Cisco's heavy investment in India raises the question of why do business in the U.S.?

A comment by a Duke University researcher who studies globalization got me thinking that perhaps the United States is no longer the prized region for doing business. Vivek Wadhwa is quoted in a San Jose Mercury News article about Cisco's Bangalore Globalization Center, as saying: "The Arabs love going to India. In India, they are treated like sheiks. In America, they are looked on as terrorists.'' We've written much about Cisco in India in the past, but the Merc's story sheds some more light on the life of workers in Cisco's India nerve center.

The Bangalore facility includes a cricket field, basketball court and state-of-the-art gym. There are also plans for a parking garage, a reflection of the growing car-driving middle class. Other workers can choose to ride in in the company's fleet of Toyota SUVs, reports the Merc. Gone are the days of India being treated as the help desk to the West, reads the article.

Cisco is widely reported that it was to have 20% of its top management to be based in India and that the headcount there will grow to 10,000 by 2010. Cisco continually sends top managers to work stints in its Bangalore globalization center and it has been reported that strategic decisions in the future could come out of Bangalore rather than Silicon Valley.

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