Cisco to gear up India focus: Chambers

India is going to be a key area for Cisco and its commitments to the country will increase progressively. Right now India contributes one-third of one percent to the company's revenue. This was exactly the same contribution from China not so long ago. Today China's contribution stands at 5 percent's of the company's global turnover. The turnover from Japan, which stands at 21 percent today, is also a recent phenomenon. In both the countries, Cisco had increased its commitments before it could realize the increase in the share of global turnover. 

Now Cisco seems to have been drawn to India. Announcement for investments and commitment plans for India marked the high-profile visit of John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems, to the country. Cisco has announced a total of $ 200 million investment in the country for development works in networking technologies. 

Last August Cisco had announced an investment of $ 75 million in developing technologies which was subsequently increased to another $ 75 million. And now, the company has announced an investment of an additional $ 50 million. This investment would go towards expanding the Cisco Global Development Center in Bangalore, which currently employs 400 engineers. In addition, the investment will promote five development centers with HCL, Infosys, and Wipro in Bangalore andChennai. 

Cisco projects that it will expand its engineering workforce in India by 300 percent over the next three years to meet its growth projections. "We are expanding our presence in India to take advantage of the research and development talent and to demonstrate our commitment to its government and its people. Our Global Development Center is a critical component of our future success," said Chambers.

In another MoU signed with the Ministry of Information Technologies, Cisco pledged to invest $ 10 million to set up 34 networking academies in the country with one each, in each state and union territories. These 34 academies are expected to produce 100,000 networking professionals to combat the expected shortfall of professionals in the next two years. 

Speaking about other aspects related to the growth of the company Chambers said that acquisitions have formed a key strategy in the growth of the company. "We have looked at acquisitions as an insertion point to our competencies." Therefore, Cisco's focus would always be to acquire companies, which are building components for products of the future. With a history of 67 acquisitions there is no doubt Cisco has been a success story as far as acquisitions are concerned. 

As far as India is concerned in terms of acquisition the company may not have immediate concerns but there is future potential. "Remember the world's best software engineers hail from this country, so we are looking at future growth," said Chambers. The company's immediate strategy would be to fund Indian start-ups working on networking technologies. "And if the start-ups do well we shall explore the possibilities of acquiring them." Elaborating further the Cisco stand on acquisitions, Chambers said, "We are unlikely to ever acquire a Nortel or a Nokia where there would be issues related to cross-cultural differences."