【正文】 e,‖ Cisco Systems, Inc., , (February 4, 2020). 3 ―Cisco Systems, Inc.: Acquisition Integration for Manufacturing,‖ GSB No. OIT26, January 1999 (revised February 3, 2020), . 4 Ibid., . 5 ―Cisco Systems Corporate Timeline,‖ op. cit., (February 5, 2020). 6―Annual Report 2020,‖ Cisco Systems, Inc., 2020, p. 18 (February 16, 2020). Purchased by Benjamin Tso () on February 20, 2020 Cisco Systems, Inc.: Collaborating on New Product Introduction GS66 p. 3Cisco‘s foundation technologies were routers and switches. Routers allowed at least two puter works to ―interconnect,‖ moving data packets, including text, voice and video, among disparate works. Routers were highly intelligent devices that determined the best path for forwarding packets, and they typically provided munication over long distances. Switches were simpler devices that monly linked segments within a local area work, passing along data by broadcasting packets to all other segments and generally involving less intelligence than a router. (Routers traditionally operated at Layer 3, or the ―work‖ layer of the OSI Reference Model, a sevenlayer topology for working defined by the Open Systems Interconnection initiative. Switches traditionally operated at Layer 2, the ―data link‖ layer of the OSI model.) Although both routers and switches played key roles in transmitting data, they did 7so in different ways and typically by operating on different scales. By the early 2020s, Cisco had expanded well beyond routers and switches into fastgrowing ―advanced technologies‖ that included home working gear, security technology, webconferencing products, and digital video settop boxes. Cisco believed it had an annual revenue opportunity of at least $1 billion in each product category within advanced technologies. By 2020, switches accounted for percent of the pany‘s product sales, routers 8percent and advanced technologies percent. The working giant was constantly broadening its portfolio of products and services through internal development, partnerships and an aggressive strategy of acquisitions. (Cisco purchased some 130 panies from 1993 9through 2020.) Cisco‘s success mirrored the Inter‘s growth. By the early twentyfirst century, broadband access and Inter traffic had taken off. Advances in digitization allowed all kinds of information, including text, data, voice, music and video, to be translated into the ones and zeros of puter language, capable of being transported on a single, converged work. Having staked its fortunes on supplying equipment for Inter Protocolbased traffic, Cisco found itself at the center of this convergence. Indeed, Cisco emerged as a pany that truly understood—and zealously championed—the power of information works. The pany often talked about ―the work as the platform‖ and it launched a branding campaign in 2020 called ―Wele to the Human Network‖ (later called ―The Human Network Effect‖), which highlighted the power of technology to connect 10people and change lives. It was a message that Chambers often espoused: ―The work is 7For more information on routers and switches, see ―The Differences Between Hubs, Switches and Routers,‖ asp。 Curt Franklin, ―How Routers Work,‖ and Jeff Tyson, ―How LAN Switches Work,‖ and ―Router‖, (February 27, 2020). 8―2020 Annual Report,‖ op. cit., , (February 5, 2020). 9―Acquisition Summary,‖ Cisco Systems, Inc., February 19, 2020, _year/ (February 19, 2020). 10―Cisco Systems Corporate Timeline,‖ op. cit., (February 5, 2020). Purchased by Benjamin Tso () on February 20, 2020 Cisco Systems, Inc.: Collaborating on New Product Introduction GS66 p. 4squarely at the center of innovation and is capable of changing the way people work, live, play 11and learn,‖ he wrote to shareholders. Collaboration and Globalization 12By 2020, nearly a quarter century after its founding, Cisco operated in more than 120 countries 13and employed 61,535 people. The business was anized into more than 40 business units, defined roughly by product spaces, such as core routing, edge routing, access routing or wireless working. Business units belonged to a half dozen broader groups such as service provider。 data center, switching and services。 access working and services。 software。 or consumer and small business. The broader groups made up Cisco‘s engineering or development anization, which was run by a ―development council‖ rather than a single executive. In addition, business units had access to panywide resources such as sales, services (known as customer advocacy within Cisco), marketing or manufacturing. In effect, the pany was anized both vertically and horizontally—or in a series of overlapping circles, as some described it—in order to promote multifunctional teamwork, a Cisco hallmark. Chambers had begun remaking Cisco into a collaborative, crossfunctional anization around 2020. He created ―boards,‖ ―councils,‖ and ―working groups‖ prised of some 500 senior executives from across the pany worldwide. These entities, which Chambers called the ―business equivalent of social working groups,‖ pursued initiatives—such as environmental sustainability or sportsrelated product development—through collaborative leadership. Working groups were accountable to boards, boards to councils, and councils to the Cisco ―operating mittee‖ that consisted of about two dozen senior executives. By one count, there were at least a dozen councils and three dozen boards by early 2020. In Chambers‘ view, this system allowed Cisco to take on more initiatives, make decisions more quickly, and evaluate opportunities broadly ―instead of just viewing them by silo or by function.‖ Most importantly, he believed, it moved Cisco away from hierarchical ―mandandcontrol‖ mana