Cisco chief plans to hire in India and US

Cisco Systems Inc is going to hire in both India and the US and so will other companies, company chairman John Chambers said on Wednesday. "India is a great place to invest, it's a great market but is also a great source of well-educated resources," Chambers said.

India is a key market for Cisco and is witnessing a double-digit growth. The USbased company has about 11,000 employees in India, with a majority of them in R&D roles. He added that the two countries can work together to grow much faster together.

Earlier this year, Cisco started manufacturing operations in Pune and had said that it eventually plans to scale it up to make India an export hub. Chambers explained that when an Indian company hires 10,000 Americans in the US or Cisco hires in India, the same needs to be articulated and that USISPF would play that role.

 "We are not at all a lobbying organsition. We are a strategic organisation, a forum that is focused on how both countries can be successful," he added. USISPF includes prominent names like PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi and MasterCard president and CEO Ajay Banga.

It is wrong of Indian tech companies to displace American workers by using H-1B visas to send low-wage engineers to the US, Chambers said. "We have to be careful not to misstep. You cannot go in and take a whole bunch of H-1B visas and displace 500 American workers because you can do it at lower costs. That was just a mistake," said Chambers, also the chairman of the newly formed USIndia Strategic Partnership Forum.