An eagle eye on india

Cisco is targeting the Indian market with an 'eagle eye' to push offerings which, though novel, are quite ahead of their time for India. Will their judgement prove right? SAVREEN GADHOKE of B&E takes a closer look


As the network has become more and more intelligent, Cisco has gradually assumed greater prominence in a company's IT environment. From routing & switching, the company is now moving into areas like TelePresence, Unified Communications & WiMAX, with India playing a prominent role. Here's an in-depth analysis of the emerging dynamics on Cisco's side of the IT story

It was a 'normal', bright sunny afternoon (one of those days in May this year when global warming took a break!) when we proceeded towards Cisco’s Office on Barakhamba Road in Delhi to interview Naresh Wadhwa, President & Country Manager, India & SAARC, Cisco Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd. And courtesy our interaction, Cisco also inaugurated its TelePresence facility in Delhi. When we entered the conference room, we saw Naresh seated across the “virtual table”, speaking to us from his office in Mumbai. Besides the wonder of technology, this facility gives one a feel of the kind of vision Cisco harbours for its business in India.

TelePresence (not to be confused with video-conferencing) is just one of the unique futuristic technologies Cisco India is working on. Cisco TelePresence heavily relies on the idea that “geography is history” and creates lifelike, in-person experiences using the power of a global IP network and unified communications. Apparently, Cisco has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CII and Tata to deploy the technology. Vikram Tiwathia, Chief Information Officer, CII asserts, “We’ve connected CII offices so that it is easier for us to interact with our officials located in different areas.” In fact, setting up of public rooms, which can be used by companies as well as by the common man, on payment basis is also on Cisco’s agenda to make the technology go well with the masses also. It could even qualify as Green IT, since it could cut down significantly on commuting.




Another futuristic technology that Cisco is quite gung-ho about is Unified Communications (UC). In layman terms, it means integrating all forms of communications like telephone, mobile, e-mail, chat & SMS and making a unified network so as to increase response time and improve the overall productivity of the organisation. Sanish K.B., Research Analyst, Gartner, opines, “UC is an emerging technology and India presumes to be a potential market for it in the coming years.”

When Cisco entered India in 1995, the focus was primarily to consolidate on its routing & switching business. Today, Cisco has moved far ahead and ventured into networking and communications technology services. John Chambers, during his India-visit in 2006 proudly exclaimed, “India is a very important market for Cisco’s global growth strategy.” And that was also when he re-iterated the investment of $1.1 billion announced in 2005. The investment was primarily directed towards setting up an R&D facility in Bangalore besides VC investments, development of broadband content and digital media, etc. And today Cisco is making India as one of its technological and innovation hubs. In fact, they are considering taking products tested in India to other emerging countries as well.

With over 45 acquisitions globally in the past five years, Cisco has radically transformed the networking platform in India & globally. As changing times made technology easy to duplicate (Cisco has also sued Huawei in China for unauthorised copying of its technology), Cisco soon realised that it wasn''t enough to compete on products alone and felt the need to focus on solution selling. “Cisco is not only

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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