Cisco Systems Portugal – Driving change for the future
Cisco Systems Portugal has developed a proactive role in education in Oeiras Valley by helping the municipality’s school children to continue to participate in classroom learning from home.
Text: Chris Graeme
Cisco Portugal is a shining example of a state-of-the-art technology company at the heart of the Oeiras Valley business, science and technology ecosystem.
The Cisco Systems Portugal office of the US multinational technology conglomerate which is a world leader in developing, manufacturing and selling networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products, has been based in Lagoas Park in the heart of Oeiras Valley for eight years.
The company set up in Portugal in 1995 with just 30 staff, today Cisco Systems Portugal is headed by CEO Miguel Almeida and employs over 600 people from 36 nationalities working in key areas of Sales, Operations and Customer Experience (CX).
Cisco Systems views Lisbon and Oeiras Valley as a strategic location entry point for the EMEAR (Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia) region and, says Almeida, it has the ambition to turn the Portuguese subsidiary of the US company into “a very important part” of the Cisco Systems conglomerate.
Investing in jobs and training
Almeida, who took the helm of Cisco Portugal in July 2019, wants to put the company’s national offices at the centre of the group and bring more development centres to Portugal.
And Cisco Portugal had grown significantly in terms of numbers since August 2019 thanks, he says, to a “great team and a fantastic relationship with the market”.
It is also ranked as the best company to work for in Portugal in 2020 by both Forbes and Great Place to Work.
“With this growth that Cisco has enjoyed I feel ready and willing to make Cisco Portugal big within the corporation as a whole,” he says adding that it would mean taking on 10% more staff in 2021.
And it has certainly been a busy two years for the company which launched its new Customer Experience Centre (CX) in 2019 which will create a projected 200 jobs.
“There are many teams working in CX, teams from other areas,” he says, explaining that Cisco is currently implementing its third investment phase in Portugal. It opened its Sales department in 1998, its European Operations Centre in 2008 and its third investment, CX which is more client care and technology focused.
The company has doubled its workforce in Portugal since June 2019 and all of them are engineers.
Cisco Systems also has 54 network academies where it has trained around 26,000 students, with 5,000 alone this year in a total investment of around €10 million.
Digital transformation
Cisco Systems Portugal is also in the forefront of helping Portugal transit to a digital economy and highlights its Country Digital Acceleration programme (CDA).
To this end, it signed an agreement with the Government in 2017 and the programme is still ongoing with the company working with polytechnics, universities and organisations to provide training.
And for those who complete this training, the final diploma, which is seen as a very important qualification, ensures a job at the end.
Cisco is also part of the UPskill programme, a project devised by the Secretary of State for Digital, Transition, André de Aragão Azevedo, while on the companies side, Cisco has been working alongside to assist them with the transformation.
Regarding the digitalisation of the Portuguese State, Miguel Almeida points to the CDA programme which mostly helps speed up the Public Administration’s digital transformation processes.
Web Summit is also an important annual event for Cisco Systems Portugal, which has a strong presence at the world’s largest technology fair because it provides an opportunity to build brand awareness among customers and students, and is so focused on innovation given that Cisco makes a lot of investment in R&D.
COVID-19
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the Cisco office in Lagoas Park remained closed and staff worked remotely from home and although its building meets all the measures laid down by the Portuguese Directorate-General of Health, the company does not plan to return to the office before the end of the year.
“Because of its speciality in advanced digital technology systems, it was really easy for us to adapt to the new restrictions imposed by the virus. Working with digital, remotely with computers and interfaces is already in our DNA and part of our culture,” admits Miguel Almeida.
Oeiras Valley
Miguel Almeida says that with all the changes at Cisco, the one thing they have not had to change to date is the company’s location in Oeiras in what he says is “one of the best business parks in Oeiras”.
“It’s great being part of Oeiras Valley in Lagoas Park because we have a lot of IT companies surrounding us with whom we have meetings around IT issues. The Portuguese people and Oeiras Valley create a welcoming environment with a highly qualified and multilingual workforce”.
Regarding Cisco’s relationship with Oeiras Municipal Council, Miguel Almeida says the company is very involved at various levels. For example, in education it partnered in the project Oeiras Educa to ensure distance learning in the borough through its platform Cisco Webex which involves 2,000 teachers and 20,000 pupils.
“Because of its speciality in advanced digital technology systems, it was really easy for us to adapt to the new restrictions imposed by the virus. Working with digital, remotely with computers and interfaces is already in our DNA and part of our culture.”
“It’s great being part of Oeiras Valley in Lagoas Park because we have a lot of IT companies surrounding us with whom we have meetings around IT issues. The Portuguese people and Oeiras Valley create a welcoming environment with a highly qualified and multilingual workforce”.
