Cisco CEO John Chambers asks IT cos to bet on India

Asking IT companies from across the world to bet on India, technology giant Cisco's outgoing CEO John Chambers on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has got it "right" with his 'Digital India' thrust.

Digitalisation will help create millions of jobs and enhance standard of living of people, he said. "(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi in India gets this. If you are going to bet on emerging country, bet on India," he said while addressing a huge gathering of IT professionals and other experts during his last keynote address at Cisco Live 2015 event here.

"I mean, they (India) know this is their chance to get this inflection point and blow ahead of all their peers as well as create jobs for...millions. They can change dramatically their standard of living," he added. 

Chambers said he would soon visit India. "Chuck and I will be India in a week and a half...," he said. Chuck Robbins is the incoming CEO.

Leaders in countries like India know how digitisation would transform their country and create a competitive environment for the future, he said.

The digital world would help in creating more jobs, boost growth, improve healthcare systems, increase innovation and improve education among other benefits, he added. Networking giant Cisco is betting big on India buoyed by strong performance in the Indian market.

The company, which gets about 2 per cent of its global revenues from India, expects the contribution to grow in the coming years.

Cisco employs over 10,000 people in India across cities like Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. Of these, 8,000 people are part of the R&D set up.

Chambers had earlier expressed optimism about Modi's leadership in steering growth in the world's second most populous market. The government had last year approved an umbrella programme Digital India comprising various projects worth about Rs 1 lakh crore (about USD 15.6 billion) to transform the country into a digitally empowered knowledge economy.

The programme includes projects that aim to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically and people get benefit of the latest information and communication technology.

The vision of government under Digital India project includes creation of ICT infrastructure like high speed Internet at gram panchayat level, on demand availability of government services like health, education etc, and digital empowerment of citizens specially through digital literacy.