CX Cloud energizes large-scale digital transformation at Enel – Cisco Blogs

With 74 million users and more than 2.2 million kilometers of managed network, Enel Group is the largest electricity distribution company in the world. Cisco has been a key partner in its digital transformation, helping to connect solar and wind energy to its network and set the path for a cleaner, more sustainable future.

Recently, Enel took its commitment to innovation even further when it started managing thousands of networking devices through the all-new Cisco CX Cloud, a one-stop digital platform that gives our customers access to expertise, best practices, and insights that will accelerate their success.

It’s only been a few months, but, according to Enel network engineers Anna Di Stasio and Ciro Massimiliano Enea, the company is already seeing how CX Cloud could be the unified digital gateway into Enel’s entire Cisco portfolio

We sat down with Anna and Massimilano recently to understand just what it is that makes CX Cloud so unique for the global energy distributor’s needs.

Cisco: What would you like us to know about Enel?

Anna: Thanks to its sustainable and fully integrated business model, Enel is a leader in the global energy market – pushing towards value creation in the energy transition. Enel is the biggest private renewable energies operator in the world, with 49GW of renewable capacity. Enel has the biggest customer base of any private utility in the world, with 70 million electricity and gas customers.

In 2015 we completely changed our growth model, replacing few big and long-term projects with many small and flexible renewable projects, making investments (and returns) easier to plan. This also helped us in creating value through a strategy based on sustainability.

Cisco: What are your individual roles and main areas of responsibility at Enel?

Anna: I am a Network Engineer within the Enel Telecommunication Assurance Team within Infrastructure Technological Services. Together with the whole team we run the network, maintain overall health, and plan network outages, installations, and upgrades.

Massimiliano: I also manage the Network, as well as Security, as part of Enel’s Telecommunication Assurance Team. Specifically, I am responsible for organizing, planning, and carrying out activities related to Network Infrastructure.

Cisco: Organizations have been through a lot of change over the last couple of years: digital transformation, shifting to work-from-home as a result of the pandemic, and coping with business demands to be agile while protecting infrastructure to ensure business continuity. What are the main challenges Enel faced over the last year or so, and how has solving for those shaped or adjusted your long-term strategy?

Massimiliano: Enel launched its digital transformation five years ago and the plan is periodically reviewed, adjusted and integrated according to results and to the vision of becoming a platform company. Adaptability and resilience have been key factors in the digitalization process in order to respond to challenges – this was essential during the pandemic in order to quickly and effectively react to and ensure business continuity.

Anna: Today, the focus of the Group’s strategy is on platforms, to achieve economic benefits by enabling operational excellence, maximizing revenues, and supporting the energy transition.

Cisco: How does Cisco CX Cloud address these challenges?

Massimiliano: CX Cloud is a predictive digital platform that can relieve the ongoing challenges of the organization. It provides features that allow customers to have a view of all possible vulnerabilities on network systems. Implementation of the suggestions proposed by CX Cloud allows remediation on software releases, allowing risk mitigation and preventing network fault management.

Cisco: What was your initial reaction to using CX Cloud?

Anna:  Immediately, Cisco CX Cloud appeared to us as a unique and innovative platform. We are attracted to the potential of asset management and for the possibility of detecting security risk. Moreover, the possibility of integration with other tools, like the Enel monitoring tool, make it a flexible and useful software for the organization.

Cisco: What do you see as the biggest benefit of implementing CX Cloud in your organization?

Massimiliano: Implementing CX Cloud in our organization will provide us several benefits. We will have a single and unified access solution to all Cisco devices, and we can see information related to assets contracts – when they expire and must be renewed – in order to stay up to date.

Anna: Also, we will have the opportunity to know immediately the proper remediation for security risks and we can contact a Cisco expert for the resolution of an issue much faster. Additionally, it is of fundamental importance for our organization to gain more knowledge to empower our workforce thanks to a contextual learning section in CX Cloud.

Cisco: What overall outcomes do you foresee by leveraging CX Cloud?

Anna: In addition to all the benefits already listed, we would like to say that the evolution of CX Cloud will be amazing. We are involved in the CX Cloud Beta Program to implement it, and we constantly propose new tips to the Cisco Team so that it can best fit our network infrastructure needs, like the integration with our monitoring system that we mentioned.

Cisco: What are your future plans for CX Cloud?

Massimiliano: In our organization CX Cloud will become, with a good chance, the only access point to the Cisco world.

Enel isn’t the only one excited about what Cisco CX Cloud has to offer. See what other customers have to say here.

Learn more about Enel | Learn more about Cisco CX Cloud | Learn more about Cisco Success Tracks.

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