CISCO SYSTEMS: Still the Network King

Cisco saw a faster growth than the market with India sales revenue touching

Rs 2,703 crore in FY 2005, up by 46% over FY 2004; the company also accounted

for more than 47% of the total enterprise networking equipment sales in India

during the period.

One reason why it beat the market and managed to do what it did was because

of SMBs who started using networking technology, giving Cisco a whole new area

of opportunity. Aggressive pricing coupled with product releases that were

simple to deploy and manage, introduction of service and support catering to

this market, and a 50-city integrated campaign targeting the end customer and

partners, ensured strong adoption.

HIGHLIGHTS Registers 46% growth in revenues to touch Rs 2,703 crore Clinches India's biggest metro Ethernet deal of the year worth Rs 500 crore Unchallenged in Router and Switch business with 84% and 70% share Growing SMB focus and penetration; wide portfolio now includes consumers (Linksys) Business groups to focus on IT services, enterprises, service providers and govt Still not able to shake off the image of a costly, high-end equipment vendor Competition from a range of small and niche players l Products and Services: Voice/Data networking, network security, storage, wireless, IP telephony l Branches: 5 l Address: 2nd Floor, Brigade South Parade, 10,MG Road, Bangalore, India l Tel: 51593000 l Fax: 25327282 l Website: www.cisco.com/in

Very strong deals were also reported from the BPO sector, banking and

financial services, manufacturing and the telecom verticals, particularly, where

one of the key highlights was VSNL's Metro Ethernet deployment, worth Rs 500

crore.

Fuelled by good uptake amongst service providers and the enterprise segments,

Cisco remained the undisputed king of routers and switches with 84% and 70%

market share respectively. Its router business grew by 35%, helped to some

extent, by the launch of mid-range Integrated Services Routers. At the very

high-end, it launched Carrier Routing Services (CRS1) targeted at the telecom

market, a product in which Cisco had invested around half a billion dollars in

R&D.

Cisco's switch business shot up to Rs 911 crore in FY 2005 from Rs 510

crore the previous fiscal, particularly due to its good performance in the

telecom and BPO space. Key wins here were with the Tata group, SBI, Mahindra

& Mahindra, IDRBT, Wipro BPO and BITS. The company also saw significant

penetration in "advanced technologies" like network security, IP

telephony, wireless and in next generation network broadband, with the

contribution of this segment going up to 18%.

There were minor changes in the management team with former VP Sales (West)

Naresh Wadha moving to Cisco Honk Kong to look after North Asia; Jangoo Dalal,

senior VP, Enterprise, has taken his place. The rest of the line-up largely

remains the same with Rangnath Salgame very much at the helm.