Cisco 2002 Annual Report Download - page 6

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Innovation
As dramatic changes occurred in the marketplace, we restructured our engineering team to focus
on where the market is going, not where it has been. We believe in the concept of Network of
Networks, in which service provider networks, our customer networks, the Internet, wireless, cable,
and other environments are seamlessly implemented. CIOs and technologists will decide on which
type of infrastructure they implement, and Cisco will be the company to deliver the networks that
provide the greatest productivity gains, regardless of network type. While we are truly excited about
growth markets, we have organized our engineering team to focus on our core technology markets
today and the growth markets of the future. In very simple terms, we are concentrating on core
routing and switching, and new growth markets. In conceptual terms, we are creating an end-to-end
shared, common architecture for both hardware and software. This is unique to Cisco.
People and Giving Back
As always, our employees continue to be our strongest asset, and we are very pleased that even
during the tough times Cisco continues to be voted one of the best places to work in America
and also in our industry. One of Cisco’s core values is employee ownership, and in a very tough
environment our employee base feels empowered in terms of company success, which historically
has allowed us to achieve success relative to our peers. It is this ownership that we truly believe
helped our employees to drive toward success, despite the challenges of this year.
It is also our view that the most successful companies give back to their communities, and we continue
to expand our corporate-giving focus. This year we sponsored the NetAid World Schoolhouse, helping
thousands of children worldwide have a better chance in life through education. In October 2002, the
Cisco Networking Academy™Program will
celebrate its five-year anniversary. Today,
this program includes 9,900 Academies
worldwide, with more than 263,000 stu-
dents learning to build the networks that
ultimately will make greater opportunities
possible. Through another endeavor, the
Cisco Community Fellows Program, Cisco
provided employees with opportunities to work for nonprofit organizations, and it has been a roaring
success. More than 21 organizations worldwide have benefited from the addition of these employees,
including Second Harvest Food Bank, which estimates it would have taken the organization five to
seven years to realize all of the improvements made to its operations by the fellowship program in just
this past year alone.
Moving to a discussion of our senior management team, we used this challenging time as a chance
to position our leadership organization for the future. In the last two years we evolved our team
both through internal promotions and external hiring, adding 50 percent new senior vice presidents
Customers clearly understand the productivity
opportunities and the associated standard of living
implications that Internet business solutions provide.