For over 27 years, Cisco India has been at the forefront of growth and innovation with a wealth of business vision, engineering talent, and skills. India is a key market for Cisco both in terms of revenue and R&D– it is the largest R&D center and engineering footprint outside the US for the company.
“The engineers here are instrumental in helping mobilize our business model transformation towards software and subscriptions. India is also fast emerging as a Centre of Excellence for AI, automation, and security for Cisco, and we are leveraging these learnings across our portfolio,” Daisy Chittilapilly, President, Cisco India & SAARC tells Financial Express Online.
Adding, “We believe cybersecurity, AI, infrastructure modernization, workplace transformation, small businesses, and 5G will be key growth drivers in India over the next five years, and Cisco remains well-positioned to capitalize on the tremendous opportunities ahead.”
Following are excerpts from an interaction on the eve of India’s Independence Day:
Elaborate on Cisco’s growth in India vis-à-vis Cisco globally over the years.
India has been one of the highest-performing markets in the APJC region for the company quarter-on-quarter in FY23, contributing significantly to overall growth. This is propelled by the immense and rapid adoption of technology we’re seeing across sectors and even in Tier 2 & 3 markets.
Businesses – regardless of size – are looking for best-in-class cloud-delivered security and collaboration solutions, strong AI and compute capabilities, and next-generation networking infrastructure to become more agile and resilient. In fact, Forrester anticipates tech spends in India to increase by over 10% in 2023, and we are keeping pace with this rising demand. For instance, as cybersecurity becomes the top priority for companies, we are introducing innovative risk-based security capabilities, expanding our security data center footprint, and continuing to build a dedicated security engineering workforce in India to help organizations fortify their defences and catalyse their transformation in the digital age.
These trends, coupled with the ongoing push for the government’s Digital India vision, is catalyzing our growth. We believe this will only gain momentum, and our outlook for Cisco in India is optimistic.
How is Cisco working with the Indian government and other stakeholders in the region?
At Cisco, we work closely with various government and industry bodies to create a positive impact at speed and scale.
For instance, through our Country Digitization Acceleration Program, we have already completed 120 investments, spanning key areas like 5G, transportation, logistics, and city management, many in partnership with the government. Our collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MOHUA) for the City Innovations Exchange (CIX) Acceleration program is catalyzing startups to deliver solutions that can augment cities’ problem-solving capacity. Cisco is a part of the mentoring and tech panel. Additionally, our memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Agriculture has unlocked the benefits of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and data analytics to empower farmers in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.
In addition, as we work with telecom service providers across the nation to reinvent the 5G network to make it predictive, simplified, and trustworthy, we are also further simplifying the constructs of the internet with our Routed Optical Networking solution aimed at collapsing IP and Optical networks.
With the announcement of manufacturing plans in TamilNadu, Cisco is placing strategic emphasis on the Indian market. Could you share more on how Cisco’s ‘Make in India’ initiative contributes to the nation’s journey towards technological self-sufficiency and global competitiveness?
The new manufacturing facility is a part of Cisco’s strategy to create an even more diverse and resilient global supply chain and support India’s vision of becoming a global manufacturing hub. With this latest investment, Cisco will cater to the rising demand from customers in India and globally and aims to drive more than US$1 billion in combined domestic production and exports in the coming years.
As organizations in India and across the globe fast-track their digitization, their technology needs are evolving rapidly. The manufacturing facility will build Cisco’s best-in-class technology, designed to provide flexible, cost-effective delivery of next-generation services and applications and support complex cloud computing environments. This investment will enable us to bring state-of-the-art technologies to more people and businesses and help accelerate India’s transition into a leading digital economy.
How does Cisco plan to leverage India’s talent pool and research capabilities to create products for both domestic and international markets?
With one of the youngest populations in the world, India’s talent, especially in the engineering space, is a key competitive advantage. We have over 15,000 employees in India, of which a majority is digitally-savvy engineers who are helping Cisco innovate powerful solutions across the globe.
We believe our edge comes from having the best people. Therefore, we are focusing on building a future-ready, agile, and skilled workforce that can envision and bring to life new possibilities of digital technologies like AI & ML, cybersecurity, automation, etc. To make this happen, we continue to invest in robust learning and development programs that help our employees stay updated with the latest technological advancements.
In addition, to help bridge the gaps in digital skills and prepare India’s workforce for the jobs of the future, the Cisco Networking Academy is equipping learners with skills in emerging technologies such as networking, infrastructure automation, and cybersecurity and has trained over 1.29 million learners so far, of which about 31 percent are women.And as a cloud-first, hybrid economy takes shape, we have committed to train 500,000 people with cybersecurity skills over the next three years across the nation.