Bangalore R&D unit key to us; has filed 800+ patents: Cisco

India plays a key role in the development of new products and solutions at networking giant Cisco with its Bangalore unit filing over 800 patents till date, a senior executive said.

The US-based firm spent about USD 6.3 billion or 13.4 per cent of FY2014 revenues on R&D globally.

"From being a centre for cost advantage to a skill pool, India has today become a centre of innovation for us. The impact that India is creating is phenomenal and every solution that we have, India has an imprint on it," Cisco Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer Pankaj Patel told PTI.

Apart from the US and India, there is not a single country where there is investment across all the technology bets that Cisco has, he added.

Patel is responsible for leading the development and execution of Cisco's USD 6.3 billion technology portfolio across a global team of more than 25,000 employees.

Globally, the over USD 47 billion firm has filed over 19,000 patents and has 170 labs.
The Indian unit started in 1996 with 10 employees and about 12 patents were filed in 1998. Today, we have over 11,000 employees of which 8,000 are engineers and about 830 patents filed.

"New products are being conceptualised, designed and architected out of India. I cannot stress enough the importance that India has for us," he said.

Some of Cisco's prominent R&D units are located at San Jose, Boston, Raleigh, China, Durham and Tel Aviv.

"We had decided to design products in India for footprint, energy consumption and scalability. The ASR 901 was the first Cisco product to be entirely developed out of India and now, it is a huge hit in developed countries as well," Patel said.

The success of the ASR 901 has certainly strengthened the strong recognition Cisco has for the huge potential for innovation from India, he added.

"As we like to say at Cisco, we came to India for the costs, we stayed for the quality, we invested for innovation, and now we are creating a new industry," he said.

Asked if the company will increase its R&D headcount in India, Patel declined to comment on specific numbers but said "growth in India is not going to taper for headcount".

The networking giant invests as much as USD 1.7 billion annually in its operations in India across areas like R&D and employee training.

In 2005, Cisco had announced USD 1 billion investment into India as direct investments into R&D, leasing and finance, sales and support and venture capital, highlighting the importance of the Indian market.

Then in 2007, the company launched its Globalisation Centre East in Bangalore, as a second headquarters for Cisco, to explore how to globalise talent, innovation and growth.
It also announced an additional USD 100 million venture capital funding to expand investments in early-stage Indian companies.

Cisco Chairman & CEO John Chambers had also said the company is betting big on India. Although the company gets about 2 per cent of its over USD 48 billion global revenues from India, it is confident of this share growing to 5 per cent in the next five years.

Last year, the venture capital arm of Cisco -- Cisco Investments -- had announced an additional allocation of USD USD 40 million to fund early-stage firms in India under the 'India Innovation theme'.