Inside Cisco: The Real Story of Sustained M&A Growth

From the Publisher: Networking giant Cisco Systems is a dominant technology company with $19 billion in fiscal revenues and 30,000 employees. Yet, despite its size, Cisco retains its entrepreneurial spirit, responding to marketplace demands with remarkable speed using a combination of product innovation and technological advances. Inside Cisco provides a Silicon Valley insider's view of the company's core strategies with emphasis placed on Cisco's "Gold Standard" acquisition practices. Critical to Cisco's historical success has been its powerful commitment to expanding its product line and level of expertise through smart acquisitions. With Inside Cisco, Silicon Valley veteran Ed Paulson delivers the unique M&A philosophy of Cisco Systems and outlines the management and financial procedures used to create these acquisition successes. Beginning with an examination of a corporate culture specifically designed to acquire and assimilate other companies, Inside Cisco explores every aspect of the firm's acquisition and development (A&D) process, refined through Cisco's deals with over seventy corporations. Through extensive research as well as access to current and former Cisco executives, Paulson reveals how Cisco buys companies for their people, technology, products, and intellectual capital and not simply as a financial operation. Inside Cisco gives the business and finance world an inside peek at how Cisco has consistently profited from its acquisition strategy, as have the companies it has purchased. Paulson's detailed examination of Cisco's acquisitions process provides excellent background for business and finance executives intending to use acquisitions as part of their company's growth strategy. Insightful and comprehensive, Inside Cisco reveals one of the most successful acquisition approaches in the business world today and provides an M&A best practices guidebook that can be applied in any industry.