SAN JOSE, Calif., June 6, 2005 - Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced several organizational changes that align the company's focus on long-term growth, capturing emerging market opportunities, and better serving its customers. These changes include the creation of a new geographic structure to include an "Emerging Markets" theatre, a "European Markets" theatre and a "United States and Canada" theatre. As a part of this change, four Cisco senior vice presidents within the worldwide field sales organization will take on new roles to lead the new theatres and functions, as follows:
- Emerging Markets — to be led by Paul Mountford, Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems. Currently, Mountford runs Cisco's Worldwide Channels organization. This newly created theatre will bring together common disciplines and programs for regions which are now aggressively investing in new networking capabilities, including Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and Africa, Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and eastern European nations.
- European Markets — to be led by Chris Dedicoat, Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems. Currently, Dedicoat runs the geography sales organization within the EMEA theatre. The European Markets theatre will include more than 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy.
- United States and Canada — to be led by Robert Lloyd, Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems. Currently, Lloyd runs Cisco's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) theatre.
The current Asia Pacific and Japan theatres will remain unchanged.
In addition to the reorganized theatre structure, Keith Goodwin, Senior Vice President, who currently runs Cisco's Americas International theatre, will now run the Worldwide Channels organization. Cisco's Channel organization trains and enables channel partners to find new business, grow advanced technologies, and adapt to sell solutions, with the objective of driving profitable growth and customer satisfaction.
"This organization's highest priority is growth. The new organizational structure positions us to extend our growth opportunities, with a greater emphasis on emerging markets while keeping a solid focus on our established markets," said Rick Justice, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations, Cisco Systems.
Justice continued, "The timing of this organizational change allows us to start the next fiscal year with our leaders in place and positions us to invest in the first half to drive increasing momentum throughout the year."
Emerging Markets Theatre
The Emerging Markets theatre was created to align regions that are now investing aggressively in new networking capabilities in order to apply the appropriate processes and resources to the unique needs of the emerging markets. Creating a theatre devoted to these markets will enable Cisco to satisfy unique local market requirements. By investing in these regions now, Cisco intends to shape demand and accelerate growth for years to come by delivering tailored, yet scaleable go-to-market models for the local markets.
"This move not only represents Cisco's continued effort to capture business momentum across product families, geographies and market segments, but also highlights our deep management bench strength—these are talented leaders who can adapt, enhance and take these regions to the next level," said John Chambers, President and CEO, Cisco Systems, Inc. "As we manage the business for consistent, long term growth, we will invest in our sales organization during the coming year to expand our existing markets and capture growth opportunities in emerging markets, while continuing to partner with our customers."
For the last three years, Cisco's business has been organized into five theatres: U.S., Americas International, EMEA, Asia Pacific and Japan. Over the past eight quarters, balance across all major geographies has been one of Cisco's greatest strengths—with 54% of the company's total product bookings from markets outside the US. While the traditional markets continue to drive significant growth for Cisco, the company continues to look for additional growth opportunities in emerging markets. Today's announcement will enable the company to continue to grow and lead the industry in providing integrated business and technology solutions to our customers to help them derive tremendous value from the network for their business.
The three new theatres will go into effect on July 31, 2005. Cisco will continue to report revenue by geographic theatre in its quarterly financial results. The new geographic theatre structure will be reflected in its Q1FY06 financial results. At that time, the company will also provide a reclassification of revenue by theatre in order to provide investors with consistent comparisons. The company will provide more details during its Q4FY05 conference call scheduled for August 9th, 2005.
For questions and answers with Rick Justice, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations, and an organizational chart of Cisco's Worldwide Field Operations, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/hd_060605b.html