As Cisco marks its 40th global anniversary and 30 years in Thailand this year, Weera Areeratanasak, the company's managing director for Thailand and Myanmar, shared the company's journey and future vision as it helps organisations build secure, agile systems that thrive amid constant disruption.
Over the past 40 years, the tech landscape has evolved from basic connectivity to intelligent, adaptive systems. As artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and cyberthreats redefine business risk, digital resilience has become a strategic imperative.
Cisco's transformation from internet pioneer to platform enabler reflects this shift.
CONNECTIVITY TO INTELLIGENCE
Mr Weera said since its founding in 1984 and its establishment in Thailand in 1995, Cisco has played a pivotal role in powering the internet to becoming the global de facto standard for networking, connecting people across the globe.
As industries evolved, Cisco led the shift to cloud computing in the 2000s to the 2010s, enabling seamless access to applications and data.
From the 2010s to the 2020s, it helped usher in the Internet of Things (IoT) era, connecting billions of devices and driving automation across sectors.
By 2015, digital transformation took centre stage, and Cisco integrated AI, cybersecurity, and predictive analytics into its solutions.
Mr Weera said with the rapid evolution of technology and the surge in the AI era, organisations no longer fully manage their IT infrastructure, applications, or even data. AI leverages both internal and external data in open environments, shifting the traditional model of data ownership.
Previously organisations maintained on-premise data centres or hybrid cloud environments where they still retained control over their data. However, this transformation has introduced a more complex and distributed ecosystem, bringing new threat vulnerabilities.
Additionally, as every connected device becomes more intelligent, technologies like WiFi, equipped with sensor capabilities, further expand digital exposure -- turning everyday devices into points of interaction within this evolving landscape.
"Given these challenges, organisations require modern infrastructure that can support massive data volumes, dynamic AI workloads, and high-performance computing while ensuring reliability, flexibility, and end-to-end cybersecurity," he said.
As AI-driven technologies continue to evolve, secure and intelligent AI and data management solutions are essential for optimising processing efficiency, protecting sensitive information, and enabling real-time decision-making, said Mr Weera.
DIGITAL RESILIENCE
In the past, IT supported businesses. Today, he said, IT is business.
"IT risks are now business risks. For example, a mobile banking outage isn't just a tech issue -- it's a trust and revenue issue," said Mr Weera.
Digital resilience has become the cornerstone of modern enterprise strategy. It's about ensuring secure, adaptive, and always-on digital experiences, he said.
According to McKinsey's 2024 study, companies with strong digital resilience see 14% higher revenue growth, 30% less downtime, and 40% fewer security breaches.
PART OF ITS PLATFORM VISION
To meet the demand of the AI age, Cisco is shifting its strategy from providing connectivity to securely connecting everything to make anything possible, embedding resilience into its platform vision to help businesses adapt, protect, and scale in an AI-driven world.
Cisco's evolving portfolio focuses on three key areas.
The first one is AI-ready data centres, transforming data centres to power AI workloads anywhere.
Whether businesses need to modernise parts of their existing infrastructure or need to power new, massive AI workloads, Cisco brings together comprehensive infrastructure (across networking, compute, storage, and silicon) with seamless operations and observability (unified management across traditional and AI workloads), and security from ground to cloud to power AI-ready data centres.
The second is future-proof workplaces offering AI-powered security, adaptive networking, and collaboration tools for seamless digital work.
The third is digital resilience, keeping the data centre, workplace, and entire digital footprint resilient against all types of threats with game-changing security, assurance, and observability.
"As Cisco transitions into a platform company, it unifies networking, security, observability, and collaboration to help organisations modernise, automate, and build long-term resilience in an increasingly complex digital landscape," said Mr Weera.
A platform approach fosters openness and standardisation, embedding security into the network while prioritising seamless integration and user experience with full visibility. This marks the end of the best-of-breed IT infrastructure era.
Cisco embraces AI through its AI-in-Cisco and AI-on-Cisco approach, seamlessly integrating AI into its security, networking, and automation solutions.
AI-in-Cisco embeds AI within Cisco's products, enhancing network automation, predictive analytics, and cybersecurity to improve efficiency and resilience.
For example, AI-powered bots streamline troubleshooting, while tools like Splunk and ThousandEyes provide real-time network visibility and proactive threat detection, enabling enterprises to anticipate risks and optimise performance.
AI-on-Cisco refers to a suite of AI-ready infrastructure, enabling businesses to deploy and scale AI workloads with high-performance networking, AI-powered security, and cloud-based solutions built on validated designs and backed by a rich suite of industry partnerships.
Recently, Cisco and Nvidia joined forces to advance AI-ready infrastructure, creating a seamless architecture for AI data centres. Their collaboration enhances high-speed networking, low-latency connectivity, and AI-driven security, ensuring enterprises can efficiently deploy, scale, and protect AI workloads.
At its annual flagship event, Cisco Live 2025, it unveiled a slew of innovations including new next-gen network devices designed to scale for AI and security innovations to address safety and security challenges for the AI era.
Cisco sees an opportunity to accelerate its platform company transformation, consolidating its networking, security, collaboration, and observability teams into one organisation to streamline operations, enhance AI-driven capabilities, and strengthen security integration across its portfolio.
Cisco's platform transformation continues to drive strong financial performance, with its third-quarter fiscal results showing an 11% year-over-year revenue increase, reaching $14.1 billion. This growth reflects momentum in its AI-driven initiatives, strategic partnerships, and expanding product orders, particularly in security and observability.
"Our partners lie at the heart of our business, so we will continue to grow with our partners as we navigate this transformation and bring almost 2,000 partners in Thailand on this platform transformation journey," Mr Weera said.
A CALL TO ACTION
He said despite growing AI interest, Thailand's AI readiness remains in its early stages.
According to Cisco's 2024 AI Readiness Index, only 21% of Thai organisations are fully prepared to deploy and leverage AI-powered technologies. Nearly half are still in the "Chasers" category, with limited capabilities.
While 53% of companies allocate 10-30% of their IT budgets to AI, 40% report underwhelming returns.
The gap lies in execution -- companies' strategy, infrastructure, data, governance, talent and culture pillars remain underdeveloped.
To implement AI effectively, organisations need a comprehensive strategy, starting with AI-ready infrastructure, optimised data and applications, and workforce training.
Leaders should identify high-impact use cases, pilot small-scale projects, evaluate return on investment, and refine models based on real-world inference.
As AI adoption scales, businesses must integrate automation while ensuring AI responsibility and ethics, prioritising transparency, fairness, accountability, and security to mitigate bias, protect privacy, and foster trust in AI-driven innovation.
"In today's volatile business landscape, CEOs must embrace modern infrastructure, foster digital resilience, and cultivate a growth mindset. A diverse, multi-generational workforce thrives in an open culture that values innovation, encourages diverse perspectives, and rewards talent -- this is the key to long-term business sustainability," said Mr Weera.
30-YEAR IMPACT
He said beyond driving business growth through innovation, Cisco's purpose is to power an inclusive future for all, leveraging technology, people, and global networks to address society's greatest challenges.
Marking 30 years in Thailand, Cisco Networking Academy has been instrumental in advancing technology education through public-private partnerships, a high-quality curriculum, and workforce development programmes. Since 1999, it has trained 98,597 students, 32% of whom are female, across 60 academies.
An impressive 99% of students completing certification-eligible courses have secured career or educational opportunities, reinforcing its role in digital skills advancement.
Cisco's Country Digital Acceleration programme in Thailand supports the Thailand 4.0 initiative, driving digital transformation in connected healthcare, smart cities, cybersecurity, and 5G for enterprises, highlighting Cisco's commitment to shaping a future where technology fuels progress and opportunity.
