【正文】 CASE: GS66 DATE: 06/05/09 CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.: COLLABORATING ON NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTION On November 13, 2020, more than 100 employees of Cisco Systems, Inc. assembled in classic Cisco fashion: they dialed in from multiple locations around the world for an important meeting. The purpose of the gathering was to get the green light from senior management to manufacture a new highend router that would make the giant working pany more petitive in an 1age of surging Inter traffic. The project‘s code name, Viking, said it all. The router for broadband service providers would break ground in power and speed, reminiscent of the Norse warriors and explorers of Europe during the eighth to eleventh centuries. The meeting represented a culmination of several years of development work by a crossfunctional, global team of Cisco specialists in engineering, manufacturing, marketing and other areas. Just months earlier, in mid2020, Cisco overhauled the project by sharply boosting the router‘s speed and capacity. This would allow the pany to leapfrog petitors and offer a lowcost, powerful new router platform for the next 10 to 15 years. That day in November, the Viking team was seeking an ―execution mit‖ from senior management in manufacturing. If it got the goahead, Cisco would be ready to mit the resources to launch the new product. But the Cisco team knew it faced many challenges. The Viking project would be one of the pany‘s most plex new product introductions ever. First, even though the project had been essentially restarted in mid2020, Cisco was still aiming to announce the machine in November 2020. That would give it just a year to line up manufacturing, supply chain and marketing arrangements—an unusually accelerated schedule. Second, Cisco, which outsourced virtually all its manufacturing, wanted to start making the highend router immediately in a lowcost location: China. This differed from Cisco‘s past practice of outsourcing a plex new product in the United States first and later shifting overseas once production matured. Third, 1 This case is based on interviews conducted by the authors from January 13, 2020 to March 9, 2020. All quotes and references are from these interviews unless otherwise noted. Maria Shao prepared this case under the supervision of Professor Hau Lee as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright ?? 2020 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, the Case Writing Office at: or write: Case Writing Office, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 518 Memorial Way, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 943055015. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means –– electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise –– without the permission of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Purchased by Benjamin Tso () on February 20, 2020 Cisco Systems, Inc.: Collaborating on New Product Introduction GS66 p. 2Cisco proposed to use one of its contract manufacturers, Foxconn Technology Group, to build the product in Shenzhen, China, and to give Foxconn a broad role overseeing manufacturing and the supply chain. But Foxconn had never made such a plex product for Cisco. Could Foxconn handle the technical plexity while producing the router from Day One in China? Could Cisco find ways to engage closely with Foxconn and mitigate the risks? Finally, Viking would test Cisco‘s wellhoned new product introduction, or NPI, expertise. The project would require tremendous global collaboration among farflung teams within Cisco, and close coordination with Foxconn‘s manufacturing site half a world away from Cisco‘s San Jose headquarters and labs. CISCO‘S TRACK RECORD AND COMPETENCIES Company Background Cisco was a classic Silicon Valley story of success, rising from geeky startup to worldclass corporation. The pany was founded in 1984 by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a husbandwife duo of Stanford University puter specialists who experimented with working different buildings on campus. Their work led to the creation of the ―multiprotocol‖ router that enabled disparate puter works to talk to each other, in much the same way as different 2,3telephone works were linked. The pany became the leader in selling working gear to corporations。 it quickly expanded into sales to telemunications and broadband service providers and, later, to consumers. In the 1990s, Cisco emerged as a leader in working technology for the Inter age, respected for both its technology and management practices. At the helm was John T. Chambers, who became chief executive officer in 1995 and went on to bee one of the world‘s most visible CEOs, considered a tech visionary and management guru. Cisco enjoyed meteoric growth during the 1980s and 1990s. It went public in February 1990. Just eight and a half years later, its market value topped $100 billion, reaching that mark faster 4than any pany in history. In March 2020, for a brief time during the Inter boom, Cisco became the world‘s most valuable pany, with a market capitalization of more than $500 5billion. Even after the dot crash, the pany grew at a healthy clip. Revenue increased at a pound annual rate of percent between 2020 and 2020. The pany earned $ billion on sales of $ billion in fiscal 2020, which ended July 28, 2020. It made a profit of $ 6billion on revenue of $ billion in fiscal 2020, which ended July 26, 2020. 2―Cisco Systems Corporate Timelin