Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) and Cisco on Tuesday announced that they signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) under which they intended to collaborate on go-to-market strategies in areas including smart cities, virtual dealership, sports as well as entertainment and cloud services. The tie-up would bring together Cisco's technology prowess and M&M's leadership across diverse industries and market segments in India.
Addressing the media, Mahindra Group Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Anand Mahindra said, “by collaborating with Cisco to build smarter, connected communities, virtual dealerships and other projects, we are empowering our stakeholders, dealers, customers, partners and others to use technology for the greater good. The first project under this initiative is intended to be the Mahindra Innovation Park, which will create new benchmarks through its smart solutions.''
Mahindra's engagement with Cisco is pegged at around $100 million now and through the MoU, the target is to increase this ten times over the next five years to $1 billion.
Of the current global market size of $ 5 billion, the tie-up will address about 10-15 per cent, and out of this, the Indian market will constitute 10 per cent.
“Cisco envisages that all future successful communities will run on networked information. Using Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities framework, we have led several projects that drive social, economic and environmental sustainability, using technology as a key enabler,'' said Cisco Executive Vice-President (Emerging Solutions) and Chief Globalisation Officer Wim Elfrink.
According to Ulhas Yargop, President, IT Sector, Group CTO and Member, Group Executive Board, Mahindra Group, “this announcement with Cisco demonstrates the solution-centric approach of our IT sector companies — Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra. The four key areas of smart cities, virtual dealership, sports as well as entertainment and cloud services are critical in our ICT vision and we look forward to working with Cisco to achieve it faster and better.''
Under the non-binding MoU, Cisco and Mahindra will explore opportunities to collaborate on comprehensive differentiated offerings in the sports and entertainment market to provide a range of industry-specific offerings.
