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Cisco's Chambers mulls Indian manufacturing base

Come to Pune or miss the bus, apparently. Also, you rock harder than Shelbyville

Cisco has foreshadowed adding India to its global manufacturing chain, suggesting the city of Pune as a possible location.

John Chambers made the comments in a speech to the CNN Business Forum 2016 in Mumbai, as reported by India's Economic Times.

The former Cisco CEO, and now executive chairman, said businesses who fail to invest in India would “miss the bus” because of the speed of the digital transformation in that country.

India has the opportunity to become “the manufacturing hub for Asia”, he added. The country's rapid developments in the auto industry, he said, could be extended to electronics, high-tech and pharmaceuticals, letting India “leapfrog your counterparts”.

“Eighteen months ago, I said if you want to bet on one country, it is India as the country is in sync with the speed of innovation in the current digital age”, he said.

Certainly, India is a bright spot in the Cisco world, joining with China to give a 17 per cent boost to its Asia-Pacific performance in last week's quarterly financials.

Along with locals like Tata Motors, Pune has attracted internationals like General Electric, and auto industry names like Daimler Benz, Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen. It's the ninth most-populous city in India and the second biggest in the state of Maharashtra (behind Mumbai). Pune is about 120 km south-east of Mumbai. ®

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