Cisco preps reorg of sales, services, engineering
Cisco on Thursday reorganized around five key areas: Routing, switches and service, collaboration, data center virtualization and cloud; video and architectures for business transformation.
The company said that the changes were made to simplify its operating model---although "architectures for business transformation" sounds a bit murky.
According to Cisco, the reorg will happen in the next 120 days, but sales changes will wait until July 31---the start of the company's fiscal year. The networking giant has been under the gun since it has missed estimates for the last four quarters. Last month, CEO John Chambers said the company lost focus and needs to change. A few days later Cisco killed off its consumer focused Flip line of cameras.
Among the moving reorg parts:
- Worldwide sales will focus on three regions---Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific/Japan/China. The groups will be managed by geography, but focus on key customer segments. Robert Lloyd will continue to head the unit.
- Cisco Services will focus on the same customers segments---large enterprise, public sector, commercial and small businesses---as sales. Gary Moore, operating chief at Cisco, will lead the unit.
- Engineering will span Cisco's five focus areas. Senior vice presidents Pankaj Patel and Padmasree Warrior will co-lead the group. An emerging business group inside engineering run by senior vice president Marthin De Beer will focus on early phase businesses.
- Cisco's cross-functional councils, which have been knocked by analysts, will become three focused on enterprise, service provider and emerging countries. Sales and engineering will have resource allocation and profitability targets and the accountability to hit those targets.
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