Susie Wee of Cisco DevNet On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level

As part of our series about the “How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Susie Wee, SVP, Cisco DevNet Ecosystem Success.

Susie is the Senior Vice President of Cisco DevNet Ecosystem Success, focused on accelerating the advancement of Cisco customers, partners, developers, and IT professionals as they innovate with Cisco platforms. She founded and leads DevNet, Cisco’s developer program, which catalyzes innovations and accelerates automation and digital transformation in the industry. Under Susie’s leadership, DevNet has grown to a global community of over 500,000 developers, a vibrant ecosystem of DevNet software and solutions partners, and has created professional DevNet certifications for the industry.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

My parents came to the US from Korea and raised me in Batavia, New York, where I was a tech geek and minority in this small town. When I went to MIT, I was in tech heaven, so I stayed there for ten years through my Ph.D. On top of studying electrical engineering and computer science, I also played soccer, lacrosse, and ice hockey. I believe teamwork fuels innovation. The creative process involves understanding technology and understanding people and teams. A lot of what I do to this very day combines those.

I made my way from Batavia, New York, to MIT, to Silicon Valley. As a researcher at MIT and HP Labs, I developed the technologies behind HDTV and video on mobile phones. As I worked on these projects, I tried to anticipate when these innovations would become part of our everyday lives, even though it wasn’t obvious during their creation and people said it couldn’t be done. Currently, in this most recent chapter, as I lead Cisco DevNet, I’m helping to create a community of developers who can innovate on top of Cisco platforms and unleash the power of the programmable network. For instance, we’re enabling developers with the tools, training and resources they need to architect, manage and grow their cloud-connected network efficiently, securely and at scale with automation. DevNet is all about what’s possible when we empower our entire 500,000+ Cisco DevNet community with the skills they need to innovate.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

When I was first getting started in the technology industry, one of the funniest mistakes I made was saying “no” when first asked if I wanted to be a technology team manager. The director at the time eventually twisted my arm and made me take the job. I thought becoming a manager was selling out and meant losing my technical edge, but I realized that I could have an even greater impact. Managing a team allowed me to bring out the creativity and innovation from a team of technologists, and the impact we could make together would be much larger than anything I could do alone. It wasn’t about selling out; it was about using my background and knowledge of technology and teams as a tool — to help advance our technologies and drive greater impact together.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

My Ph.D. thesis advisor at MIT, Professor William Schreiber, believed innovation meant going out into the world and solving real problems. He always said that MIT engineers should build bridges, meaning our work should not just be theoretical but practical and forward-looking. He developed the technology to advance black and white television to color television and advance printing black and white newspapers to color. After he retired, he took me and my colleagues as his final Ph.D. students to advance television to high-definition. In this, he understood that HDTV wasn’t just about television — it was about creating jobs that can build an entire industry. That’s what I believe we do now with DevNet. We’re empowering people with the right skills to advance the industry, creating new jobs and helping them succeed in their careers. People need to have the motivation to advance and develop themselves, but they also need a community and industry context around them that lets them grow; that’s what innovation is all about.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

That’s tough! The first that comes to mind is a leadership book called “Leadership Pipeline” by Ram Charan. It highlights how your career progresses like a series of ladders. A ladder symbolizes hitting different roles at different levels, each with unique responsibilities. And, what matters most, is how you progress at every turn, for example, in going from an individual contributor to a manager or from being a functional manager to a business manager. The book gives readers a sense of the pitfalls they may face and the changes in perspective they must take. It gives readers things to look for along their career journey. “Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton is another good one. This book takes a deep dive into the strengths people have. What I found most valuable was not just helping me understand myself, but also helping me understand how to work with different people. It has opened my eyes to the wide range of personality traits people can have and ways to navigate different work styles and preferences. This book taught me how to understand people’s differences to create the most diverse, effective, and innovative teams.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

We founded DevNet to create a community for developers to help drive the industry transformation of networking towards software. This remains our purpose today. When we started DevNet in 2014, software-defined networking (SDN) was defined narrowly and did not include Cisco’s community or ecosystem of networkers. We knew there was the promise for SDN to help businesses operate their networks more efficiently and grow into software and cloud-based business models, but to be successful, SDN would need Cisco. At the time, we decided to take Cisco’s software strategy in a different direction, including enabling our community of networkers to solve a new set of problems using software and bringing new software developers into Cisco’s community. We knew we needed Cisco’s community of worldwide customers and partners to make software-defined networking real. So, we created DevNet to help people learn new skills and scale-up organizations to bring this shift to software to life.

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

My most exciting ongoing project is DevNet itself — enabling our community of developers to innovate by building learning and coding tools such as the DevNet Automation Exchange, Code Exchange and Sandbox. While I thought DevNet was about teaching people software skills and APIs, it turns out one of the biggest things we give people is a community and an innovation mindset. Once people get a flavor of DevNet, they embark on community learning, and they get the confidence and spirit to innovate. They start teaching and mentoring each other and creating and innovating together. Our passion comes from seeing our evolving community continue to grow, help each other, and achieve successes and failures together.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like to engage in a Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation is about digitizing businesses. When we digitize, we let companies and people compete and innovate using digital technology in everything they do. But it is also very much about investing in the people who make innovative technology happen. We saw digital transformation at its core years ago when businesses first shifted online, but now we’re going so much further. When the pandemic hit and employees started to work from home, the workforce became distributed, and automation became more important than ever before. Manufacturing plants became fully wired and connected, and even beer breweries are now using automated technology to create consistent taste across different countries. Innovation is going digital. We always think we’ve found ‘digital,’ but there are entirely new levels of digital transformation that bring value to businesses.

Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?

The most valuable thing about building a digital transformation strategy is that every company and every industry can benefit if it is implemented effectively. Whether you’re a five-hundred-year-old bank or a start-up born in the cloud a couple of years ago, continuously modernizing your processes lets you serve a broader portfolio of customers and connect with new partners in a more personalized way. The shift to digital fuels an innovation mindset within your company too. Employees will inherently become more creative, competitive, collaborative and responsive to business change, creating a better environment for the entire organization.

We’d love to hear about your experiences helping others with Digital Transformation. In your experience, how has Digital Transformation helped improve operations, processes and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

Digital transformation can create efficiencies, save time and money and make processes more streamlined and simplified. For example, a few members in our DevNet community developed code to help deploy network connectivity and policies across thousands of retail coffee shops in hours instead of weeks. During the pandemic, teams across industries have applied this framework for automation to help global companies enable employees to work from home and manage networks, applications, systems, devices and people, all while working remotely.

Digital transformation also allows your company to receive real-time intelligence and make corporate decisions about how to most effectively connect and secure networks. For instance, amidst the pandemic, connectivity has become a C-suite concern. Using code, the IT team and developers have created dashboards to give CEOs visibility into the network’s performance. These insights allow CEOs to make real-time decisions about prioritizing network traffic, keeping employees online and running the business.

But to achieve digital transformation, companies need people with the skills to make it happen. The culture of innovation and digital transformation starts with encouraging people to level up their skills and giving them the resources, support and time to learn and innovate. Cisco Certifications and specifically Cisco DevNet Certifications validate these skills so companies can confidently hire professionals who will accelerate their digital transformation initiatives.

Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?

Digital transformation is challenging, but hugely beneficial. In DevNet, we talk about automation and digital transformation as a Walk-Run-Fly journey. It typically requires a shift from one technology to another or from one mindset to another. It sometimes means investing in new infrastructure and developing new systems. It also means changing processes and how people work. The resolution comes when you invest in the people responsible for bringing this digital evolution to life. Give your teams the most updated skills and resources to create. Allow them to develop an innovation mindset. Provide a space for them to collaborate. When your employees have the skills they need to make digital transformation a reality, your company and customers benefit the most.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Use Digital Transformation To Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.

First, to fully maximize your company’s digital transformation, you must understand your customers, from digital natives to classic consumers. By adapting to customers’ needs and meeting them where they are, your digital transformation will be more successful. There are so many industry examples of how meeting your customers where they are has proven successful — think about the streaming services that we all use today.

Secondly, it’s critical companies think beyond their own business when they’re digitally transforming. The power of digital transformation comes from how your company can leverage the cloud and the full ecosystem of partners to create a robust integrated customer offering. Companies are interconnected, and a digital solution may have many strategic players. For example, think of today’s app stores and how they rely on a network of partners and the cloud.

A third way to take your digital transformation to the next level is by internally modernizing your infrastructure and business processes to provide intelligence. The more you digitize and transform, the more insights, analytics and data you receive to make good decisions across the board. Connected, programmable infrastructure is the base on which all other technology layers can thrive. And, insights make your digital transformation more effective. At Cisco, we track many things, but in particular, we track the use of APIs. It’s how we evaluate what’s working and what needs improvement.

Then, to make digital transformation real, it’s imperative to empower your people with learning and space for innovation. If you give them the tools to modernize their skills, they can use automated and programmable technologies to innovate. At Cisco, we’re currently upskilling and certifying our teams through software and automation. It’s an ongoing process that requires continuous access to training, the right tools to learn and the right way to validate learning through certification testing.

Finally, to make your digital transformation a success, keep innovating. Think about how you can make your platform, application, or product the most widely adopted by continuing to make updates. Think of your favorite iPhone application — many would have gone under by now if they hadn’t made updates along the way to keep the user engaged. And it’s a circular process — see number 1.

In your opinion, how can companies best create a “culture of innovation” in order to create new competitive advantages?

The best way to create a culture of innovation is to invest in your people. The real transformation happens when people use their unique backgrounds to solve problems together. For instance, when Network Engineers and Software Developers work jointly, they achieve more together than separately. When your workforce is empowered to innovate, it creates a next-generation experience of unity and collaboration that can be inspirational. At DevNet, we believe innovation starts with providing the right tools to get started, creating a space for collaboration and cultivating continued learning. We’re empowering a community centered around creativity and connection since innovation starts with building up the people who make technology transformation real.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is not a famous quote, but simply something one of my previous colleagues said to me when I was new in the technology industry. He said, “define your area of expertise and become synonymous with it.” What he meant was, it’s important to be good at something, and even more important that other people are aware of your area of expertise. When other people know what you know, you can make a bigger impact. That quote helped me throughout my career, particularly as I developed into different leadership roles and communicated my team’s impact across the business. Today, Cisco DevNet has done just that — we’ve defined our area of expertise as Cisco’s developer community and program. As a result, we can make a bigger impact — other business units across the company have engaged us for support with their own developer initiatives.

How can our readers further follow your work?

You can learn more about DevNet by going to developer.cisco.com, join us at Cisco Live in March at ciscolive.com, and you can follow DevNet @CiscoDevNet on Twitter and me @susiewee.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!