Networking and information technology giant, Cisco, expects a bigger share of business from education and manufacturing sectors and is in the process of customising new solutions for its clients.
So far, banking and financial services (BFSI) has been Cisco’s main revenue driver.
Kumar G B, senior vice-president - services of Cisco, told Business Standard, “A large number of our clients going forward would be the new IITs and IIMs, and other technical universities especially in the North East. Their basic requirement is campus connectivity, building technology-savvy laboratories, and training products.”
“Also, we provide certifications to students of Cisco partner technical institutes, which make students more employable,” said Kumar G B.
Cisco’s services business currently makes up 20 per cent of its product business globally.
Some of Cisco’s partner institutes in the East include St Anthony’s College, Shillong, Shillong Polytechnic. Shillong College, Don Bosco College, Tura, Tura Government College, Tura, Jaintia Eastern College, Khliehihriat, Manipur University and Advanced Technical Training Centre (ATTC)-Sikkim. According to a 2008 IDC report, India had a shortfall of over 118,300 skilled networking professionals in 2008. The gap is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39 per cent, the fastest in APEJ region to reach 137,200 professionals by 2009. Currently, there are over 152 Cisco academies across 23 states and union territories with 13,708. Active students, more than 23.2 per cent of which are women. As of June 2009, India has over 76,846 cisco-certified professionals.
In addition to imparting IT knowledge and networking skills, Cisco Networking Academy also aims to bridge the ‘digital divide’ as it takes technical education to students. Already 6,252 students have successfully graduated in CCNA rural India including technologically backward states like Kashmir and Orissa. Cisco has also tied up exclusively with all women institutes to encourage girls to learn about networking which has been always considered as a male bastion.
Among other plans, Cisco is also bullish on the manufacturing sector.
“Manufacturing in the East will become a bigger sector in the next three years especially from iron and steel companies setting up projects here,” said Amit Malik, VP - East, Cisco.
“Again, demand for telepresence solutions has been growing as companies take to cutting costs, especially for internal meetings. Also, SMEs are a clear focus area for us as we have been growing our SME customer base by 30 per cent year on year. Currently we have over 1,000 SME clients,” informed Malik.
SMEs mainly require switching solutions, unified communications, IP serveillance, wireless and video solutions, said Malik. According to the company, as of June 2009, Cisco has 510 telepresence rooms worldwide. As of June this year, around 323,850 meetings have been held to date over telepresence, and 60,893 meetings avoided travel which worked out to savings of close to $244 million till date.
