Cisco Systems, Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO), an American MNC is an undisputed leader in the field of Networking. Over the period of 30 years, Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, the co-founders of Cisco, made it a well-known brand in the Asia-Pacific region, and now the company is making another move to strengthen its presence in the fastest growing market. Cisco with revenue of US $49.2 billion and total employee strength of 71,833 has decided to help Indian start-ups bloom. The Company has decided to invest US$100 million in India for the next 18-24 months for the digitalization all throughout the Country. John Thomas Chambers, Executive Chairman – Cisco, believes it will also help in creating jobs and faster innovations in the region. Cisco announced in the presence of its executive Chairman on Friday about all the investment design and how it is going to be implemented.
On this investment, Mr Chambers met PM of India, Narendra Modi on Friday to discuss its initiative to invest in different area of India, either it be Start-Up India, Make in India, This initiative by the company is a part of Cisco’s CDA (Country Digitization Acceleration) Programme where few countries will get the investments to drive their economy in the right direction. Cisco is also in a design process of investment in smart cities as well as in education and healthcare which will be revealed later.
The US $100 million investment will be done in two phases. The first phase includes penetration of money in the Indian market to help in the growth of Indian start-ups. The start-ups will be the ones who are ready to adopt new technology and have the passion for growing by huge numbers in the future. This phase will also include training of 250,000 students by 2020. It is not a new move by the company as last year it had announced plans to train 1.2 lakh students of India with an investment of $20 million. Through such training initiatives, Cisco wants to create perfect skill sets for technologies like Security, Cloud and IoT besides Digital Plays in smart cities, financial services, healthcare and e-governance in the next few years. This is a new initiative taken by Cisco to train the dextrous masses of India which can help the country and company to grow with immense strength.
Next phase of investment has been reserved for setting up 6 innovation labs in different parts of India to maintain the regional equality. It has also decided to set up three centres of expertise which will help the people and start-ups to grow in the right direction with right technology. Not only this but this phase will include all the major efforts of collaboration with colleges all through the Nation for skill development and vocational courses to be included as a part of a curriculum.
Cisco is going to do this much investment with the help of state as well as Central Government.
During the Conference one of the members of Cisco remarked “India is now perfect to be leader in the field of digitalization. Indian is still slow in terms of adopting the technology but yes, it is one of those countries of Asia which are growing by good numbers.”
The Company Cisco is highly impressed by the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi’s initiative of MAKE IN INDIA and DIGITAL INDIA.
It has even started with their initiative without any loopholes by establishing a manufacturing centre in Pune and have the vision to make that centre as their main export hub. Mr Chambers also answered the questions very calmly about the increase in hiking of H1 B visa fee and raising the minimum wage for visa holders. This is forcing American MNC’S to hire the unemployed Americans rather than engaging the dextrous people from the overseas. He answered as normal middle-class American has not witnessed appreciable growth in living standards for 15 years so it is a very sensitive issue when they hear about job loss. Also, he added, “It is an emotional time in election year”. He also appreciated India’s move to bring this to WTO’s notice. So he advised India to be patient, as he himself believes in engaging skilful people from the different parts of the World.
