【正文】 Inc.: Collaborating on New Product Introduction GS66 p. 7 Cisco was a leader in using technology to create information links throughout its extended supply chain. Its Autotest system, for instance, captured realtime data from the facilities of 26contract manufacturers, providing a ―one window‖ view of production lines around the world. In addition, according to Mendez, Cisco used information works to collaborate with customers, contract manufacturers and suppliers in areas such as demand management and 27planning, product quality improvement, and lean manufacturing. Innovating in New Product Introduction Cisco‘s business model called for boosting growth in part through rapid, aggressive introduction of a wide range of munications products. Indeed, the pany brought more than 250 new 28products to market in fiscal 2020. The pany had a welloiled machine for new product introduction, or NPI. The effort was led by a business unit‘s product development teams, with coordination and support from many other functions and groups within Cisco, as well as customers and supply chain partners. New product development required both technical expertise and management talent to understand the market, translate market needs into a product, and bring the product to market quickly. At the outset, marketing and engineering would talk to customers and define the product features. Then engineering and manufacturing would work together to ensure that the product design met market requirements and could be costeffectively produced. Employees from finance would help with budgeting and calculating a project‘s return on investment. The supply chain anization would work closely with the NPI team to influence which technologies and suppliers Cisco would use in the new product. Manufacturing specialists would ensure that the supply chain arrangements would facilitate a smooth rampup to mercial production and allow for lower manufacturing costs later in a product‘s life cycle, when profit margins would shrink. Cisco‘s NPI process involved three major stages: strategy and planning。 data center, switching and services。 access working and services。 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, coupl