Cisco 6

What were the highlights of FY 2007-08?
Some of the key achievements of the year gone by include growing our business consistently across all segments. In the commercial space, we have consolidated our presence and have launched a series of products specifically targeted at this segment of the market. In areas such as UC, security, wireless, and DC, we have either retained our leadership or grown our market share significantly. In IP telephony, we have crossed the landmark figure of having shipped over 300,000 IP phones in the country and have grown this at a steady rate of over 60% CAGR.

Cisco Capital, the leasing and financing arm of Cisco, has also been witnessing significant penetration over the last year. Cisco Capital has completed deployment of the Rs 600 crore corpus.

President & country manager, Cisco, India and Saarc Naresh Wadhwa

Address: Cisco Systems India IL&FS Financial Center 6th Floor, C22, G Block, Bandra-Kurla Complex Bandra East, Mumbai-400051 Tel: +91-22-40434028 Fax: +91-22- 26533703 Website: www.cisco.com/global/in

Highlights Crossed the landmark figure of shipping over 300,000 IP phones Focus on local innovation to tap the needs of emerging markets New go-to-market strategy to tap the market New business unit to focus on developing products for emerging markets

What is your new go-to-market strategy all about?
Our new go-to-market strategy is a dual approach to tap the market. First, the focus is coverage based, where our effort is on expanding our geographical reach. Second, our focus is to ensure that we deepen and strengthen our existing customer relationships. We are also moving away from the current `vertical-centered' structure towards a new structure with strong regional focus complemented with a solution focus through business councils.

How would you rate your performance on the services front?
We have also significantly increased services penetration in the country and have had some big wins for this business. Besides others, we're engaged with two large corporate houses in the country to set up their campus and SEZ by providing them with advisory services and with our Connected Real Estate Solution.

What are the new products and services in the pipeline from Cisco's R&D center?
The primary focus of R&D in India is product development across nearly all of Cisco's offerings. Over the last ten years, our India development facility has grown from a team extension mode to an ownership of component model to becoming a center of excellence in several technology areas. Many platforms, components, and technologies are owned completely out of India. The entire optical product line and Cisco 7600 are some examples. Additionally, platforms such as flagship gigabit switch router (GSR), Catalyst 10000 are in the process of moving to India.

On the software side, we have several component ownerships in voice, security, and the IOS space. Recently, we have also started a new business unit out of India to focus on developing products for emerging markets targeting the mega-city deals in Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Dubai, and Singapore.

Cisco was planning to manufacture products in India. What's the progress on that front?
Like our operations in other parts of the world, we engage in a contract-manufacturing model. We are jointly engaged in rolling out IP phones from our pilot manufacturing facility in Chennai with Foxconn, one of our key partners globally. Cisco and Foxconn will ramp this engagement based on the demand for products and learning from the Indian market.