【正文】 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。 access working and services。 execution。 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‖ management toward 14collaborative leadership that tapped into ―the collective expertise of all employees.‖ Cisco also began reinventing itself as a fully global corporation. By 2020, 43 percent of the 15pany‘s workforce was outside the United States. Fortyfive percent of its sales came from 16outside the United States and Canada. In December 2020, the pany announced the selection of India—where it already employed more than 2,000—as the site for its ―Cisco Globalization Center East,‖ the first in a series of globalization centers envisioned. The 11―Letter to Shareholders,‖ Cisco Systems 2020 Annual Report, 2020, , (February 5, 2020). 12 ―Cisco Selects India as Site for the Cisco Globalization Center,‖ Cisco Systems, Inc. press release, December 6, 2020, (February 5, 2020). 13 Form 10K for fiscal year 2020 ended July 28, 2020, Cisco Systems, Inc., (February 19, 2020). 14 ―Cisco Sees the Future,‖ interview with John Chambers, Harvard Business Review, November 2020, . 15 Form 10K for fiscal 2020, loc. cit. 16―Annual Report 2020,‖ Cisco Systems, Inc., 2020, , (March 8, 2020). Purchased by Benjamin Tso () on February 20, 2020 Cisco Systems, Inc.: Collaborating on New Product Introduction GS66 p. 5Bangalore center would develop new businesses and tap into India‘s technical brainpower. Cisco dispatched a senior executive from San Jose to head the center in Bangalore and to serve 17as ―chief globalization officer‖ for the pany. It was a step toward Chambers‘ goal of locating 20 percent of Cisco‘s top leadership outside the United States by 2020, shifting the 18pany toward globally distributed, collaborative management. Cisco employees relied heavily on the pany‘s own products to work across functions, time zones and national borders. These collaborative technologies included Cisco‘s Interbased phones, WebEx webconferencing products and TelePresence, a video conferencing system that projected highdefinition images onto large screens, sometimes filling an entire room. Summing up the worked mindset that defined Cisco, Chambers wrote to shareholders: The work, coupled with widespread broadband Inter access, has created a platform that eliminates time and distance as obstacles to working together toward mon goals…. This ability to collaborate across geographies and time zones has the power to transform business models forever…. In order to realize the opportunity ahead, we will transform our own business and change the way our pany is structured. At Cisco, this is an anizational and cultural revolution, moving from a hierarchical mandandcontrol model to a collaborative 19leadership approach governed by councils, boards and working groups. Creating a Global, Flexible Supply Chain In fact, Cisco already had gone far down the road of globalization and collaboration by transforming its supply chain management during the 1990s. Among tech panies, it was considered a leader in creating a globally worked and adaptive supply chain. The pany moved early and aggressively to outsource manufacturing. By the early twentyfirst century, virtually all of Cisco‘s production was done b