There are two mindsets in business -one of scarcity and the other of abundance.

A scarcity mindset believes much, if not everything, is limited. A business with a scarcity mindset holds everything close to the vest and is uncomfortable or unwilling to do business beyond its own walls. The thinking is if another company gets a bit more, there's less to go around.

Then there is the abundance mindset. I like this mindset because it is limitless and innovative. This mindset says:  Go ahead and take a piece of my pie. We can eat it until it's gone. There's not a shortage of pie. And, if we do run out, we can work together to make and introduce a new pie into the market that we and others can enjoy.

Partnerships Thrive When Everyone Works Together

Trust and collaboration are two words that come to mind when I think about operating from an abundance mindset. At Cisco, and within our Data and Analytics Group (DAG) specifically, it's this mindset that has led to three recent landmark partnerships that I'd like to share with you.

• Earlier this month, DAG announced a first of its kind technology collaboration withIBMto bring the world better analytics at the edge, in the fog or in the cloud. This global collaboration is designed to provide immediate, actionable insights at the point of data collection for businesses and organizations (i.e. oil rigs, factories, shipping companies and mines) in remote and autonomous locations.

• In February I shared the progress we are making on our joint innovation with theUniversity of California San Francisco (UCSF). Together we are creating the Connected Health Interoperability Platform (CHIP) that allows data to flow across the healthcare landscape making it easier for doctors, pharmacies, and patients to see completely into case histories to ensure all health data follows the patient and informs the decisions of healthcare professionals.

• The third and final collaboration I'd like to share with you is with Cisco's partner,Dimension Data, and its outcome-based, Premium Service, IT Service Integration (ITSI). This subscription offering is enabled by Cisco ServiceGrid to help Dimension Data's clients reduce the complexity of managing their multivendor technology. Just this month both Cisco and Dimension Data participated in an Outsourcing Institute industry webinar where we discussed Improving multi-vendor governance and achieving tighter IT buyer/vendor integration. You can watch the recording here:

We are partnering with a technology company, a university focused on healthcare, and a service provider with similar aspirations for improving multivendor management. We each are giving the best of what we have and together we're making technology and the world better. Partnerships are where tried and true companies work together to create tried and true solutions and this, in a nutshell, is what an abundant mindset in technology looks like.