Cisco also purposely designed its products so that they can interface with any technology protocols customers may need.
Another way that management at Cisco deals with rapid change in their industry is to partner with multiple companies who perform elements of it's business that are required to deliver products and services, but are not core to the Cisco organization. By partnering with other organizations that have complementary cores, an organization can achieve the benefits of industry scale and innovation that it could not achieve it if tried to do everything itself (Hutley et al, 2003). .
In addition, instituting new management methods that empower employees and place less emphasis on efficiency and more on creativity and innovation enables Cisco to be more efficient, and much more effective at reacting quickly to competitive and technological change (Dessler 2001).
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Globalization.
Globalization is the new frontier of business - all businesses must be able to adapt to the increased competition that comes with it. Dessler stated in his text, Management Theory, Practice and Application, that, "globalization is nothing more than the extension of a firm's sales or manufacturing to new markets abroad" (p. 33). In theory, one could say the more coverage a business has in the world market, the more business it will do. However, businesses need to be able to communicate globally. Cisco Systems has been able to acknowledge this need by providing Internet Protocol (IP) telephones to businesses all over the world. In an August 7, 2002 press release, Cisco Systems announced the shipment of its one-millionth IP telephone in less than two years. During August of 2000 to July 2002, Cisco increased its IP telephony customer base from approximately 1,000 to over 5,000 enterprises worldwide and has been shipping on average over 2,000 IP telephones each business day (Lopez 2003). Cisco Systems is controlling a segment that services businesses with the tools need for the globalization trend.
