Can Cisco Systems Grow From $40 Billion to $80 Billion?
When Cisco Partner Summit 2012 kicks off (April 16-19, San Diego), Senior VP Keith Goodwin (pictured) hopes to turn the page on Cisco’s recent business overhaul. “We no longer talk about the next Cisco. That’s yesterday’s news,” Goodwin told The VAR Guy yesterday. So what is today’s news? How about a long-term strategy that potentially grows Cisco Systems from $40 billion to $80 billion?
During an interview at Cisco Partner Velocity, a marketing event this week in Las Vegas, Goodwin and Senior VP Edison Peres described a three- to five-year journey in which Cisco hopes to drive and lead market transitions. Some of the Cisco themes and strategies are quite familiar. Others are new.
At one point during the conversation, Goodwin and Peres mentioned the goal of growing Cisco from $40 billion to $80 billion in revenues over the next few years. To be clear: The conversation had nothing to do with earnings forecasts or Wall Street projections. This was a channel-focused, growth-focused conversation that centered on partners.
“On the one hand we’ve made significant progress in defining the vision of the Next Cisco,” said Goodwin. “In some sense it’s getting back to fundamentals. We used to talk about competing in 50 market adjacencies. Now we talk about five key priorities to help our partners focus. We’re fairly along with that.”
Goodwin said most of Cisco’s belt-tightening, which began in 2011 by shedding some consumer technology efforts, also is complete. “We’re far along on tightening our belt and taking a few inches of the waist,” said Goodwin. “We’re still fine-tuning it of course.”
At the same time, Cisco’s channel base is energized, Goodwin insisted. Despite the mainstream media’s negative coverage of macro economic issues in Europe, Cisco’s “partners are more optimistic by an order of magnitude” about business than portions of the media, Goodwin said.
As Cisco strives to drive growth, the company has essentially vowed not to buy a big IT services company. That stance, Cisco hopes, will help to maintain channel loyalty vs. such rivals as Hewlett-Packard, which has made big IT services acquisitions
“We’ve been aggressive in assuring partners that our strategy for services is a partner-centric strategy for services,” said Goodwin. “We’re going to scale through our partners.”
At Cisco Partner Summit, “The tone will be a bit reflective but also a lot more aggressive,” said Goodwin. “We’re focused, hungry and committed,” added Peres.
Bottom line from Goodwin: “We’ll be on the offensive. In the past we’ve talk about competing and leading market transitions. We’ll be more aggressive in our intent to win a market, to win a transition, to win a deal. You’ll see a focus on winning.”
And ultimately, Cisco will explain why “the next dollar a partner invests in the Cisco relationship will earn a higher return.”
Clues for now. The full story will likely emerge at Cisco Partner Summit 2012.
