Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today's Profit and Drives Tomorrow's Growth

Business wisdom not to be missed

This book demonstrates that optimal business decisions are not necessarily trade-offs between two choices but usually involve doing both. Written in an engaging, easy-to-read, story-telling style, the book offers numerous examples of how Cisco has been "doing both" to enable its success from multiple angles: technology innovation, market segmentation, supply chain management, organizational design, and more. Inder Sidhu's examples from his personal life are moving and help to make the book quite inspirational. A joy to read.

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A Tech classic in business analysis

An excellent, intelligent, pragamatic read on how a company's innovative culture and optimal decision making process has helped Cisco cross the chasm and made it a leader in the ever changing dynamic IT industry. Thought provoking and a must read for the next generation business leaders who want to make a "real" difference in this world.

Unique Insights Not To Be Missed

Business books are a "dime a dozen". Fortunately this book is one of those that stands apart from the pack. Insightful, thoughtful, compelling and thought provoking, "Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today's Profits and Drives Tomorrow's Growth" takes the reader on a dynamic journey into the inner workings of Cisco and it's remarkable transformation. Inder Sidhu's storytelling is highly entertaining and provides unique insights that today's business leaders must not miss. This book will be one that I highly recommend to my friends and colleagues.

Interesting and Inspiring

Inder begins with sharing how Cisco's TelePresence video conferencing technology has enabled him to see, hear and almost feel his mother's presence who is 8,000 miles away back home in India. The intro is touching and a friendly reminder of how technology has changed our lives in many ways and most importantly how we stay in touch and always connected.

Inder takes you through the various steps that Cisco has taken to grow to a $40 billion dollar company with over 60,000 employees. Its an interesting read as Inder walks through the history and the strategic decisions made to remain competitive through innovation and bold moves. Inspired by the stories of the background of the leaders chosen, the difficult questions and challenges faced and their paths take to success.

Doing Both is an interesting and inspiring read

Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today's Profit and Drives Tomorrow's Growth

In Doing Both, Inder Sidhu provides insightful stories and accounts into how Cisco confronts challenging business issues. The company simply does not succumb to the temptation to make trade-offs. This timely and well-written book offers innovative and practical solutions for business leaders who want to capture profitability and drive growth at the same time.

Pragmatic and Insightful

One of the best business books I have ever read. As a former McKinsey consultant and Stanford MBA, I truly value both a pragmatic AND insightful business advice. Definitely a must read!

Insightful, Incisive and Relevant: A Must-Read

Brilliantly written, filled with lots of fascinating stories detailing the philosophy of "And" that has been at the core of Cisco's successes over the last couple of decades. Inder Sidhu is very concise, articulate and insightful in conveying the profound lessons that can be drawn from these stories. I especially liked the strong focus on, and actionable recommendations for, avoiding false compromises.

Would definitely recommend this as an inspiring read for all current and budding business leaders, and really anyone looking to break away from business as usual.

Practical and Thought Provoking

Finally a book on business and management practices that is actually fun to read. Too often business books are filled with concepts and frameworks that are too abstract to be useful in real life, however this book is a notable exception. The narrative is engaging and insightful, based on real life examples and situations that any business professional can immediately identify with.

Cisco is one of Fortune's most admired companies, and has long been considered a technology bellwether. However, this book is not about technology. Instead, it addresses the fundamental dilemma that every business struggles with at some point - making a choice between two equally attractive strategic alternatives. This book simply suggests that there is a better way - instead of making a compromise, choose both! At first it's natural to be skeptical and dismissive of this apparently idealistic claim, however this book makes an honest attempt to walk its talk and is largely successful and convincing. Divided into eight main "dilemmas" - such as the choice between focusing on the safe option of making incremental improvements to your "bread and butter" business vs. doing something truly disruptive - the book explores how Cisco adopted this out-of-the-box thinking that eventually made it one of the most successful and admired companies in the world. Not everything in the book will apply to everyone, but for the most part I found the situations and dilemmas presented here to be highly relevant and insightful.

The best business books are the ones that challenge the status-quo, and on that count "Doing Both" is certainly a winner!

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