Cisco’s incredible strength comes from being able to leverage its strong brand and enourmous salesforce to sell virtually every sort of product in telecom and datacom. This report makes it seem like the outlook for the competition is bleak.
It is worth pointing out however that if you focus on a niche, you can likely make better products in your specific area than a larger company with broader focus. This is basic business and has been shown time and time again to be true.
However the report should not be taken lightly. Cisco is a fierce competitor and as an acquisition machine – they do it better than any other company I have ever seen.
Having said that, the company is getting bigger and bigger and when that happens, invariably size works to the company’s disadvantage.
In addition I am beginning to hear stories about how the Cisco salesforce is inundated with new products to sell and just can’t do justice to all of them. Of course this isnt surprising and isnt even unique to Cisco. Companies with far fewer products in their portfolios have similar problems.
There was a time between 1998-2000 when Cisco competitors seemed paralyzed by the sheer number of acquisitions they had made. At more than one large telecom company over the past years I remember hearing that people within the organization didn’t know who handled other product lines at the company.
Worse, they didn’t even know how to find out! Whenever I started to hear things like this at a company I noticed the company’s stock plummeted in the following years.
Microsoft is another example of a company full of great people who are slowed down by the enormity of their organization. They didn’t need to acquire to be slowed down by their sheer size.
To date I have seen no sign of any of these problems at Cisco and I am not sure why. The company is huge and should have more problems than it does.
So when I read positive analyst reports about Cisco I agree the company is in a great position but I also wonder of the sheer size of the organization will slow it down like size has done to countless others.
So far this hasn’t happened and one wonders if John Chambers has some sort of magic formula that others have yet to understand. Is John Chambers the Jack Welch of technology?
While it is too soon to tell, I believe at some point the company will be faced with the challenge of making the massive Cisco ocean liner turn as quickly as competitive speedboats.
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It is already a problem at Cisco.
Employees are stagnating.
Engineers are feeling the pinch. QA/engineering work is being sent to India/China/Ireland in a massive way.
Product roadmaps are pushed 24-36 months out.
Sales machine is fantastic at Cisco - thats why the company makes it's numbers.
VoIP WLAN Switch/ Mobility Controllers for enterprises are expected to reach almost $8 billion by 2012, growing from just under $1 billion in 2007. North American revenues are expected to grow from $0.5 billion this year to $2.7 billion in 2012, with EMEA and Asia Pac revenues reaching $2.7 billion and $1.4 billion respectively.
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I guess even the largest companies can only focus on so many things at once.