03 Aug Marc Benioff Joins Cisco Board of Directors
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by Eileen Murphy
In recent years, Cisco, the networking equipment developing company has been looking to bolster its productivity in the server business. This has led to the company building relationships with social networking companies. Recently, this has led to Salesforce CEO and chairman Marc Benioff becoming the newest member of the Cisco Board of Directors.
Salesforce has the largest public profile of the CRM industry, and since Benioff started the company, it has since become a publicly traded company, revolutionising the industry in the process. The levels of innovation are always praised at Salesforce, with Benioff being hailed for his pioneering mentality, due in no small part to the 30 years he worked for both Apple and Oracle.
The reason for the new board of directors appointments is due to Cisco finding various weak links in the company during self evaluation. Cisco stock has taken large falls this year, as orders from large corporate consumers and even government bodies declined. Cisco's fourth-quarter profit forecast is also below analyst predictions.
Many were confused as to why Cisco would want to appoint the trail blazer behind the ever expanding Salesforce on the Cisco Board of Directors. However, principal analyst at the Enderle Group Rob Enderle said “Typically you put CEOs from partner companies or CEOs you respect on your board to give you a stronger partnership or more specific insight into their thinking, particularly in areas where you do not compete. Clearly, Salesforce and Cisco do not compete and they have a strong partnership."
The appointment of Benioff also sends a public message that Cisco is looking for fresh innovative ideas in order to improve their cloud computing services, as well as strengthen ties between Salesforce and Cisco.
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