Name: Why Cisco's John Chambers is betting on French businesses
Uploaded: 2015-02-19
Duration: 4 min 50 s
Description: Fortune’s Susie Gharib kicks off’s Fortune’s new series “From the Corner Office” with a one-on-one interview with the Cisco CEO.

If you would have told me Europe would become a digital continent a year ago I would say I think they should but it was not it was not likely to happen. You ask me today France is actually going to lead. Germany is going to follow. U. K. right after that. Northern Europe. And so what we're seeing is a reinvestment in this next generation of the internet as you will. This digital era. and I was just in France this last week. If you'd told me France was going to lead at digital transformation in Europe a year ago I'd have said no. But their business, which are represented by an organization called Medaff, which is all seven hundred fifty thousand French companies come together to negotiate with government et cetera. A year ago, convinced me that their country was gonna change. Then I saw, at the Consumer Electronics Show, 66 French startups. Second in the world here. US was first, France was second. And I saw a changing, of the entrepreneurship in France. Then I met the government leaders. And even though I probably would be part of the other party, if I was in France. The government leaders and president Alon, he gets it. Prime minister Valls he understands it, secretary of defense LaDuran he gets it there, eco, economic minister Makram understands it. And the point that I'm making is they understand the future of their country for GDP growth. For job creation, inclusion of everyone, broadband to every citizen within France, smart cities, security across the board. National infrastructure will rest on forming a partnership, and they partner with Cisco in a way no French government has ever partnered with any company. [ INAUDIBLE ] But how would you describe the health of the US economy right now? From your perspective. Very solid, very good. Our business and commercial market place growing 12 %. U. S. grew seven percent last quarter. We're very optimistic about U. S. enterprise. Our companies are reinventing themselves. Cisco is the company now that can suddenly partner with these companies. To help them do this digital transformation to the second generation of the internet. Mm- hm. Mm- hm. Like we did 15 years ago for the first generation. So I'm very optimistic about our country. You know a lot of people, especially big global companies like Cisco are very concerned about the US dollar. It's getting stronger and stronger. Does the strong dollar help or hurt your company? It hurts a little bit. But again, Susie, this is the world we live in. We talked about the speed of change. It's exponential now. Mm- hm. 40 % of the companies watching this interview will not exist in a meaningful way in ten years. You've gotta reinvent yourself. And rather than fighting change, and you've done this in your career multiple times, you've gotta say where is the market going and how do you move to where the market's going? And so the strong dollar is just a factor in today's world. It's a variable that will change up and down, and you have to build an organization that doesn't get knocked over easily. And so the strong dollar, it might. Slow our sales a little bit or we might not sell quite as much in a given country or pressure perhaps on discounting. But we grew the best we have in three years this last quarter in every major geography around the world. And so the balance. [ UNKNOWN ] What's your take on higher interest rates? As you know everybody is freaking out Yeah. that the Federal Reserve is going to raise interest rates at some point this year. Even if it's a small increase in interest rates they are very concerned about their growth prospect. What is, what is your take on higher rates? What's going to be the impact on your company and businesses in general? I think raising of interest rates in inevitable. If they don't it means our economy is not recovering. And as those interest rates raise you just gotta be able to adjust to it. So just like I don't use those excuses of a stronger dollar for sales on a global basis. We actually grew well globally. I, same thing on interest rates. I look for them to increase a little bit. That's built into our planning. I don't think it will have a major impact on our economy or direction. And as long as the confidence in business leaders and consumers hold up, I'm pretty optimistic about the US economy next 12 to 24 months. Investors have been very confident and optimistic about Cisco in just the past week since you came out with your earnings. The stock has been up almost 10 %. Mm- hm. Do you see this momentum continuing? I feel very good about Cisco's future. We're at a seven year high on the stock, I personally felt comfortable with our strategy three years ago, when we started into the transformation. The market said let's wait and see. And, in this market, where high- tech companies can rise to the top and fall remarkably quickly, Cisco's been through five of these transitions. Each time we come out of it even stronger. So if you watch what is occurring in our industry, where you wanna be technology- wise, the cloud, mobility, security, collaboration. Mm- hm. The Internet of everything. You want to be part of this digital economy that's now occurring. And we're not only in each one of them, we're leading our customers, and leading our partners into this. So this is like the 90's all over again. [ LAUGH ] I've seen the movies. Susie I'm just trying not to mess it up.

Fortune’s Susie Gharib kicks off’s Fortune’s new series “From the Corner Office” with a one-on-one interview with the Cisco CEO.

Why Cisco's John Chambers is betting on French businesses

Leadership

He says they're leading a digital revolution. 