It is so simple that I have to stop myself from racing on to the next research topic, outline, or seminar or report to take time to consider what we repeatedly have known: Cisco’s growth over the years has occurred much through its “Innovation Acquisition and Development Strategy.”

Cisco, HP, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Juniper, and increasingly Huawei and other developing country suppliers have  prepared new products that focus on wireless broadband as an enhanced part of distributed, intelligent broadband networks. This causes reflection on Web 2.0, Business and Government 2.0, eCommerce 2.0, and Telecommuting 2.0. If monikers had blood guts, bones and sinew, they could have self-reproduce like a scene from Star Trek of about the same time the 2.0 theme first started to incubate in managers’ heads. Juniper appears to have prepared well while Cisco's purchase of Starent Networks strengthens its position in core networks. We have conducted interviews with Cisco, Starent, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, and picoChip, who are part of the broad supply and demand ecosystem of the greatly expanded universe of information and communication technology (ICT) that Mr. Chamber’s fabled acquisition teams grapple with in their quest for what some misinterpret as global domination.

It has always amazed me, coming from the haunts of aerospace, medical electronics and semiconductor industries, how there can be “100 number 1’s” in this industry, even in segments where there are only 30 primary supply companies. Unfortunately, this phenomenon shows no signs of having faded over the years, and is perhaps more boldly ignorant of reality than in the past: a 13 person company today claimed to be the first to develop inter-networking tools that I know are already in their third or fourth generation.  This is the kind of thing that makes us work into the night, with “miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep” (alas, childhood memories of the beloved poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost).

If we are to learn from the past to better move beyond it, or at least not repeat it, then we ‘Stand on the Shoulders of Giants.’ David Mayer’s working paper titled “Economic Action Does Not Take Place in a Vacuum: Understanding Cisco’s Acquisition and Development Strategy” described the practical approach to acquisitions and business practice that is a business case model for all to learn from. We stand on the broad shoulders of others in our own personal and group quest to unearth the truth. 

Case studies, however informative, do not duplicate real world experience. David Mayer teaches that financial and other models can be black boxes if kept in isolation from social and business interaction. Since 2002 much of the applications enabled by technology have changed or shifted to ride upon the flattened fabric of interpersonal, group, conglomerate, massively interconnected social networking. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are the buzz today. They either continue to evolve or to become better woven together with how people and organizations work and play, or they are the day’s equivalents of the 2000 decade ‘financial model black box’ recordings of the interactions of technology and human endeavor, school dissertation topics that repeat a formula, in turn decided upon decades prior.

 The Take Away:

Climb onto the shoulders that are dynamic models of innovation, not recordings of the past that teach but do not change. The best companies innovate; the best models are dynamic models that teach by example that is tested over time, acquisition by acquisition, one new product or model after the other as a process rather than a destination, a report or book to be written and cemented into hard copy. The day has come for the intelligent innovation business model. 

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For more information, contact the author at robert@maravedis-bwa.com

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