As India readies for general elections, California-based Cisco expects the new government to bring in ‘predictability’ in the business environment in the country.
“We are excited about the elections. Hopefully, it will bring in predictability... Stability is what we are looking for. It’s like the U.S., once the government stabilised, even though our government was not taking decisions, our economy picked up.
“Once we get predictable in India in terms of making some decisions and people know which way it’s going, investors will to go,” Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers said.
He added that India was an extremely important market for Cisco, and the company would continue to invest there.
“Companies won’t invest if they are not sure about predictability. Companies will not bring in FDI if they are unsure. Getting predictability back in India is crucial. We are committed either ways, but predictability will help,” he said.
The technology giant, which at present gets about 2 per cent of its global revenues of over $48 billion from India, expected the number to grow to 5 per cent over the next five years on the back of growing demand for cloud and networking services.
“Right now, India’s contribution is small, about 2 per cent. We are committed to the Indian market. It should be 5-10 per cent of our revenues,” Mr. Chambers said.
Asked about the timeline, Cisco Senior Vice President (Worldwide Field Operations) Chuck Robbins said it should be 5 per cent in the next five years.
“We should grow over 20 per cent every year over the next five years,” he added.
Cisco has over 10,000 people in India across Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. Of these, 8,000 people are part of the R&D set up.
(This correspondent is in Las Vegas at the invitation of the company)
