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Cisco & BBVA: From vendors to strategic partners

BBVA realized a few years ago that it wouldn’t be able to tackle its strategic transformation alone, and decided to establish a series of strategic partnerships with a number of industry leaders.

Cisco is one of these global partners. The ties binding both companies have grown stronger over the two years since the signing of their partnership agreement. Cisco has just released a case study that explains how this agreement has resulted in a complete reinvention of vendor-customer relationships.

For both companies, the partnership signed in 2016 has spawned a new way of working that truly reflects BBVA’s concept of working as one team – one of the BBVA team’s goals – sharing common objectives and learning together to face the challenges of digital transformation.

“At BBVA we need to be able to build things at a different speed. For example, when we want to put a new feature in our mobile app, we need to be able to deliver it in one week or less. And for that, we want to find the best partners in the world," says Ignacio Bernal, global head of Architecture and IT Innovation de BBVA.

“The word that has started to be used a lot is trust.  Trust means that we are aware of Cisco's challenges and Cisco about ours, and that we work together towards a common goal,” emphasizes Bernal.

BBVA Takes a Transformational Approach to IT

Currently, Cisco provides BBVA with collaboration, networking, computational and security technology solutions. Additionally, Cisco has appointed a dedicated team that collaborates with BBVA in defining new architectures, with full and transparent access to all its product-related organization, capabilities and roadmap.  

This collaboration also implies the development of new ideas and receiving feedback and suggestions from a customer such as BBVA, and the vision of a fully-fledged technological platform.

“Cisco works side-by-side with us,” says Carmen López, global head of Tech Experience and Workplace at BBVA. Currently, the company is involved in over a dozen projects with BBVA in different stages of development, from research to detailed design of the service. For López, the biggest difference in the bank’s relationship with Cisco is that they are not working on a project basis, but instead share the same goals and execute a shared vision, together.

“This is what enables us to reach the same speed and innovation as the digital players. This partnership allows us to think big,” says López.