Mumbai: IT networking major, Cisco Systems, will work with the government of Andhra Pradesh to promote small businesses in the state. This was agreed when Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, currently on a visit to the US, called on John Chambers, Executive Chairman and former CEO of Cisco Systems, on May 9. Naidu, and the delegation he is leading, visited the Cisco office at San Jose on the fifth day of their US tour, according to a statement from the CM’s Office.
Naidu informed Chambers that his state can be a suitable pilot place for all the practices that emerge out of new trends. “We will create all the necessary conditions and Andhra Pradesh is now ready to take off,” added the Chief Minister.
“Let’s work on how to make starting a new ‘small business’ easy and how to make knowledge sharing easy,” Chambers replied. Chambers gave a presentation on how modern communications can connect the world and as an example demonstrated how he conducts meetings from his board room with his executives around the world.
He stated that the world is experiencing disruption brought about by digital innovations and IoT. He gave examples to denote how rapidly the world was changing. “It took 21 years for Amazon to overtake Walmart, similarly Tesla took 14 years to overtake Ford and General Motors and for us it took 7.5 years to overtake Tesla. Tomorrow a challenger might need only 3.5 years to overtake the existing leader,” he said.
Chambers said that in the US currently 20 per cent of the jobs are created by companies which did not exist even a year back, signifying that the new actors would change the world soon. “There are going to be 500 billion devices worldwide and they all will communicate. That’s the world we are going to see soon,” he added.
Earlier Dinesh Malkani, president, India and SAARC, Cisco shared the company’s vision to help Indian SMBs and startups on their digital transformation journey, for which the company follows a different channel model.
With over five distributors the company is recruiting several tier 2 partners in the state to cover that burgeoning SMB market. The company is also certifying and skilling them and the portfolio evolution.
Daisy Chittilapilly, Managing Director, Partner Organization, Cisco India and SAARC, told Channel Times that channel partners are more important now than ever for the company and that Cisco Partners will have tremendous opportunity to be a part of ‘Digital India’ initiative.
She added that Cisco’s distribution and distribution-led partners are now being approached with a renewed vigor, and several programs have been launched to drive their reach in Tier 2 and 3 cities of several states including Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.