Robbins, who is visiting India this week, said that the new
production unit will start with the manufacturing of network switches and
high-end routers. The new unit will be a full-scale manufacturing node from
where the company hopes to export these products to Europe and other regions,
he said.
“Our customers are fundamentally reordering and
re-architecting their technology infrastructure to deal with a fully digital
world. We see it happening in countries, much like we see it happening here at
a pace that probably is faster than anywhere else in the world,” Robbins said.
With the new unit, the company also hopes to diversify its
supply chains in the region and for the world, he said. Cisco currently has
manufacturing units in China, Taiwan, and Korea in the region. The new
manufacturing unit at Tamil Nadu would be in partnership with an original
design manufacturer, Robbins said.
“Pre-Covid, supply chains were built primarily around
efficiency. Now they are built around the combination of efficiency but with a
heavy focus on resilience. This was a decision about the growth and export
opportunity in India,” he said.
The Tamil Nadu manufacturing unit, likely to be a brownfield
operation, will also support testing, development, and logistics, as well as
expand Cisco’s in-house repair operations, the company said.
“Today's announcement marks a significant milestone to power
the next phase of growth for Cisco. This investment will enable us to bring
state-of-the-art technologies to more people and businesses and help accelerate
India’s transition into a leading digital economy,” Daisy Chittilapilly, the
president of Cisco India & SAARC region said.
The idea behind setting up a new manufacturing unit in India
was to augment the company’s supply chain
The company did not disclose the location of its factory
unit in Tamil Nadu or if it had chosen to participate in the production-linked
incentive (PLI) scheme for the manufacturing of telecom equipment.
The Tamil Nadu unit, which is likely to start rolling out
products over the next 12 months, is likely to create roughly 1200 jobs in the
manufacturing ecosystem, Robbins said.
Apart from generating revenue from its networking and
telecom equipment business, Cisco is also looking to expand its presence in the
software domain and will aim target generating 50% of its overall revenue from
the software by the end of the fiscal year 2025, he said.
Cisco is also working closely with telecom companies such as
Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm on public 5G as well as some other
customers in the private 5G space for the manufacturing sector, Robbins said.
“Private 5G is a great opportunity. We see it emerging in
the manufacturing sector for working on low-latency applications. We will
continue working with customers and that is a big focus for us,” he said.