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Cisco to invest US$50 million, triple workforce in India's Bangalore
India Daily ^ | Oct. 21, 2005 | Harish Baliga

Posted on 11/13/2005 4:56:24 PM PST by jb6

Cisco is bullish on India and cannot wait to use Indian expertise for research and development.

Cisco Systems Inc. will hire more engineers in India than in the United States for its research and development work over the next three years, the company's chief executive said Friday.

President and CEO John Chambers said the company would invest US$50 million (A41.83 million) to set up a second research and development center in Bangalore, India's technology hub, and triple its workforce here to more than 4,000 by 2008.

He said this would mean more engineers are hired in India than in the U.S. over the next three years.

Cisco currently employs 1,400 engineers at its existing center in Bangalore.

"This (new) R&D center will be the second major site for Cisco after the U.S.," the Dow Jones Newswires quoted Chambers as saying. "In terms of R&D efforts, India will grow faster in absolute numbers compared to the U.S," he said during a visit to Bangalore.

On Wednesday, Chambers met senior Indian government officials in New Delhi and announced that Cisco will spend US$1.1 billion (A0.92 billion) in India over the next three years in the company's largest investment outside the United States. The money will be mostly invested in development of network infrastructure and related technologies.


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: bangalore; business; cisco; india; outsourcing
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To: Young Scholar

In this economy you want to be a specialist in something that people will pay for. If someone gets a general business degree or some liberal arts degree, they might as well take the LSAT now, cuz I know that is where they will end up. If you can help a company build their IP, you are in a good spot. Engineering is a great place to be in that respect.


21 posted on 11/13/2005 5:53:22 PM PST by ottothedog (Forbes 2008)
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To: Young Scholar

when a company like Cisco - dominant in their particular space, tells you they plan to hire more engineers in India then in the US - don't put too much stock in what you might think your "job prospects" are. sure, there are jobs - but fewer and fewer careers. more contract work means people are employed for 9 months out of the year, and looking for their next assignment for 3 months (unpaid). and trust me, the mid and upper level managers are actively working every day to figure out a way to get job functions moved offshore.

I judge it based on my colleagues at work, what they are doing with their own college bound kids - I cannot think of a single one, who are sending their own college bound kids to "follow in their parent's footsteps".

my advice to you - complete your undergrad engineering program, and go get an MBA in finance or business or marketing. that combination does very well, as US corporations will not offshore their management cores. you can earn good money with that combination.


22 posted on 11/13/2005 5:54:46 PM PST by oceanview
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To: ottothedog; Young Scholar; oceanview; ninenot; neutrino; A. Pole

I am in IT, for a short while longer as I finish my MBA....and good ridence to short term contracts, no promotability, declining over all pay, no stability. My father is a life long mechanical engineer and he put it quite right: when the manufacturing is all getting outsourced, who needs the engineers?


23 posted on 11/13/2005 5:56:16 PM PST by jb6 (The Atheist/Pagan mind, a quandary wrapped in egoism and served with a side order of self importance)
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To: oceanview

Cisco can probably attract a good critical mass of strong candidates.


24 posted on 11/13/2005 5:56:28 PM PST by ottothedog (Forbes 2008)
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To: hispanichoosier
IMO, our students are dropping out of engineering programs because they're "too hard" for the average student produced by our publik skool system. I can't blame Cisco for moving its operations to places where the employees are better prepared for high-level work.

The work is harder than the average America job, but I have no doubt that there are enough Americans that can and would do this work if they could be paid a decent salary. The smart students will excel despite the public school systems, or any school system for that matter, they always have.

25 posted on 11/13/2005 5:57:30 PM PST by SwordofTruth (God is good all the time.)
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To: hispanichoosier
IMO, our students are dropping out of engineering programs because they're "too hard" for the average student

There is another reason. Competing with people paid Third World wages is not a viable career.

26 posted on 11/13/2005 6:01:05 PM PST by A. Pole (For today's Democrats abortion and "gay marriage" are more important that the whole New Deal legacy.)
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Comment #27 Removed by Moderator

To: Willie Green; Wolfie; ex-snook; Jhoffa_; FITZ; arete; FreedomPoster; Red Jones; Pyro7480; ...
He said this would mean more engineers are hired in India than in the U.S. over the next three years.

Change of plans? See my tagline.

28 posted on 11/13/2005 6:03:32 PM PST by A. Pole (CEO of CISCO: "What we're trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company.")
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To: jb6

Fortunate for the GOP that the Democrats have, for now, come down on the side of "open borders, free trade." If they ever decided to make this an issue (or figured out a way to play both sides of the fence,) it would be Katie Bar the Door.


29 posted on 11/13/2005 6:03:48 PM PST by kms61
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To: jb6
I personally prefer to contract, so that is not an issue for me. My experience has been that during that last part of the 90's rates ran up pretty nice. My opinion is that this was due to 1) dot.com bubble 2) Y2K (non) apocalypse 3) greenspan ginning up the economy due to fear of Y2K.

After the crash, rates came down quite a bit, and it was much dicier. Over the past year rates seem to be back up to late 90's rates.

The fact that manufacturing goes overseas does not imply that design/engineering will follow. I think design/engineering is going to be somewhat focused in the target markets.

30 posted on 11/13/2005 6:04:37 PM PST by ottothedog (Forbes 2008)
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Comment #31 Removed by Moderator

To: willstayfree

I don't think that employing foreigners violates any allegiance to the U.S. If he did not run the best operation (including utilizing overseas resources) that he could he would be hurting other U.S. citizens. There are a lot of people who have CSCO in the 401(k)s who would like to see CSCO move up. Customers would essentially be taxed also, if he did'nt utilize the resources as best as he could. You may disagree, and say that what he is doing is not the best for business, but I don't think it is fair to say that this is an allegiance problem.


32 posted on 11/13/2005 6:14:17 PM PST by ottothedog (Forbes 2008)
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Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: ottothedog

ping for laTER


34 posted on 11/13/2005 6:22:37 PM PST by vrwc0915
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To: oceanview
it doesn't get talked about much, but for people who work in this field and see this every day, its there.

And the higher ups wonder why morale is so low among their best and brightest developers. Giving them an extra months salary so they can go to Bangalor and train their replacement doesn't help very much.

I work for a large consulting company that has a very large contract with a major Telecom player. For some reason they believe saving 10 to 15 bucks an hour on highly skilled labor will cut the bottom line. What you really get is buggy software that has to be released quarterly and there's no such thing as an emergency release. Nimbleness and flexibility be damned. I'd really hate to be a Project Manager with all Indian developers in Bangalor.

We've got two lists at work. One is for the people who's jobs have gone overseas, and the other is of people who have quit since the outsourcing was announced. Guess which one is longer. The real irony is that a lot of the developers who have quit or had their jobs shipped to Bangalor are Indian.

35 posted on 11/13/2005 6:35:19 PM PST by numberonepal (Don't Even Think About Treading On Me)
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To: jb6

There's a lot of good talent in India but most companies that have outsourced there have scaled back. Generally it seems like some sort of disconnect develops. I wouldn't want to invest a majority of my resources there.

In IT myself, I find it very discouraging to be the core for the success of the company and have management not compensate you for your work - and make no mistake about it, the IT geeks in your company are the foundation for its success - just have a little database downtime and you'll know what I mean.

In the meantime, project managers and financial managers are all compensated better but are not utilizing a mental genius like the IT guys are having to do every day.


36 posted on 11/13/2005 6:56:19 PM PST by RushingWater
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To: jb6

Hi Willie!


37 posted on 11/13/2005 6:58:09 PM PST by MonroeDNA (Look for the union label--on the bat crashing through your windshield!)
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To: seppel
Fully agreed. Big Business has given up on the concept of nations. They consider normal workers in western countries as usefull and replaceable idiots, to be replaced by cheaper workers in upcoming "nations", until they scuttle them for some other current Fourth World nation. Big Business is unpatriotic. Their god is the buck.

I'm sure successful business leaders regard people like yourself as not-so-useful, redundant idiots. India's attracting all this investment because at long last Indians who share your mindset are being laughed at. It's a shame that the U.S. and the world economy has so many cycles and upheavals, but it's nothing new and the whiners out there do nothing more than delay the inevitable or make these problems more acute.
38 posted on 11/13/2005 6:58:43 PM PST by dr_who_2
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To: Salo

I have a funny story. Last month we had a supervisor module go out in a 6000 series Catalyst switch. I called Cisco TAC to report the problem. The guy took my ticket and said he had to transfer me to his tech center. I told him to hold it! The I did not want to talk to anyone from India since they are not only hard to understand, but with my experience with them, generally clueless. The tech laughed at me and said that he would transfer me to the San Jose office. He transfered me and I got a guy.......that lived in San Jose.....who was from India.


39 posted on 11/13/2005 7:02:02 PM PST by Bommer (To Ted Kennedy - "Fat Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through life son!" - Dean Wormer)
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To: dr_who_2
India's attracting all this investment because at long last Indians who share your mindset are being laughed at.

Yeah, they are pretty sure their better than Americans, that's for sure. When reality hits them soon, they will won't be laughing at all.

40 posted on 11/13/2005 7:07:44 PM PST by SwordofTruth (God is good all the time.)
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