Marketing strategy of Cisco through marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion).
Cisco offers a gamut of products and services for enterprise, small business and home solutions. Cisco primarily being a product company, integrates services via its products in its marketing mix product strategy. Cisco products include routers, wireless controllers, LAN controllers, security gateway, network switches, Servers, network modulators, Data Services, Amplifiers, Cisco IOS, security modules, WebEX, WAN automation and Cloud infrastructure. Products are segmented across corporate market, business and home solutions. For home users Cisco provides cable modems, primarily in the Broadband segment. Cisco’s Internetwork Operating System, provides a compact assemble of network services integrated to an operating system. Cisco VoIP services integrated with VoIP telephones is one of the high selling products, which is mainly used in offices for communication. Cisco provides certification for IT professionals, example: CCNA, CCNP, CCIE. These certification courses help professional gain competency for a career in Networking industry.
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This concludes the product strategy in Cisco marketing mix & strategy.
Below is the pricing strategy in Cisco marketing mix strategy:
Cisco has a wide range of offerings, which leads to diverse pricing plans. Depending upon the type of industry and the products, Cisco’s prices varies.
Main determinant of prices being the cost of the product sold, market conditions and prices of the similar products manufactured by its competitors. High price products include network gateways, servers, could infrastructure platforms; which are sold to business enterprises and are sold in bulk. For home appliances and network solutions for home; Cisco network routers price hovers at around ₹5000 per module. Cisco VoIP products which can be used for both in the business environment and as well as for home solutions costs around ₹4000 per module. As Cisco products comes with high quality and since Cisco itself has got a high brand value, products cost a bit higher as compared to its competitors like Netgear or D-Link. This gives an overview of the marketing mix pricing strategy of Cisco.
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Following is the distribution strategy in the Cisco marketing mix:
Cisco has a wide global presence, which shows its strong place and distribution strategy in its marketing mix. The procedure of selling varies across segments for Cisco as each segment has got different buying choices and requirements. Cisco’s sales team are always in search for big enterprises looking for network solutions, thus it becomes easy for such organizations to make a Business to Business deal and also helps Cisco to pitch in their products to any prospective customer. For small business networking solutions, Cisco’s website provides a comprehensive methodology for buyers looking for solutions and also provides detailed procedure for the buyer to get in connection with Cisco representative and thus make a purchase. For home solutions, where purchases are intermittent and requires purchase of only few products, Cisco has got retailers and local resellers who help customers make purchase and get the best deal.
Cisco also hosts their products in online and ecommerce platform for sale.
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Cisco marketing mix is as follows:
Cisco and its partners promote Cisco to a great extent, creating a perception in the mind of customers as there does not exist any networking problem to which Cisco does not have a solution for. Cisco’s promotional activities include advertisements on news websites, business websites and technology websites, so that they are able to attract attention of enterprises looking for solutions and tech savvy people. Cisco promotional activities is done via their website where they host video instructions by technology experts. Cisco Networking academy publishes books relating to the current IT challenges and solutions. Cisco partners with various prestigious engineering colleges across the globe to tap in high end talent, which in turn help them promote themselves and gain businesses. Hence, this covers the Cisco marketing mix.
About Cisco:
Cisco Systems is a technology conglomerate headquartered in San Jose. Cisco was founded in the year 1980, by Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner. It is pioneer in the field of network devices and network management. Over the years, Cisco has had a series of acquisitions, which has helped them to gain expertise and strategic advantage over its competitors. The latest in the list being AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, this will help them to strengthen their grip on the cloud platform. Cisco is shifting to software-centric solutions for their consumers.
Cisco has got over 10000 patents in the Technology sector, making it one of the highest patent holding organizations. Headed by Chuck Robbins and with an annual revenue of $49.2 billion, Cisco is a giant in the Networking equipment industry.
This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team which comprises of MBA students, management professionals, and industry experts. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.
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