Cisco to triple headcount in India

Realising India as its platform for globalisation efforts, US-based networking giant Cisco on Monday said it will increase its headcount in the country by over three-fold to 10,000 by 2010.

"We will have 10,000 employees in India by 2010 and would shift 20 per cent of its top management staff across all functions to India by 2012," Cisco's chairman and CEO John Chambers said while speaking at Public Sector Summit 2007 in New Delhi.

The company currently has 3,000 people in India, Chambers said. In October 2005, Cisco had announced an investment of $1.1 billion in India for the next 2-3 years.

"We are very much on target," he said, when asked how much of the investments have already been spent. The proposed amount includes $750 million on research and development, $150 million on Cisco capital, $100 million on venture capital, $100 million on expanding customer support and $50 million on campus in Bangalore.

The campus in Bangalore, which will be inaugurated on Tuesday, would have a capacity of 3,000 people.

"We look at India not as an opportunity to save labour costs but as a true partner and the platform for our globalisation efforts," Chambers said.