chapman.

I am solution area director for networking
and security for Computacenter UK.

Look, I've got cue cards.

I'm a proper presenter.

The idea of this web series is that we
are going to invite in different partners.

It's designed for our customers,
by our customers.

We have pre-selected
submitted by our customers

three buzzwords that they hate.

If our guest says one of the buzzwords,

you will hear this noise.

If they say all three of the buzzwords,

they will be forcefully ejected
from the studio.

This week's buzzwords are - submitted
by our customers -

Zero trust,
platformisation ,and single pane of glass.

This time I am joined by Joachim
Mason, Managing

Director of Partnerships at Cisco.

Wish him the best of luck. Right.

Joachim Mason. Welcome to buzz off.

How you feeling?

I'm feeling very good.

Excited. You look nervous.

First question?

If you could.
Have you got the question? I have.

Have you had them?

No. Okay.

What keeps you at Cisco?

that's definitely a plus,
it keeps evolving all the time.

The whole time that I've been there.

The opportunity has been, ahead of us.

The headroom for growth
and, you know, constantly

innovating from the point of view
of our customers’ challenges,

our technology, and obviously how we work
with the likes of yourselves.

A perfect segue onto our next question.

From a Cisco perspective,
why Computacenter

plus Cisco and what makes us unique
for enterprise organisations?

but actually it’s
your breadth, depth, scale

and all of the things that you do,
both from the point of view of how

how it aligns with us, but also how you
then bring that to life for our customers.

And that that relationship element, like
that's that's really important to show

that collectively to our customers
as well. Right?

I think they value that.

What is a question every CIO should be
asking their teams, right now?

I, I'm not going to be arrogant enough

to suggest that I know how to do a CIO’s
job better than them.

They have a really tough job.

You're smiling,
and we both know the truth of that.

That being said, it's a question
I think they should be asking.

We ask ourselves, this is what is it
that they should be doing differently?

It's so fast paced.

Everything's changing, there’s
so much for them

in particular that they carry in terms
of responsibility on their shoulders,

fast moving in terms of all the different,

you know, you think about the noise
that we generate, as Computacenter or

Cisco and having that amplified across
an entire enterprise IT environment,

they've got to sift through that
and they've got to think about it.

That being said, they also have to think
about doing things differently.

And and that would be
the question I'd be asking,

what is it specifically that we need to do
differently, bearing in mind

the demands of today's environment?

Love that.

And you’re doing
well so far, we've got through a few.

So when you think about
impressive outcomes that we've delivered

as Computacenter and Cisco could be saving
money, could be saving some time.

What would be a particular use case
that springs to mind for you?

There's one of the things.

I mean, I won't mention the name, but
it's a customer of ours from my homeland,

and generally speaking,
my fellow country folk are hard to please.

So whether that’s on the Cisco side
or actually on the customer side,

when you've done something
well, you’ve really earned it.

But this is a company
or an organisation in Scotland.

But this is a company
or an organisation in Scotland.

And so just from the point
of view of reach

and getting their scale reaching
and if I can use this phrase,

reaching the parts of our customers
that other partners cannot

do as a result of that.

And as I see in the, in the,
in the kind of interests of hard

fought, hard earned
praise from my fellow country folk,

they were effusive about the way
you guys showed up with us.

So that is, you know, well, earned praise.

Excellent. We've got a soundbite there.

Cisco acquired Splunk.

How important is security
to Cisco right now?

Now obviously they have a comprehensive
observability

portfolio specifically
but really keen on the security element.

It’s paramount.

I mean, if you think about
I mean, probably the two key,

high priority
items for our customers, cyber, AI, cyber

is right up there.

So it is of paramount importance to us.

The acquisition of Splunk
is all about data.

So whether you're thinking about cyber
or you're thinking about, AI,

none of that functions
without having the right

data and insights and ability
to generate insights from that data.

And that fundamentally is
what the Splunk acquisition is all about,

not just in terms of the individual
use cases that that you can get from the

Splunk platform,
but actually how that then links

into each of the core elements of, of,
let's say, our capability and the network

in terms of security,
in terms observability

and also collaboration and crucially,
how all of that comes together.

And it's that data platform
that brings it all together.

And the integration is really
it's really starting to ramp up.

Not only from a product perspective,
but also from a people standpoint.

Completely
yeah, I mean, we spent a long time,

you know, making sure
that we don't get this acquisition wrong,

you know, so that bit about people
portfolio and making the right decisions

in the right sequence and not rushing
it has been really important.

Yeah.

And look,

just from a Computacenter standpoint, it's
also worth noting that actually we have,

a really strong partnership
with both Cisco and Splunk as well.

So helping you, helping our customers to
kind of bring those two things together.

It's a really good element
of all capability and credibility as well.

Well, this is what I said,

the alignment in terms of the portfolio,
both in terms of the core attributes

and what we've since added, is absolutely
there between Computacenter and Cisco.

Great. Still tracking well.

What excites you most
about the Cisco portfolio right now?

You've just come back from Cisco Live.

You must have some portfolio roadmap

items that you're looking at and going,
this is genuinely quite exciting stuff.

You know, and this is
you might be surprised by this answer.

Whilst we announced some new innovations
at Cisco Live,

what it wasn't was a sort of huge
kind of pizzazz around the next big thing.

It was an iteration
of our existing portfolio strategy.

So the thing that has excited me most,
actually, over the last couple of years

has been the sort of rate
and pace and nature of the innovation

within our portfolio.

And we think about
how we establish ourselves as providing

critical infrastructure for AI
and everything that hangs off of that.

That's what we're seeing in terms
of that and portfolio innovation.

And that's what we can see
as we as we stretch out.

So yeah, absolutely.
That's the thing that excites me most.

Wonderful and look - final question,

what is your most
hated buzzword or phrase?

You said earlier

that apparently

we were going to use this session
to “extract the value”, Oli.

So that has

that's rocketed to the top of my hated
buzzword and phrase league table.

And on that rather
disappointing and embarrassing note,

Joachim Mason, thank you for joining.
You've done a phenomenal job.

You made it all the way through.

You are top of the leaderboard.

I'm proud.

He made it all the way through.

Really impressive.
Just to reflect on the conversation.

So it was great to hear him
talk about the partnership that we have.

The cultural alignment, our ability
to do really complex projects at scale,

across all of our portfolio areas,
some really, really good alignment.

Thank you for watching.

We'll be back next time with a
new partner, a new set of buzzwords.

I'm Oliver Chapman.
This has been Buzz off. See you later.