There was a time when I routinely read reports on economic conditions – essentially futurist’s predictions on how things might be. Yet, such forecasting is a lot like weather reporting: you tend to be wrong more often than right and most of the time you need to stick your head out of a window to see reality.
This time of year is busy in the Strategy and Planning group as we prepare for FY14. We need to be working out next year’s plan and considering any organizational or operational changes that need to happen. So, those routine catch-ups on economic conditions now seem like pretty important information sources that help ensure we get things right.
It has been reported frequently over the past few months that Canada has been experiencing challenging economic conditions. Since early 2012, the Canadian economy has slowed, which is in line with the historical trend of our economy feeling the impact a year or so later following a U.S. downturn. Analysts continue to forecast a weaker 2013 and, because of this, Canadian companies are holding on to cash and not spending at levels seen in the past couple of years. Thankfully, despite this economic climate, Cisco Canada has not lost deals to our competitors and the rest of the year looks promising. Our successes this year have been across the entire team, with the Services Canada team enjoying its second best quarter ever.
Even though we are currently looking ahead to our FY14 plan, we also need to continue focusing on our goals and targets for this fiscal year.
Cisco Canada identified its top priorities for FY13, which included:
- Continuing to invest in and evolve our Service-Provider organization and deliver best in class solutions, including mobility and cloud
- Continuing to deliver architectural solutions to the market
- Providing a deeper specialization in selected vertical sectors and accelerating connected industries.
- Establishing Cisco Canada as the leading Mid-size market brand
During our Global Sales Experience (GSX) event in August of 2013, Nitin Kawale introduced an operations platform as a way to, among other things, drive operational excellence in our business execution. We will continue this focus in FY14 and will find ways to incorporate that platform into every aspect of our business and operations. We are looking forward to the year ahead and will share an introduction to our FY14 strategy in next month’s blog.
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