India Is A Focal Point Of Innovation For Cisco: Cisco India Head

Cisco India & SAARC President Daisy Chittilapilly on Monday said that India was at the crux of global innovation for Cisco. 

Speaking at the Cisco India Summit 2023, she highlighted that the company’s Bengaluru R&D centre is its second largest in the world. 

The San Jose-based company’s global R&D budget stands at USD 6 billion.

“We have for years made series of investments (in India),” she said. “We have, to date, acquired four Indian-origin companies.”

These acquisitions include Cmpute.io and Pawaa.

Chittilapilly said Cisco’s startup programme “Cisco for Startups” has seen 60 startups graduate, presenting over 95 per cent in survivability rate and USD 216 million in follow-on funding.

Cisco had entered India in 1995. 

“It (India) continues to be a market in which we are deeply invested in, empowering businesses and communities via technology adoption,” said Chittilapilly.

The Cisco India head also lauded India’s phenomenal digitisation drive in recent years. But added that there was a gap which could delay or derail India’s transformation. “That gap is around Digital Trust,” she said.

“We did a survey recently and 80 per cent of the surveyed organisations in India told us that they had faced a security incident in the last two years,” she added.

Chittilapilly revealed that about 14 per cent of surveyed organsiations said the cost of restoring normal operations was over a million dollars.

“Security is an organisational and societal problem because phishing attacks, ransomware, service disruptions and more are on the rise. So, clearly our new our own models of security are not working,” she said.

To counter this, Chittilapilly said that an organisational culture of cyber-awareness and resilience must be fostered.

“Making ourselves more resilient is the only way to stop bad actors from taking us, our businesses and economy for a ride,” she said.