John Chambers and the Cisco Way: Navigating Through Volatility

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 272 pages
• Published by: Wiley
• Edition: 1st Edition February 22, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0471008338
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471008330
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

Product Description
John Chambers and the Cisco Way gets to the heart of a phenomenon that has taken center stage of world business. Through expert analysis and insight acquired through extensive interviews with venture capitalists and Cisco executives, customers, and competitors, author John Waters skillfully explains the management style of CEO John Chambers and his role in Cisco Systems' success in the volatile technology sector.
Beyond exploring his key business strategies and management philosophy at Cisco, this book chronicles Chambers' amazing journey from IBM salesman to Cisco CEO. In just a few short years, Chambers has presided over the creation of more than $480 billion in stockholder value, and has expanded his company into nearly every part of the networking industry. John Waters gives readers an inside look at one of the most successful managers in history and places his story within the current business landscape and market environment, offering new insight into Chambers' innovative leadership.

From the Inside Flap
"Chambers is a West Virginia choirboy, soft-spoken, articulate, but inside he'll eat you up." --Peter Swartz, Analyst, Salomon Smith Barney

Cisco Systems's CEO John Chambers is one of this country's most dynamic and innovative chief executives. His team-oriented management style, technological agnosticism, and near-fanatical focus on customers fueled his company's unprecedented rise in the ultra competitive and volatile technology sector. His personal charisma, innate optimism, and natural competitiveness advanced not only his own remarkable career, but also the interests of his company and his industry. Under his leadership, Cisco dominated computer networking, expanded into critical new markets, and emerged as one of the world's most powerful and important businesses.

In his book, John Chambers and the Cisco Way: Navigating through Volatility, business and technology journalist John Waters investigates the Chambers/Cisco phenomenon. Through extensive interviews with industry analysts, venture capitalists, and Cisco executives, employees, customers, and competitors, Waters looks at one of the most successful management approaches in recent memory, and chronicles the career and vision of the chief executive responsible for it.

Tracing Chambers's personal journey from computer salesman to Fortune 500 CEO, Waters considers the man and the manager in the context of today's volatile economy. Weaving the vision, philosophy, and career of Chambers with the emergence, management, and growth of Cisco Systems, he delivers an honest portrait of one of our most compelling business leaders, an executive who may well be the quintessential Information Age CEO.

The story of Chambers's rise to prominence and the evolution of Cisco Systems at the end of the twentieth century holds valuable lessons for seasoned executives, budding entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in business today.

Reader Reviews
This book covers some of Cisco's corporate and Chambers' personal history. However the book does not present any detailed analysis of either. Instead it relies on press-release and newspaper excerpts to document parts of the Cisco and Chambers story. It does not appear that the author had much direct access to John Chambers. In places, the book presents analysis which is either naive or false. For example, the book claims that Cisco viewed Sycamore as a "big-eight" competitor at one point. I am sure Cisco viewed Sycamore as a competitor, but it could not have viewed it as an imminent threat - Sycamore was a tiny startup born in the late 90s around the same time as Juniper. Sycamore was always a much smaller threat than Juniper was and both companies were (probably) 1/100th the size of Cisco (or smaller) in terms of revenue. All in all, this book is suitable for somebody who wants to get a broad view of cisco's evolution. It is not suitable for somebody looking for precise facts or for deep business analysis.