Cisco looks to bring its supplier ecosystem here: India head

Daisy Chittilapilly, President, Cisco (India & SAARC), spoke to DH following the company's launch of its first India manufacturing facility in Chennai on Friday.

Global technology giant Cisco launched its first India manufacturing facility in Chennai on Friday.

The first product, a router, was rolled out from the Flex factory in Sriperumbudur, which will manufacture several other products in the coming months and years. 

DH’s E.T.B. Sivapriyan spoke to Daisy Chittilapilly, President, Cisco (India & SAARC) on the company’s plans. Excerpts:

Why did Cisco pick India as a manufacturing base in its pursuit of a diverse and resilient global supply chain? 

 The conversation about manufacturing in India has been on with the government for many years. For an automated high-tech line like ours, we needed volume and we were clear that we always wanted to go with the full node. We didn’t want to cater to the domestic market alone, (but) also to the global demands - which is the most sustainable model for us. 

Cisco always had a great belief in India’s talent because we have been here for 29 years. We enjoy the trust of our customers, the government of India, and also large enterprises, who are our partners. We now have all ingredients, and we are here to serve both markets. I think we still have some work to do on the component ecosystem, but from a talent standpoint we are ready. We hope our competent ecosystem will follow us. 

How do you plan to strengthen the ecosystem? Will Cisco engage with local vendors? 

Even before we announced manufacturing in India, we have been looking to source from India, and we will do that even more aggressively now. A few months before our announcement, Pulse, a component manufacturer, came to Tiruchirapalli, to supply integrated connector modules (ICM) for us. We are very keen that more of our suppliers follow us to India. The state and central governments are also clear that they will welcome the entry of more players. 

The ecosystem you want to build, will it be around your facility in Chennai or located anywhere in India?

I think we cannot insist on (the location) because our suppliers will also do their own assessment of location. I don’t think we can insist to them that they should be near our plant, etc. Typically, logistics clusters emerge (around manufacturing units) and we have examples of many clusters, including the automobile clusters in Chennai, emerging that way. We picked Flex because we are into a subcontract model for manufacturing. I think it would be the same for our component suppliers as well. We are counting on the success of this first step. 

Will Cisco engage local players as sub-contractors? 

If this model is proven successful, then we have the ability to bring in local players as well. I think we are always open to all such conversations and like any world-class organisation, we are looking to partner with the right people. We always evaluate our supplier and contractor ecosystems, and we never say no (to the right people.)

5G adaptation is going at a fast pace in India. What is the role that Cisco expects to play in this?

There are two angles to this. One is the core technology that we supply to service providers to help them roll out their 5G networks. And we have had success stories with regard to 5G rollouts by companies like Jio and Bharti Airtel. We enable them with great technology services, but any roll out in India is complex, because of the size of the country and the number of locations that need to go live at one time. 

The other side of the conversation is the Edge, the areas which were never connected are getting a connection now. So, there is a promise of 5G not just for mobile consumers, but also opens the ability for us to connect edges. And when we bring in a 5G Edge, we’ve got to make sure it’s still integrated to the traditional network fabric of that enterprise. 

Cisco says it is targeting over $1.3 billion in combined exports and domestic production from this facility. What is the domestic market Cisco is looking at? 

We don’t evaluate it (the local market) because our demand keeps fluctuating, not just for India, but it is the case all over the world. Telecom market is cyclical, that’s why we don’t give out on average. But we think globally, we can hold on to the number that we’ve committed.

Where do you see India fitting in the AI storm that is brewing?

As a company, our strategy is very clear. We will need to build a different generation of infrastructure for AI. And that is something that has been our origin story and we will continue to do very well. You will see a lot of innovations coming from our side over the next months and years. 

It has also become very difficult or I would say almost impossible to manage cyber operation security operations at human scale. We cannot imagine a world where we cannot harness the power of AI to solve for what we used to do at human scale. We have to do it machine scale or human plus AI scale today. 

What does CISCO’s 2nd round of layoffs augur for India? Is India part of the plan? 

Anything that affects globally also affects us (India). But, we find many opportunities for (India) because of the calibre and profile of our talent and we are actually stepping in and making investments into cyber, and into infrastructure for AI. We have acquired Splunk and we will integrate it with the rest of our portfolio. 

We are essentially looking at lifting and shifting as our organisation goes into newer areas, where our customers need us to go. And the good news about the talent in India is, it is tangible. We keep lifting and shifting and this is a part of our business. With the advent of AI, in general, the technology talent has to become more agile.