Is Cisco's hubris the subject of a new book?
Sun, 7/11/10 - 1:27am View comments
Cisco's promoting a new book, Doing Both, that's authored by Cisco's Senior Vice President, Strategy and Planning, Worldwide Operations - Inder Sidhu.
Visitors to the new book's website are immediately met with the following ballyhoo regarding Cisco's breathtaking greatness as the self-anointed masters of the business universe (at least in my personal opinion):
"Over the past seven years, in a highly unstable global economy, Cisco doubled revenue, tripled profits, and quadrupled earnings per share. How?
"By Doing Both.
"When companies face key strategic decisions, they often take one path and abandon the other. They focus on innovation and new business models at the expense of core businesses or vice versa. They stress discipline and sacrifice flexibility. They focus on customers and ignore partners.
"And they struggle.
"Cisco believes there is a better way: Doing Both."
I'm even more amazed at Cisco's braggadocious attitude towards itself, especially when taking into consideration Cisco's stock price vs. Apple's stock price chart below:
I mean, it certainly appears (at least to me anyways), that investors and Wall Street have NOT demonstrated the same sort of confidence that Cisco itself appears to have in regard to its breathtaking greatness as the self-anointed masters of the business universe!
So, why would any executive of a publicly-held company seeking to increase shareholder wealth read Cisco's new book?
