Over the last couple of months we have talked about Fast IT and the need to think about your IT model in a new way to thrive in the Internet of Everything (IoE).

Fast IT is the new model for IT that transforms and simplifies IT operations.It evolves and unifies infrastructure, platform, and applications to reduce complexity, accelerate service deployment, and increase security. It embraces today's major technology transitions: cloud, mobility, and security, along with data analytics, new applications, and IoT. It addresses the requirements IT has to align to today's business changes and organizational requirements.

In the IoE era, every company, no matter how venerable its brick-and-mortar roots, must think of itself as a technology company - creating digital capabilities that transform customer experiences, foster new revenue streams, spur productivity gains, or speed execution.

We wanted to understand the extent to which IT organizations were helping bring about this transformation to Fast IT - fulfilling a strategic role of innovation enabler - and which factors, if any, were holding them back. To this end, Cisco undertook a multipronged research effort. We engaged Global Market Insite (GMI), a division of Lightspeed Research, to conduct a comprehensive global survey on the impacts of IoE on the IT function, and the extent to which Fast IT capabilities have been addressed from both a strategic and an architectural standpoint. This soon-to-be-released research, the results of a comprehensive survey of more than 1,400 senior IT decision-makers across multiple vertical industries, provides insight into how IT can more successfully prepare for -and capitalize on -the Internet of Everything (IoE).

This quantitative research was complemented by a program of in-depth interviews with IT luminaries - leading industry analysts, authors, academics, IT executives, and practitioners themselves - on how IT infrastructure, IT economics, and organizational dynamics are changing.

As we know, the Internet of Everything-the intelligent connection of people, processes, data and things-has exploded in recent months. Alongside that growth, the pace of change across business and technology is occurring faster than ever and IT must innovate at a speed and scale to match. In order to capture the$19 trillion inIoE economic value, IT requires a new model.

Simply put: IoE requires Fast IT. And, it requires it now.

Hybrid cloud environments, IT infrastructure unification, and policy-driven environments are all indicators that IT is changing-today. And our survey echoed this, with 93 percent of survey respondents agreeing that IT infrastructure is moving to a more agile model. And the changes aren't just in the infrastructure. The survey also revealed a staggering 46 percent-nearly half-of total IT spending is now occurring outside the confines of the "corporate IT" organization.

When asked about what the Internet of Everything and a Fast IT strategy have allowed his company to achieve, Mark Gelsomini, Corporate Director of IT, Dundee Precious Metals said: "The evolution of the mining industry is under way. The Internet of Everything is helping to enhance safety, increase production, and optimize resources based on real-time information."

Please stay tuned for our soon-to-be-released Fast IT study to learn more.

http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoBusinessInsights/fast-it-infographic-slides-7914

At Cisco, we have identified the Internet of Everything (IoE) as the next wave of the Internet, an explosion of connectivity among people, process, data, and things. We have estimated that these connections in the IoE offer a staggering$19 trillion in Value at Stakeover the next decade for both private and public sectors. And now that IoE is here, it's important to talk about how both enterprises and public-sector organizations can take full advantage of this market transition. To help, Cisco is offering two comprehensive pieces of thought leadership to illustrate a roadmap for IoE. A Fast ITstrategy helps enterprises capture their share of the IoE Value at Stake. The Internet of Everything in the Public Sectorresearch explores how IoE is transforming government to demonstrate how public-sector organizations can capture their share of the IoE Value at Stake.

For more information about how you can embrace Fast IT and prepare for the#FutureOfIT, visitCisco Executive Perspectives.

Additional Resources:

• Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2013-2018
• An Innovative Infrastructure to Capture the Value of the Internet of Everything
• The Need for a New IT Model: Fast IT and the Convergence of Mobility and Cloud for IoE