Startup Guide

Meet John Chambers, CEO@Cisco

Cisco routers, networking solutions and the Internet- the association is almost seamless. Provider of 80% of all communications equipment, Cisco dominates this sector just as Microsoft does for desktop applications.

“No Cisco… no Internet” is how an analyst preferred to describe Cisco dominance. The reason for this success is largely due to the efforts of John Chambers, third person to occupy the seat of CEO at Cisco.

Born in a family where both parents were doctors Chambers preferred to graduate in Law with a management degree from the University of Indiana. It is surprising to many that despite the fact that Chambers is not an engineer he happens to be the founder of a technology driven enterprise.

Endowed with the gift of the gab, Chambers uses it to the fullest. His presentation skills are legendary. Another important thing that he values the most is customer service. It is said that Chambers walked in late for his first board meeting as CEO because he was attending to a disgruntled customer!

Competitors and customers admire the corporate culture that Chambers has built; so much so that a competitor once exclaimed, “Why is everybody smiling at Cisco?” It is said that chambers spends a lot of time with the people at Cisco. Barbara Beck, a senior employee once refused promotion because it would eat into the time she had to spend with her young children. To this, Chambers said that if Cisco could not be flexible to her needs, it was not a good company. Barbara Beck is now a senior VP at Cisco.

Mergers and acquisitions are not an uncommon feature at Cisco since Chambers took hold of its reins. Despite the fact that Cisco is known for the largerst M&As in the technology segment, Chambers does not believe in retrenching employees.

Cisco has been billed as an M&A giant. Since Chambers took command of Cisco, the company has been involved in some of the largest takeovers in the technology segment. One factor remains constant across all the M&As: employees from the acquired company are never retrenched. At the time of acquiring any company Cisco looks at the value-add it can bring in terms of talent and not only financials.

Cisco has taken in a number of dotcoms and start-ups only to make sure that it gets new ideas that will keep up the winning streak. Chambers believes that Cisco has the talent to power the Internet and lead the market as the most influential company in American Corporate history because the team at Cisco believes in this mission as much as he does.