Cisco looks for Indian suppliers
By Jim Carbone -- Purchasing, 8/31/2006 12:26:00 PM
Like many global OEMs, Cisco Systems expects India to become a huge market for its products. At the same time, the company is looking to develop its supply chain in India to support the company domestically as well as globally.
Developing a supply chain in India is one of Cisco’s sourcing challenges over the next several years, says Steve Darendinger, vice president of advanced sourcing at Cisco.
“We’re deciding how we want to establish our supply chain for the indigenous customer and, longer term, where India fits within our overall supply chain,” he says.
He notes from an infrastructure standpoint, India is about 10 years behind China. The supply base there is also limited.
“Solectron, Flextronics and Jabil are there, but they are not producing a tremendous amount yet, but over time they will,” he says. But EMS companies have plans to expand in India. As that occurs, many more global suppliers will move in to support EMS business and indigenous suppliers will sprout up.
Darendinger says India’s advantage is that it has an educated workforce with a lot of technical expertise.
The challenge for Darendinger and Cisco will be to develop the capabilities of Indian suppliers to world class levels as quickly as possible ahead of its competition.
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