Cisco adopts two-pronged approach to rev up revenue per employee

Cisco India & SAARC President, Dinesh Malkani is adopting a two-pronged approach to rev up revenue productivity per employee, which has remained stagnant for the last 10 years.

Revenue boost

“We are boosting revenue growth per employee by leveraging on the strength of our partner network which covers 49 cities across the country.

“We are also working on increasing revenue growth quarter-on-quarter that will push up revenue productivity per employee. In Q4 of FY 2014, India revenues grew 18 per cent and in Q1 of FY 2014 ended October 31, revenue grew 6 per cent,” Malkani told

BusinessLine , on the sidelines of the second Cisco India Summit 2014 in Bengaluru on Monday. The move to increase revenue productivity per employee is one of Malkani’s priorities given than Cisco CEO John Chambers, during his visit to India in June, had said: “Our revenue productivity increase per employee was zero-flat for the last 10 years. This needs to change for us to be able to compensate employees better and give our shareholders fair returns.”

Make in India

The $47-billion networking major currently employs 12,500 people in India.

Cisco is also considering manufacturing in India given the huge demand for its products and services created by the Digital India programme initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to sources, Cisco is unable to meet the huge demand from telcos for its products. Asked about Cisco’s manufacturing plans in India, Malkani said: “The ‘Make in India’ initiative is very encouraging and manufacturing in India is an ongoing conversation that we are pursuing with various stakeholders, including the government.” Cisco is collaborating with ILFS Technologies Ltd, a technology solutions company of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, to utilise the ‘Internet of Everything’ to develop digital solutions for India’s infrastructure and smart cities.