Cisco’s global sales team includes 18,000 sellers from 95 countries. At the start of each fiscal year, they gather for GSX, the Cisco Global Sales Experience. With the accelerating rate of innovation in technology markets and a hyper-competitive environment, each year brings big changes that need to be communicated. The stakes for Cisco couldn’t be higher: USD $50 billion in revenue annually are on the line.The objective of GSXis to re-energize sellers with new focus, solutions, and expertise. The event targets two goals: increased seller effectiveness and seller engagement. Sellers are more effective when they have the tools, offerings, and network necessary to grow, accelerate, and win business. They’re more engaged and loyal to the brand when Cisco acknowledges and celebrates individual and team success and provides opportunities for professional growth aligned with personal values and career objectives.Success means sellers enter the year with more confidence and commitment.

“The Hub” is a large exposition space that becomes the focal point of GSX, facilitating a journey of learning and discovery: a deeper dive into content; an opportunity to meet peers; a chance to reignite one's connection to Cisco. Activations were grouped into thematic zones. A monumental structure was positioned at its center. Called the Stronger Crossing, it was inspired by the event theme. High-definition screens broadcast Cisco’s strategic messages. Space underneath was used for networking and countless team photos.

To enable attendees on their journey, smart AR-enhanced mirrors throughout the space used AI to provide personalized, real time recommendations on what to see and do in The Hub. After sessions and demos, sellers were challenged to test their sales knowledge in a live game show by pitching Cisco’s strategic messaging in “Elevator Pitch” form. The experience synthesized all event learning, highlighted a core skillset, and created a highly memorable

The Cisco sales team is one of the most diverse on the globe, selling an extremely broad portfolio of products and solutions across every industry. The Hub had to be designed to provide each individual seller an experience that would personally resonate. Each year the Global Sales Leader selects an event theme that unifies messaging, environmental design, and activations across the experience. For 2019, the theme was “Stronger”,a message of power and confidence, while also suggesting the challenge to strive and to reach. A visual identity was established to capture that theme and to guide the content, live production, and 2-D and 3-D design teams in ideation, brainstorming, and execution to ensure a cohesive event experience. Exhaustive research into learning styles, networking styles, personas, and tools that would support personalization meant each seller could craft an individual journey through the space with meaningful and valuable experiences.

We transformed 300,000 square feet of raw space into an experience for sellers to network, learn, and explore. The design for the space was driven by the key sales content to be communicated and supported by theatrical lighting, dramatic purpose-built structures, cutting edge-digital activations, and participatory engagements.The Hub featured over 160 activations of various sizes and styles. This included1:1 technical presentations, private meeting pods, hands-on workshops, small group rooms that featured the latest Cisco collaboration technology, and digital showcases of the latest products. Immersive games and leaderboards throughout added a level of friendly competition to the space and drove seller engagement. To set the mood, nearly 2 km of truss with 1,400 pre-programmed lights was suspended over the show floor and synced with a custom soundtrack. The entire show was delivered on 60 semi-trucks and installed in less than 80 hours.

In three short days Cisco was able to successfully educate its18,000 sellers on new sales priorities and amp them up for an amazing year. The Hub logged over 66,582 interactions, increasing awareness of new products, solutions, and messaging, and hit on the key metrics tracked by Cisco. Cisco assesses the success of GSX against four measures:

1. Seller confidence. A +15% increase between pre- and post-event.

2. Attendee Satisfaction with the GSX experience was 4.5 / 5.0; with 93% of attendees choosing satisfied or extremely satisfied with their event experience.

3. Seller Effectiveness (experience improved attendee ability to grow, accelerate, win business) was 87%

4. Seller Engagement (pride in and loyalty to Cisco) was 88%. All metrics exceeded ambitious program targets. In addition, Cisco has achieved five consecutive quarters of year-over-year quarterly revenue growth, including two quarters since GSX FY19 in August of 2018.