Case Study: Cisco achieves a data-driven culture at scale with Looker

How Cisco built a data-driven culture at scale

Cisco set out to build a data-driven culture at scale under the leadership of Jennifer Redmon, Chief Data & Analytics Evangelist. The core challenge was to empower everyone—from executives to individual contributors, and from business users to technical teams—to use high-quality data in day-to-day decisions while reducing friction around skills, access, and context. Cisco also had to correct misconceptions (that data-driven is an end state, yields deterministic forecasts, or should replace domain knowledge) and find practical ways to measure progress.

Their approach combined education, enablement, and platform development: clear KPIs, identifying and replicating high performers, a quadrant framework to assess Data IQ vs. enablement, and A/B testing of new tools and processes. By focusing on usable tools and listening to “siloed high performers,” Cisco saw stronger adoption signals—users asking for different slices, delivery into Slack, and deeper engagement with dashboards—leading to more informed, scalable decision-making and a continuously evolving data culture.

Cisco

Jennifer Redmon

Chief Data & Analytics Evangelist