Cisco Systems has given pink slips to 600 of its employees in India as part of its restructuring process.
Cisco had in July announced that 1,300 employees globally are being asked to go because of a slump in enterprise business as well as the ongoing acquisition integration issues. In a similar exercise last year, Cisco reportedly let go 11,000 employees.
The company clarified that the global restructuring exercise announced on July 21 does not impact employees of NDS, the video software and content security solutions firm, recently acquired by Cisco.
Cisco has a total of 65,000 employees but the company does not give out country-wise break-up. In India, it has four R&D centres in Bangalore and six sales offices. In March, Cisco acquired NDS with a workforce of 1,600 engineers in its Bangalore R&D centre.
The company has given pink slips to engineers working in R&D, switching, data centre and some sales professionals too. “Initially, we were told that no one will lose their jobs after the acquisition but later, we were asked to leave,” said an employee.
When contacted, a Cisco spokesperson said: “Cisco routinely reviews its business to determine where we need to align investment based on growth opportunities. Additionally, we continue to evaluate our organisational structure as part of our plan to drive simplicity, speed of decisions and agility across Cisco.”
“As we focus on both of these efforts, we are performing a focused set of limited restructurings that will impact approximately 2 per cent of our global employee population.”
“These actions are part of a continuous process of simplifying the company, as well as assessing the economic environment in certain parts of the world,” the spokesperson added.
In a third quarter analyst call, Cisco CEO John Chambers pointed out that the company continued to see weakness in India and its global enterprise business segment was down 1 per cent compared with the previous quarter.
venkatesh.ganesh@thehindu.co.in
Cisco clarifies
The company clarifies that the global restructuring exercise announced on July 21 does not impact employees of NDS, the video software and content security solutions firm recently acquired by Cisco.