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Cisco Exec: Turnover In Engineering No Problem
alphadogg (971356) writes The engineering reorganization currently underway at network giant Cisco Systems is intended to streamline product development and delivery to customers. That it is prompting some high profile departures is an expected byproduct of any realignment of this size, which affects 25,000 employees, says Cisco Executive Vice President Pankaj Patel, who is conducting the transformation. "People leave for personal business reasons," Patel said in an interview with Network World this week. "Similar transformations" among Cisco peers and customers "see personnel change of 30% to 50%."
It's interesting what Cisco is becoming.
A decade, even half a decade, ago, Cisco was greatly admired for their ability to acquire without attrition. When a company acquired another company, you usually saw 10-12% attrition in the first 6 months, after the pay-for-stay for key personnel expired, and another 8-10% at the end of 12 months. That meant that between 18% and 22% of what you just bought had walked out your door in your first year.
Cisco's numbers were 2% and 5% for 6 and 12 months, respectively. Cisco knew how to do an "acquihire", and keep the talent that it bought the company for, and in acquisitions which weren't simply talent plays, it knew how to do that too.
It seems that this expertise has been lost along the way, or that in one of these annual "transformations", something broke. Either way, with the way they are acting like IBM Global Services these days, or perhaps the post acquisition EDA or post-divestiture Agilent, they are unlikely to be able to repeat their past successes in acquisition, since the trust has been lost.
Which is really a shame, since they were the envy of the entire tech industry for their capability in this regard, not just Silicon Valley. We used to have meetings at IBM about how we could possibly do what they did, with the numbers they got, and thus avoid killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Similar meeting took place at Apple, particularly prior to the acquisition of P.A. Semi (and much of the team deserted Apple for places like Google anyway, after the lockout handcuffs were removed so that the people who were there prior to the acquisition could cash out and skedaddle.
It's interesting what they are becoming, because it's not the old Cisco; it most resembles, if I had to pick a company and an era, the post Carly Fiorina H.P.; here's hoping it doesn't turn out the same for them, and that they can correct their course before the rudder falls off entirely.