He is the man credited with the growth of Cisco at a break-neck speed of 18 times over the last 5 years, and responsible for continuing the 55-60 percent growth rate year on year. Lauded by many as the Internet era’s best salesman, John T Chambers is praised for his customer-focus and hard working ways. For the young, vibrant company that he presides, Chambers manages to combine traditional values with relentless aggressiveness. The tough side of him comes out in Cisco’s acquisition record (55 in the last decade) and the extent to which he would go to win a customer. With the zeal to imbibe a Cisco culture, he continues the famous Cisco frugality set by his predecessor John Morgridge.

The stage for John Chambers first visit to India this month already set, Cisco India expects his visit to not only have an impact on Cisco’s interests in the region but also influence Indian businesses and the government into building a success strategy for the Internet age. In his first interview to an Indian publication, he expresses some of his views…

Is there a Cisco way?

Our mission is to create unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, partners, employees, and shareholders. We do this by taking a fanatical approach to customer success and tying compensation for all employees to performance on our annual customer satisfaction survey.

Our relentless focus on our customers, together with healthy paranoia and a little Cisco luck, has positioned us in the right place at the right time. I believe the Internet is going to change the way companies, countries, and individuals work, live, play and learn, and Cisco is proud to be playing a key role in leading the Internet economy.

Did you make IP or ride on it?

Although Cisco has contributed to the ongoing development of IP, its true importance lies in what it enables, and its open-standards nature. Companies are increasingly moving away from proprietary solutions to open-standards based solutions.

In a world of plenty, the core network is getting more standardised and ‘dumb’. And that is where you play. What are your comments on this?

A. As we have transitioned our company over the years, from a vendor of pinpoint products, to an end-to-end vendor, to a data/voice/video solutions provider and finally a business partner, our customers’ expectations have increased. As a result, networking is becoming increasingly intelligent.

Just 4-5 years ago, Cisco was grouped along with players like 3Com, Bay Networks, and Fore Systems. How did you leave them behind—both in terms of marketshare and mindshare?

A. Our past success has been based on the ability to deliver solutions that provide data, voice, and video over a single network, and our ability to blend internal development, acquisitions, and partnerships.

Cisco has a culture based on empowerment, which increases our productivity and improves retention within the company. The unique element of our culture is that we believe we can do anything, yet we also realize that we could quickly lose our leadership position if we mis-execute or if our competition executes well.

Today, the Internet is causing rapid change and creating disruptive market transitions in not only the communications industry, but also on nearly every sector of the economy. Our future success will be based on our Internet expertise and our ability to help our customers successfully navigate through these market transitions.

Integration services are missing from Cisco’s offering portfolio. Without that, can you really challenge the likes of Lucent and Nortel? And what about the new generation companies like Juniper, Sycamore, Redback, and Corvis?

A. With respect to competitors like Lucent and Nortel, we use a horizontal business model that relies on an ecosystem, an open standards-based partnership community that works toward a common goal. I believe companies that partner will emerge as the market and industry leaders of the future. Through partnerships with companies such as KPMG, Cap Gemini, and others, Cisco offers world-class, end-to-end integration services.

Our best competition comes from start-up companies. We will have more market share five years from now on because of good competition.

Is the Internet Business Solutions Group also going to take up the services role in network rollouts of large telecom carriers and if so, by when?

A. Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) is dedicated to transforming our customers into Internet economy organizations. As a result, Cisco is viewed as a trusted technology partner and business advisor to many of the largest companies in the world. IBSG has already cemented Cisco’s relationship in many of our enterprise accounts and is starting to have similar effects in the service provider marketplace as they transition to new service business models.

A typical sales cycle involves responding to Requests-for-Proposals that are often defined by individual product offerings. IBSG takes Cisco’s sales approach to the next level by demonstrating the value of deploying Internet applications and services, which in turn creates a demand for our technology and solutions. As a result, our vision of delivering a network infrastructure that is tightly coupled with the requirements of Internet business applications, is gaining significant acceptance.

For network users, tackling network issues is the prime concern, not how to derive benefits from the network. Till when will this continue?

A. We are seeing just the opposite. Our Internet Business Solutions Group has consulted with executives in more than 50% of the Fortune 250 companies, 45% of the top companies in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia; and 65% of the leading service providers. This group provides business-strategy consulting and helps move our relationships with them from that of a vendor to a strategic partner.

We are not only a technology advisor, but also an advanced user of Internet technology to run our own business. The adoption of Internet applications in each of Cisco’s functional areas is an integral part of our business-planning process and results in tremendous productivity benefits and costs savings. During this past fiscal year for example, 90% of our customer orders were transacted over the Internet.

Do you think innovation is really happening today?

A. The pace of innovation in the business world is occurring at an increasing rate. I truly believe that the companies that will lead are those that take advantage of Internet-based technologies to reinvent their businesses. As I said before, it is no longer ‘nice to have, it is a matter of survival’.

Nareshchandra Laishram