CISCO India penny pinching
By Sandhya

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT - ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym. A Tipster, who was a guest at a CISCO meet in Bangalore, wrote to us.  CISCO is undergoing change after disappointing financial results

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After its disappointing financial results, American networking giant Cisco has been undergoing rationalization for the last 5 months. It shuttered its Flip camcorder business.  Thirteen thousand jobs have been made redundant and more than Twenty Two thousand employees moved.  Cisco openly said it had ‘lost its way’ and become ‘fat’.

Cisco has a huge set up in India which plays a key role in its international operations. And the world's leading networking equipment maker Cisco is taking drastic measures to contain costs both globally and in India as well. Recently, some partners and distributors who came from other Indian States were hosted at the M.G Road office in Bangalore.

So, you may ask - what's the buzz about this? In the good old days, all partners, distributors, value added resellers were hosted (albeit for a day) at Taj Vivanta or Oberoi, which is a stone's throw away from the Cisco M.G Road office. But considering the belt tightening measures undertaken by the company, it decided to host them in their Offices. But the cost cutting gets better! (Or worse if you were a Cisco ‘guest’ at Bangalore). When they were served water, they were given a Pearlpet bottle filled with water (with a white top). No more Aquafina, Kinley or even the local Kingfisher! No more five star food (booze) and relaxation (Spa or Aroma therapy) for them- the more they sell, the better treatment they would get.

The Indian partners were smirking and the chatter was around the fact whether the glory days of Cisco are gone!
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