Cisco's billion dollar Indian bet
Cisco is investing over a billion dollars in India to tap into the country's markets and intellectual capital.
Unlike other companies that treat the country as a glorified call center, Cisco views India as a cradle of innovation with thousands of engineering graduates a year. Eventually, 20 percent of Cisco's top management will be based in India, with Cisco's Bangalore campus serving as its "second headquarters." Bangalore's 5,000 employee staff is expected to double over the next few years.
Cisco employees in San Jose and other western outposts worry about their jobs, as there are more than 1 billion people in India, 1 billion people in China and 300 million people in Indonesia. The Bangalore campus puts Cisco executives within a five hour flight of 70 percent of the world's population.
More than half of Cisco's nearly $40 billion in revenues came from North America last year, but if the company is to reach its aggressive growth targets of 12 to 17 percent per year, broth in emerging markets will be critical.
For more:
- San Jose Mercury News reports on Cisco's quest for global dominance.
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Comments (6) | Post a comment
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | October 14, 2008 - 12:05pm
Innovative? India? All that India has been successfull at doing is lobbying congress for more Visas (500k+ per year)so their cheap technical labor can work in the US at the expense of American jobs and then take what we taught them back to India and compete against US companies. Ask an IT Manager about the quality of code that comes out of India and I bet you get a non-favorable response. We all know the call center model in India is not working.
Posted by Anonymous | October 15, 2008 - 2:12pm
Despite the dismay american people have had, offshoring US businesses are unavoidable and keep going on.
What Americans need are to improve their math and science education and encourage students to go to science and engineering schools. US cannot compete with India and China (which both produce thousands of engineers every year), unless these youths go to engineering classes instead of business schools (who some of them were involved in the financial crisis at Wall Street)
Posted by Anonymous | October 21, 2008 - 4:23pm
wow! And companies always wonder two things? Why isn't there enough American Tech and why is our economy so bad. Well there is your answer.
Posted by Anonymous | October 21, 2008 - 4:26pm
Kind of hard to do that when America is Closing schools and concentrating on other countries rather than its own. We should help our own people first. Keep the Jobs here. I plan on starting a company that head hunts right out of High school and college. Plan for a high turn over rate. Hiring at minimum wage. This would be a good way to put Legal citizens in America back to work.
Posted by Anonymous | October 21, 2008 - 7:44pm
Well, as long as we win the wars that "real men" go to, we should just be fine.. Who needs schools, education and such, we are a country thats built on blood, sweat and tears.. (minus brains).
Posted by Anonymous | October 23, 2008 - 3:57am
You just seem to be a one disgruntled person. Considering that a lot of innovation does happen in India and the leading companies have realised that , and you should trouble yourself to read up on it, before making sweeping and condescending statements.
