Cisco continues to dominate the industry as the premier enterprise networking vendor. And it’s no surprise: Since the 1980s, Cisco has been one of the biggest global networking companies, growing from a seller of switches and routers to a provider of complex telecommunications, cybersecurity, and networking solutions.

Cisco continues to prove the value of their technology, and we expect them to carry on crushing the competition for years to come. Here are several reasons why.

Cisco is a behemoth. Its enterprise-level products and services span a wide range of categories. You’re unlikely to find a company that doesn’t use something Cisco.

However, just a company’s size and scope doesn’t make it great. What really matters is the quality of what it offers. And Cisco is consistently great. From switches to firewalls, Cisco’s comprehensiveness combined with top quality performance is hard to beat. It’s a sign of Cisco’s competitive advantage, and a good reason to invest in becoming a Cisco expert.

No matter what your IT role is, security must be a top priority these days. Cisco networks rock because you don’t have to doubt their security, at any level.

Cisco’s dedication to security is baked into everything from their switches and routers to their certification paths. Cisco is experienced at handling even the most complex security scenarios — for example, they prioritized security in their network offering for the Rio Olympics. You better believe they can control access to your network.

We’re covering Cisco’s greatness when it comes to enterprise-level offerings, but it’s worth noting that you can start very small with Cisco and scale, scale, scale. There aren’t many companies that offer both a $40 home router as well as services to huge global enterprises with multimillion dollar solutions. That goes to show that no matter where you’re starting as an IT pro or business owner, Cisco’s networking tools and products can scale with you as your role or your company grows.

(Fun fact: Cisco set the Guinness World Record in 2004 for the world’s highest capacity router — a record that still stands today.)

As an IT pro, you’re hyper-aware that network availability is critical to employee productivity. If reliability and availability are priorities for your IT department and overall business priorities — and it’s pretty likely that they are — you can’t go wrong with Cisco. To get the most out of your IT budget (and to stay in your colleagues’ good graces), uptime should be guaranteed.

With Cisco, you benefit from device-level and network-level standards and controls in place to ensure reliability. With Cisco behind you, costly downtime can be avoided, even in the most complex networks.

Cisco understands business and IT needs when it comes to automation and has the capacity to set the stage for future advancement. As networks become more robust and complex, Cisco has offered new services and added features to existing products in order to meet the industry’s demand for automation and virtualization solutions.

For example, check out Cisco’s Cloud and Systems Management offerings or their Embedded Automation Systems. Avoiding human error while saving time and lowering costs for the business is a no-brainer.

While customer satisfaction isn’t exactly a technological benefit of Cisco networks, it’s an important element of Cisco’s success story and a big reason why many businesses and users are loyal to Cisco. From the certification paths to Cisco Live to the support forums, Cisco provides a wide variety of programs and resources to ensure their customers’ success.

There you have it: several reasons Cisco networks continue to dominate the market. We think that these reasons — from network availability to security to scalability — are priorities for most IT pros out there, if not requirements for professional success. Cisco provides a comprehensive experience that starts with a secure network infrastructure and ends with automation, innovation, and a path to the future.

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