Cisco Case

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Cisco Systems Case Follow-up On September 7, 1999, Lucent Technologies announced that it would purchase INS for $3.7 billion. Within minutes the phone in the office of Don Listwin, Cisco System's EVP, began to ring. Most calls were from colleagues who had received "feelers"� from INS employees seeking employment at Cisco. That day, he was contact directly or indirectly by at least 25 of INS's managers and engineers who were personal friends of Cisco executives about possible openings at the company. It was apparent to Listwin that the company would have to make a quick decision about whether it should set any limits on the number of INS employees to hire in the wake of the sale of the company.

The INS Decision In spite of the desire of founders of INS to be acquired by Cisco, no offer was forthcoming. After deliberating with his senior executive team, John Chambers, Cisco CEO, had decided not to take a proposal for the acquisition to his board.

Instead, Cisco's representative on the INS board, Charlie Giancarlo, excused himself from voting on the issue. The issues that carried the day among most discussants were the fear that the acquisition of INS would significantly involve Cisco in a new business, one that would create a distraction for the company while signaling to partners and customers alike that the horizontal integration that Cisco had relied upon was being compromised. Others were concerned that Cisco would not be able to integrate 2,000 new employees into its culture at one time, particularly employees with distinctly different skill levels. Doug Allred, Sr. Vice President for Customer Advocacy and a participant in the discussions summed it up by saying "If you're the leading arms maker, why would you want to buy an army?"� Fallout With his phone ringing constantly,