Cisco’s managing director of sales for India and SAARC region, Purushottam Kaushik, has reportedly stepped down from the networking major after a stint of seven years. He was earlier responsible for creating and managing a new $2 billion business around Smart cities, Internet of Things (IoT), public safety and surveillance and Digital India initiatives.
According to the ET report, after parting away from Cisco, Kaushik may join Juniper Networks and take up the responsibility to head the India operations. Juniper’s India and SAARC managing director Amajit Gupta told ET he had left the company last month after a stint of just over a year.
An official query to Cisco spokesperson didn’t elicit any response. Kaushik declined to comment on the development.
Juniper, in an official statement confirmed Gupta’s exit from the company, and said that Sajan Paul, the India CTO will take over concurrent GTM leadership responsibilities in the interim, to build on the strong growth.
Kaushik joined Cisco Systems as vice president of service sales in March 2009, and looked after sales for service providers for almost three years. He also held position of director of sales operations for service provider business for almost two and a half years before taking up the post of managing director in August 2014.
His departure comes at a time when Cisco is building its business around smart cities and Digital India. Cisco, which has worked on more than 120 smart cities globally, is working in 12-13 cities out of the list of 20 in India. Besides, it has been working in another 14-15 cities in the country.
The US firm is currently providing its networking, safety and security solutions, along with an aggregated IT platform where all apps can be written on top of it to collect data from various devices. It is also providing consultancy services.
The smart city market opportunity in India will be around $45-$50 billion over the next five years, according to a report by Sustainability Outlook. The electronic equipment business just for the first phase will be around $220-250 million opportunity for these vendors.
For companies like Cisco, which are largely looking at IT solutions, the opportunity is pegged at around $25 million per city, according to industry estimates.