My Most Enlightening Moment of 2015

Hi.  My name is Todd Swank and my most enlightening moment of 2015 was created by the retirement of a man named John Chambers.  Chambers was the 20 year veteran CEO of computer networking giant, Cisco.

Mr Chambers retired in 2015 and at his last Cisco Live event in June he gave some advice to the 25,000 customers in attendance.  He told them that 40% of them would be out of business in 10 years.  Digital companies are quickly taking over every industry.  Look at what Uber is doing to the Taxi business.  Or Air BNB is doing to the hotel business.  Innovative companies are leveraging digital technologies to provide a better experience for their customers.   “John Chambers told the audience:  “Disrupt or be Disrupted.”   He then explained that 70% of companies would attempt to become digital companies, but only 30% would succeed.

So when I heard what Mr. Chambers said, it struck me hard.  At the time I was the senior director of product marketing for a large custom server manufacturer.  At that point, I had spent more than 20 years in the sale and marketing of computer hardware.  This speech really affected me.  It made me realize that the day of companies relying on their own data centers to run their business was quickly coming to an end.  If I wanted to continue to help companies leverage technology to solve their business problems, I was no longer in a good position to be doing that by selling them hardware.

So I quit my job and decided to start my career over by becoming an application sales representative for Oracle,  one of the largest cloud application providers in the world.

We at Oracle are here to help companies to be in that 30% group of successful companies.  We can help you arm your team with the latest tools to help your company become mobile, social, to leverage big data analytics, and business intelligence. Oracle is helping companies prepare to become modern businesses.

My name is Todd Swank and I'm passionate about helping leverage digital technologies to solve business problems and create new profitable revenue streams.  Please contact me if I can be of service.  Thanks!!  

Todd.Swank@Oracle.com

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