Cisco Portugal growth leveraged by security and hybrid work areas – Observer
The director general of Cisco Portugal says, in an interview with Lusa, that the last fiscal year for security technology was “good”, having registered “double-digit” growth, leveraged by the security and hybrid areas.
Cisco’s fiscal year starts in August and ends in July.
“We still caught August 2021, the last phase of the pandemic’s problems, but it really was a good year for Cisco Portugal”, says Miguel Almeida.
The digital market “has been growing (…), the Cisco has obviously been growing together“, proceeding.
“We have double-digit growth” in the fiscal year ended in July, he says, without giving any figures, since it is not the practice of the group to reveal data.
The director-general stressed that the technology is “grow in areas” that are “critical” like security and hybrid work.
“Areas such as security, the hybrid issue, have seen great growth, not only in this area of hybrid applications, but obviously for security as well” because “there are many more challenges in terms of security than four years ago,” he adds.
Then there is also the transformation of infrastructure, which is always twospecific areas“: the critical infrastructures of work, which have to improve their aspects around security and connectivity” and everything that has to do with hybrid work, namely because of networks.
Currently, as networks “are very important not only for people to work through their offices, but obviously to work through their home”, he points out.
“We raised a lot of growth, leveraged on the issue of security” because, currently, it is important around the business, “not objectively by the change only in the times, leveraged on the issue of security”, which leverages, “not objectively by the change only in the processes , is of great importance, but also of great importance to the home office, is also of great importance, but also of great importance to the home office, is also of great importance. here is an enormous need for us to expand, develop how our security policies around associations“, he says.
As for the expectations for the current fiscal year, these are to “continue to grow in both areas: safety and hybrid work”, similar to what is also happening in the group.
“Another big issue that we are dealing with and that is now accelerating is, of course, European funds. This is a great opportunity for the country to implement digital and, of course, to work with many entities in the public sectors and to take advantage of it”, says Miguel Almeida.
At this moment, digital “is no longer a sector of the economy, but a practice that the entire economy seeks”, see, that is, digitization has become part of the organizations DNA.
On the impact of the war, the rise in energy costs, the current economy, the general director of Cisco Portugal.
“We felt the impact on two big issues in IT [tecnologias de informação]: one of them is in the supply chain”, a big change in the chain compared to the last few years, “and the other is the logistics“, he points out, being that “both are completely different” from what they were in the past.
Even before the pandemic? “Even worse, to be honest”, concludes the technology manager.
“Certain elements of the business are now worse” than at the time of the pandemic, namely the cost of energy, freight, among others, and “this is not good for the economy”, he underlined.
Regarding these problems, they will continue until the end of the year, although no one has a ‘crystal ball’, Miguel Almeida highlights that his “personal expectation” points out that the situation “will continue until the end of the year”.
In his opinion, “the Europe is going to have a hard winter“, whether in terms of energy costs, such as prices of goods.
Asked about the importance of the Portuguese subsidiary in the group, Anna Barker senior from Cisco Customer Experience Center (CX Center), highlights that Portugal “is very strategic” for Cisco.
Portugal is the third major office that the multinational Cisco has in Europe.
“We are absolutely committed to continuing to build growth here,” asserted Anna Barker, noting that the CX Center officially took off in 2019.
Since then “We grew from around 30 workers to around 200” and “We continue to grow”, advising, hoping that part of this increase in staff happened the pandemic, which was during an “extra challenge” for Cisco.
“Consequences of training people for the country, motivation for the growth of talent, for an understanding of the whole country, for the excellence of work, is the reason for a discovery for the whole world, excellent for people, which is known from all over the world [para o CX Center]”, as well as from Portugal, he says.
In fact, “we have a mix of international and local talent”, and Cisco has a close relationship with Técnico and Nova universities.
“Lisbon is a strategic location and will remain so. We are very proud of the growth we have seen in recent years”, concludes Anna Barker.
Miguel Almeida highlights that one of Cisco’s bets, which currently has around 1,000 workers in Portugal, is “retain talent“.
Anna Barker who as partnerships with licenses highlights a “strong” connection to talent and that the ability to tech careers and enable students and graduates to be “part of something bigger” is one of the company’s attractions.
“It helps us to be number one [na classificação] the best place to work in Portugal” for “two years in a row and be in the ‘top 3′ for 10 years“, giving Cisco the upper hand when looking for talent, argues Anna Barker.
At the moment, “43% of our workforce are women” and “we have 42 nationalities”, he says.
Regarding the Cisco Networking Academy program, “we have more than 48,000 students already graduated”, says the general director of Cisco Portugal.
“It is very important because we are developing the Portuguese in terms of IT talent”, he emphasizes.
As for the goal of hiring people this fiscal year, Almeida says: “Our affirmation is to grow whenever two”.