Will roll out products from Chennai plant by H2CY24: Cisco's Chittilapilly

India is among the top ten markets for Cisco globally and with the new manufacturing plant in Chennai, the country is gaining even more prominence. Daisy Chittilapilly, president, Cisco India and SAARC, talks about the Chennai plant, the SMB segment, and the technology-spending environment in an interview with Ayushman Baruah in Bengaluru. Edited excerpts:

Where is India in Cisco’s growth story now?
 

We have 15,500 direct employees in India. Then, we also have people working for Cisco exclusively through our partners. So, roughly we are about 30,000 in total, combining the direct and indirect employment. Manufacturing is expected to add another 1,200 or so jobs at the Chennai plant. People are a big part of our strategy and India continues to be an important site. We have gone from strength to strength here. The only capability which we did not have here was manufacturing and that too has been announced. So, the company continues to be very bullish about India as a market and also as a place where Cisco can create impact. India is among the top 10 markets for Cisco globally. And we expect to be among the top five markets in the next few years.

Has products been rolled out from your Chennai manufacturing plant yet?
 

The products will be rolled out soon. We are expecting it in the second half of this year. We are very confident of meeting our timeline within this year. It will be a very proud moment for us. We are on track.

What is Cisco’s focus on the SMB segment and how are you targeting it?
 

SMBs need the same technology as anybody else. There are two things that we have to make happen for them to accelerate adoption for the SMBs. One is affordability and the second aspect is the ability for them to consume in a very easy fashion. In fact, most SMBs and some large enterprises struggle with maintaining an on-premise infrastructure. And what companies like Tata Communications have done previously is to have a managed EPBX service for such SMBs. And now we can do away with that. They can just have a direct connection into this cloud, and it can go from there. Our recent launch of Webex Calling solution in India with cloud public switched telephone network (PSTN) is specifically expected to make a dent and make this enterprise-grade collaboration technology available to SMBs.

How is Cisco leveraging technologies like AI and Gen AI in its offerings?
 

We already translate and transcribe into over 100 languages in real-time. So, when a call is going on, you can actually say I want this in French or I want it in Hindi and you will see the transcription is already running in real-time. It also does summarisation of the meeting. We have already had the GenAI Webex assistant in the chatbox for the last 3-4 years now. It is just a feature and people get used to it. They don’t realise that it is so easy and intuitive to use, but it is so complex in terms of the technology which is deployed at the back end.

How do you see the overall tech spending environment now? Has it slowed down in certain segments?

In India, we are seeing a little bit of a decision-making pause in two areas. One is the public sector, clearly because of elections. But that is a very short-term trend. I think the government is a firm believer in digitisation and has very ambitious projects in the pipeline. There is a slowdown because the code of conduct is in force. So, we expect that to pick up post-elections. Second, there is a slowdown among the telecom service providers because they are still rolling out. With 5G coming in etc., they have done a lot of material stocking, which they have to deploy before they start buying again. Apart from these two areas, there is no slowdown in any other part of the business and the market analysts’ forecasts are also very robust. They are saying there will be an upswing in growth after the elections and the second half of 2025 is expected to go back to growth. Tech spending in India is expected to be north of 6 per cent.

Are you facing any challenges on the supply chain front?
 

There are product categories that are always dependent on the demand and supply situation. But I think we are very well diversified in terms of our supply chain. And India is an important part of that strategy, now an important hub, both for domestic consumption as well as for exports. We are constantly looking at the resilience of our supply chain operation.