The Goddess Shines on America

"Does it snow a lot up there in London?"

"It's not too big, but the frost is not small. The visibility of the plane is really unsatisfactory. I almost fell asleep in the waiting room."

A group of people walked quickly into the company building, crossed the front desk and went straight to the elevator, and Alice hadn't come to the company for a long time and was looking around. The noisy voices of the reporters can still be heard outside the house. It is very necessary for them to avoid the peak dining hours of the guests, so of course the best way is to work for a while first.

"This job...is complicated to say the least, but it's also simple."

As the elevator was going up, Bosak said: "It is absolutely not enough for us to promote the new standard, or even for British Telecom alone. We must unite most companies and form an organization like a trade union. This is the way to spread the standard. The interpersonal aspect of the…”

"We're going to go public soon, less than a month away." The elevator door opened, and Alice walked out first. This is not a cafeteria, but the top-floor office area: "So it's better to wait for the new CEO to arrive first. .”

This sentence made the brows of the executives behind him tremble.

Up to now, of course, Cisco has always been Alice's company, and has occupied about 70% of the shares. The other two big heads are divided equally by the Bosacks, one is the director of the technical department, the other is the manager of the customer service department, Running the company inside and out.

As for the traditional CEO position, strictly speaking, the company has not established this position, and the actual responsibilities are basically divided between Alice and Sandy Bosack. One is the development plan in the general direction, and the other is the actual dealings with many customers on a daily basis. The daily work of the CEO is nothing more than these two.

In fact, think about it, the current Cisco is quite similar to the historical Cisco, that is, the management system is a bit chaotic, and the absolute technology is paramount.

Among the current total of about 1,000 employees, programmers and engineers occupy a full 600 seats, and they are all managed by Bosak, the internal minister and external director, anyway, almost such a title. The other 400 people sorted out customer service, product market research and operation promotion, and even the remaining parts of the accounting department and logistics personnel. Most of the daily chores are managed by Sandy Bosack, which feels like a good wife.

Of course, no one could ignore the existence of Alice. Don't look at how many days she can't stay in the company in a year, but the most important progress of the company is all brought by her.

The most decisive order is what she provides, whether it is the order of the university campuses in the entire California area as the starting income of the entire company, or the order introduced by Vice President Bush, the order of the government agencies at all levels in the small half of the East Coast , can all bring brand-new changes to the company.

Furthermore, all the technologies are also brought by her. Routers, switches, and firewalls, the patents of these three main products are Alice's own, and when she throws the products to the technical department, they are either already finished products, or have almost perfect entire technical information, or are in the The semi-finished product that continues to be developed under her guidance, I really want to say what actual achievements this team of 600 people has achieved under the leadership of Posak...

There is only the recent cooperation with Lucent Technologies. For things like network card modules and optical modules, Alice bluntly claimed that she was not interested, and left it to the technical department to study slowly.

Well, thank you...

And now, finally a professional CEO is going to join the company?

"Indeed, when the company goes public, the scale will definitely expand countless times." Alona, ​​who was introduced by Sandy and approved by Alice to join the company's finance minister, said with a smile: "According to the current market situation, we will definitely become the second What about Apple. There are a thousand employees now, and I don’t know how much it will change in the future, but Alice..."

The door of the meeting room was opened, and Alona said, "Aren't you taking on the position of CEO yourself?"

This question was not answered immediately, and everyone filed into the meeting room first, Alice took the first place without hesitation, Sandy and Leonardo took the first place on the left and right, and the others soon took their seats, almost all Cisco The company's top management.

"The current situation is like this." After only three to five seconds of silence, Alice said: "You all know how many companies I have invested in, and I am honestly a full-time CEO of a certain company, but I am too talented. Well, how much?" Well, let's have a cup of milk tea."

Instructing the team leader of the technical department who was personally brought up by Bosak to attend the meeting, and said something that seemed extremely arrogant, Alice continued: "About the company's business strategy, in fact, I have already communicated with Sandy, It's the same for Leon. I think some of you here have only joined the company in recent months, so it's normal if you don't know the situation, um... congratulations on the company's expansion speed."

There was a burst of good-natured laughter from everyone. At the same time, within seconds, Donne, the team leader of the technical department, had already poured the milk tea and quickly brought it to Alice, and then ran back to the last seat of the conference table to sit down. This is a high-ranking official meeting, and being able to be brought by the minister to attend, it is obvious that he will be successful in the future!

Of course, Alice took Donne's mentality into consideration, glanced at Bosak, and continued her topic: "The first thing we need to know is that Cisco is facing a huge market worth at least 200 billion U.S. dollars."

"Internet hardware industry, and we are still the pioneer and leader, which means that our business scope can cover almost every part of network construction. Including routers, switches and other network equipment markets that make up the Internet and data transmission, almost all Can be controlled by Cisco."

"AT\u0026T, British Telecom, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, etc... With the continuous laying of network infrastructure, the amount of network information will soar every few months, and with it is the massive demand for hardware equipment volume. This means that our company’s business needs will continue to expand, but it also means greater challenges.”

A sentence is quite incisive, and it is definitely not something that an outsider who is completely ignorant of the industry can just open his mouth. The eyes of several new executives sitting in the far seats could not help but flicker. Even though the little boss rarely comes to the company, her understanding of the industry is no worse than professionals.

"As an equipment supplier, we must master high-tech and innovate constantly in order to maintain our leading position. But obviously, no one can invent all technologies one by one, even if the existing technical team is expanded by three or four times. Therefore, the path we should take after going public is to acquire companies that are developing new devices."

As the second founders, the Bosacks could only smile at this time, while the eyes of all the executives flickered, and they could not help but lean forward, listening to Alice's further explanation of the plan.

"The company's biggest advantage now is not the status of the industry leader, but the status of the founder of the industry." After a pause, Alice continued: "Whether it is a router or a switch, we are the first to invent them. Firewalls are not manufactured by other manufacturers. Only Lucent is cooperating with us on a more basic level. It can be said that the company’s expansion speed is very fast, and it has directly occupied most of the market in this emerging industry. You know What kind of situation is this?"

Seeing that the Minister of Marketing was about to speak, Alice raised her hand slightly to stop him, and concluded directly: "That is, we actually already have some redundant personnel. Bosak, to be reasonable, judging from the current work intensity of the technical department , In fact, it’s okay to cut the number of people in half, right?”

Posak nodded and said: "I understand what you mean. The new products manufactured by the R\u0026D department are completely unavailable in the industry, and we are unique. In other words, under the premise of no competitive pressure, even if we use the current It is also possible to develop those products with half the manpower and twice as much time as now."

The conversation between the two of them felt like they were playing charades, and the personnel director and other senior executives began to feel that it was difficult.

In fact, the reason is very simple. Around 1985, Alice directly threw a whole set of switch technology to Cisco to let them expand their financial channels. However, Cisco did not develop like this in history.

To be reasonable, if Alice hadn't established Cisco in advance, the first generation of routers would have been born at the end of 1986, and switches were foreign technologies acquired by Cisco from a small emerging company around 1993. The objective events are there. At that time, Cisco was already facing a situation where the top 100 companies were competing for hegemony. However, it is only the end of 1987, but it has already been galloping in this emerging market.

Then the question arises: Is there any difference between developing a product in three months and six months?

From the perspective of industry competition, not at all, because when Cisco developed switches, there were no similar products on the market. That is to say, the network card module and optical module that are currently being jointly developed with Lucent are old products that have existed in the market for a long time, and they are competitive.

"So, after we go public, it is necessary to change the focus of the company's development."

Alice concluded: "After listing, our scale is completely different from that before listing, and our new and old products will be imitated by countless companies. At that time, the best way to maintain core competitiveness will no longer be It's centered around Leon's technical department—which, of course, is important—but... Eds, your marketing department."

Seeing the excited expression on the minister's face, Alice smiled and said, "Give me a plan to form a CIA belonging to our Cisco. If there are any new products in the industry, or any new competitors, you will know." Let us know right away."

"Then, we'll buy them!"