Cisco India and CSR: Creating an ecosystem of giving back

The recent CNBC interview with Cisco chairman was an interesting piece where he talked about Cisco's plans in India and their system of CSR. Cisco Systems is a $40 billion networking giant headquartered in San Francisco and also in Bangalore. It has been consistently been praised for its CSR activities and John Chambers, CEO and Chairman again stressed that CSR is a "core business strategy". He talks about how CSR and business goes "hand-in hand".

Whilst talking about business in China, India and developed nations he commented that, "I usually find the emerging countries tend to think more out of box and willing to take perhaps good business risk, public private partnerships in the way perhaps the developed markets have not been willing to atleast step to this time". This he implies is a good thing for the future of CSR.

The Cisco Foundation is an important part of CSR at the company. Cisco is actively involved in helping during natural disasters - they responded to the earthquake in China, floods in India and a hurricane in the United States. This is part of their ongoing CSR activity and the company pledges money of millions of dollars for up to seven years towards community rebuilding efforts. For specific CSR goals such as disaster relief, they partner with organizations already working on the situation. They do specific raising of funds for that. They also are big on volunteerism and they expect each Cisco employee to take part in their CSR activities which is part of their culture as a company.

He talked about working with Governments to ensure that CSR goals are met.  One of the projects that Cisco is involved is in flood-hit Raichur district where they are heavily investing in community rebuilding. They have set a two year agenda to build five villages for those who were displaces by floods last year. This project is an example of public-private partnership as the government has allocated land for village rehabilitation. For Cisco, it is not about building home but leveraging the power of its network and technology to upgrade health and education services in the village. Mr. Chambers stressed that if only companies that are having good profit years are active in CSR and are giving only when they make profit, the key part of CSR is missed.

Finally he stressed the importance for companies to use their core business strengths to decide where they can make a difference. Cisco is synonymous with the internet and most of what is being done in the ICT sector is network enabled. This extends naturally to their work in education or healthcare to create jobs or change productivity the way other companies are not able to do. Mr. Chambers says that this type of CSR allows the company to learn as well, "We learn in corporate responsibility, we bring in main line business. So it is not only the right thing to do, it is good for the business".