Kevin Bloch, CTO for Cisco ANZ, is leaving the company after 12 years in the role and 21 years with Cisco to assist startups, telcos and corporates invest in R&D and commercialise their technology.
Bloch said his goal, as Bloch Advisory Pty Ltd, was to help organisations make strategic investments in innovation, to scale and commercialise their technology and, where appropriate, export it to the world.
“Being at the forefront of tech, I have witnessed what the most advanced companies in the world are doing with artificial intelligence and automation and I am keen to share those insights with others,” he said.
“These technologies are the future and it is important to understand why and how organisations can harness the benefits to drive innovation and ROI. Global leaders routinely invest 10-30 percent of revenue in R&D.
“In Australia, we typically invest less than five percent. This paucity of investment is costing us our place on the global leader board of innovation and it’s only going to get worse unless we seriously address this systemic lack of investment in our tech innovators.”
He told IoTAustralia that, in his role at Cisco, he had been closely involved with many Cisco acquisitions and investments, directly and through the company’s investment in venture funds such as Blackbird Ventures.
He said Australia needed a much more mature approach to, and global awareness of, sales and marketing.
“You need to spend a dollar on the R&D, ten dollars on the product and a hundred dollars on marketing. In Australia, we tend to focus too much on the dollar.
“I think people have a very narrow view of what it takes to get to ten dollars and then to a hundred. And that’s where I think Australia needs a lot of investment.”
He said global leaders routinely invest 10-30 percent of revenue in R&D, but Australia the figure was typically five percent or less.
“This paucity of investment is costing us our place on the global leader board of innovation and it’s only going to get worse unless we seriously address this systemic lack of investment in our tech innovators.”
Bloch joined Cisco to create its telecommunications service provider franchise and later headed up engineering in the region across Cisco’s technology portfolio.
As part of Cisco’s National Digital Acceleration Programme, he was instrumental in establishing Cisco’s first Innovation Centres in Australia, in Sydney and Perth in 2015.
These centres (originally called Internet of Everything (IoE) Innovation centreswhen Cisco was plugging that concept aggressively) brought together corporate, government and venture capital investors to foster and develop technologies created by Australian entrepreneurs.
Bloch’s final day at Cisco is 24 July. He can be contacted at kevin@blochadvisory.com
