Item 1. Business

General

Cisco designs and sells a broad range of technologies including hardware, software, and artificial intelligence (AI) powered digital infrastructure to power, help secure, and draw insights from the Internet. We are incorporating AI into our product portfolios across networking, security, collaboration and observability, as well as integrating our products more tightly together into a platform. We are simplifying how our technology is delivered, managed and optimized and helping customers maximize the business value of their technology investments.

We conduct our business globally and manage our business by geography. Our business is organized into the following three geographic segments: Americas; Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); and Asia Pacific, Japan, and China (APJC).

Our products and technologies are grouped into the following categories: Networking, Security, Collaboration and Observability. In addition to our product offerings, we provide a broad range of services over the lifecycle of our products, including technical support services and professional services. Our customers include businesses of all sizes, public institutions, governments, and service providers, including hyperscalers. These customers often look to us as a strategic partner to help them use technology to differentiate themselves and drive positive business outcomes.

Cisco was incorporated in California in 1984 and reincorporated in Delaware in 2021. Our headquarters are in San Jose, California. The mailing address of our headquarters is 170 West Tasman Drive, San Jose, California 95134-1706, and our telephone number at that location is (408) 526-4000. Our website is www.cisco.com. Through a link on the Investor Relations section of our website, we make available the following filings as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at sec.gov: our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. All such filings are available free of charge. The information published on our website, or any other website referenced herein, is not incorporated into this report.

Available Information

We intend to announce material information to the public through our Investor Relations website at https://investor.cisco.com, SEC filings, press releases, public conference calls, and public webcasts, including those made available or broadcast on our Investor Relations website and through third-party websites, such as our LinkedIn page and YouTube channel. We use these channels, as well as social media (including certain X and LinkedIn accounts held and/or managed by us or our executive officers) and our blog, to communicate with our investors, customers, and the public about us, our products and services, and other matters. It is possible that the information we post on social media and our blog could be deemed to be material information. As such, we encourage investors, the media, and others to follow the channels listed above, including the social media channels listed at the bottom of our Investor Relations website, and to review the information disclosed through such channels.

Strategy and Priorities

In today’s fast-paced world shaped by AI, businesses and organizations globally are deploying technology to pursue their strategic objectives, from accelerating growth to enhancing operational efficiency and fostering innovation. Our strategy is to securely connect everything to make those desired outcomes possible.

Our customers have three key priorities in this dynamic environment: i) to build modern infrastructure; ii) to protect against the cyber threats of today and tomorrow; and iii) to harness the power of AI and data. Cisco is at the forefront of this evolution, developing innovative solutions that leverage advanced AI to deliver more valuable outcomes for our customers.

Modern Infrastructure

As agentic AI and inference workloads fundamentally alter network traffic patterns, our customers are investing in resilient, adaptable infrastructure to quickly respond to market changes and the demands of their own customers. Now more than ever it is crucial for businesses to remain competitive while managing resource constraints. Our customers continue to focus on modernizing their infrastructure with a focus on speed, agility, productivity, innovation and energy efficiency.

Cybersecurity

With the rapid growth in AI, modern applications, hyper-distributed architecture and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, cybersecurity is a top priority for customers. Our differentiated security strategy is based on three pillars: moving from point solutions to a platform comprehensively integrated with the infrastructure; infusing security into the fabric of the network; and harnessing the depth and breadth of telemetry data to prevent, detect, and respond to sophisticated attacks at machine speed.

AI and Data

AI represents a generational shift in technology. The rise of AI agents is generating a huge increase in network traffic and driving the need for far greater network connectivity. We provide network infrastructure to power AI training and inference workloads for both hyperscalers and enterprises. We help to scale our customers’ network infrastructure with high-density routers and switches, improved network management, and high-performance optics. We are reinventing data center operations for our customers by simplifying the configuration, monitoring, and maintenance of fabrics, compute, networking and storage.

We can help give customers visibility across the network as well as across their security solutions, applications and business data. With this breadth and scale of data, we can help deliver differentiated insights and context to customers, which in turn drives more informed, proactive decision making and better business results.

These three customer priorities drive our innovation and technology, making them our priorities as well. To help deliver on them, we are bringing together the power of our portfolio, which we refer to as One Cisco, which provides three key outcomes to our customers: i) AI-ready data centers, ii) future-proofed workplaces, and iii) digital resilience.

AI-Ready Data Centers

Cisco is transforming data centers to power AI workloads anywhere. Whether customers need to modernize parts of their existing infrastructure or power new, massive AI workloads, we bring together the networking, silicon, compute, security and observability to power the performance, reliability and security of data centers. Our robust, flexible infrastructure is offered as individual building blocks or in pre-validated, full-stack systems for all workloads. Our high-performance systems are predominantly powered by Cisco Silicon One, a scalable and programmable architecture, covering all AI networking roles and capable of adapting to a wide range of use cases and network infrastructure designs. We fuse security into every layer to protect distributed workloads. We also deliver unified management across both traditional and AI workloads and provide tailored solutions and support through Cisco Services.

Future-Proofed Workplaces

Cisco helps deliver “future-proofed” workplaces, combining networking, security, smart spaces and collaboration to power how people work and serve their customers. This includes environments ranging from factory floors with plant workers and robots, to hospitals with healthcare workers, as well as to social workers and salespeople on the move. For secure campus and branch networking, we connect users and devices securely with a broad, scalable portfolio of solutions with embedded security, assurance and intelligence. No matter how people connect to the network, we have workforce protection that delivers frictionless zero-trust access and layered security, and we provide collaboration devices and software to enable effective collaboration to support productivity. Our smart spaces technology turns network devices into sensors for better intelligence and control of physical spaces, including lights and power. In addition, Cisco Services support customers with workplace planning and modernization.

Digital Resilience

Cisco is a leader in delivering digital resilience across customers’ data centers, workplaces and entire IT environments. By bringing together the power of the network with assurance, observability and security, we help our customers prevent issues and remediate them quickly when they occur. We also provide the visibility and insights our customers need to adapt to new opportunities. Our assurance capabilities, powered by ThousandEyes, are deeply embedded across the Cisco portfolio and help enable seamless connectivity and optimal digital experiences across cloud, Internet, and enterprise networks, for the delivery of applications and services. Our observability solution, Splunk combined with AppDynamics, monitors the entire enterprise to help prevent downtime and improve experiences across networks, infrastructures, and applications. Through our security operations capabilities we deliver threat prevention, detection, investigation, and response for organizations of any size and security maturity. Additionally, Cisco Services deliver AI-powered support and issue resolution and help customers shift from reactive break-fix to proactive and predictive operations for higher uptime and greater resilience.

Cisco enables enterprises and service providers to deliver highly secure connectivity from workplaces to data centers worldwide. Our strength lies in our decades of expertise in helping customers of all sizes and across all industries throughout their technology lifecycle, and in the way we embed and enable AI across our products and services. We deliver the foundational hardware, software and services that every other technology capability is built on, making Cisco the critical infrastructure for the AI era.

For a discussion of the risks associated with our Strategy and Priorities, see “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factor entitled “We depend upon the development of new products and services, and enhancements to existing products and services, and if we fail to predict and respond to emerging technological trends and customers’ changing needs, our results of operations and market share may suffer.” For information regarding sales of our major products and services, see Note 18 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Products and Services

Our products and services are grouped into the following categories:

Networking

Our networking business is built on a foundation of industry-leading technologies, including switching, routing, wireless, and servers, offered through a comprehensive suite of both hardware and software solutions. This portfolio, which features integrated systems built on Cisco Silicon along with software licenses and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, empowers customers to build, secure, automate, modernize, and transform their network infrastructure to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving digital landscape. The portfolio also includes Acacia Optics, whose high-speed coherent optical interconnect technologies enhance Cisco’s networking solutions by enabling scalable, energy-efficient, and simplified optical connectivity that supports the shift from chassis-based systems to pluggable coherent optics. A central pillar of our networking strategy is the convergence of our on-premises solutions with our cloud-managed offerings. By integrating these capabilities across our networking portfolio, we aim to deliver continuous value to our customers through enhanced flexibility, scalability, and operational efficiency. This unified approach positions us to address the diverse needs of businesses as they transition to hybrid and cloud-first environments.

Our switching portfolio encompasses campus switching as well as data center switching. Our switches offer enhanced security and reliability and are designed to scale efficiently as our customers grow. Our campus switching offerings provide the foundation for converged data, voice, video, and Internet of Things (IoT) services, while also supporting new requirements from the rise of AI agents in customer networks. Within campus switching, our Cisco 9000 family of switches includes hardware with embedded software, along with a Unified Networking Experience (UNX) software subscription. Cisco software provides automation, analytics and security features which can be centrally monitored, managed, and configured. Our Campus Switches can also be managed from the cloud through Cisco Cloud Control, offering a powerful combination of rich enterprise features with ease of management. Our switching portfolio includes next-generation Cisco Smart Switches — Cisco 9350, Cisco 9610, and the new Cisco 9550 — built on Silicon One, our single, unified, scalable networking silicon architecture. These switches are AI-ready with advanced telemetry and assurance capabilities, equipped with quantum-resistant security and post-quantum cryptography to protect against future threats.

Our data center switching offerings, led by the Nexus 9000 series, provide the foundation for mission-critical data centers, delivering high availability, scalability, and security across hybrid environments. Central to this portfolio is the integration of Cisco Silicon One architecture, establishing a unified silicon foundation that delivers high performance and energy efficiency. Under our Nexus One strategy, we deliver a unified on-premises and cloud-managed operational experience. This unification, enabled by common underlying hardware and a single, simplified business model, gives customers broad flexibility in how they deploy and manage their networks. Our Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches offers intelligent networking silicon alongside

embedded Data Processing Units (DPUs), representing our new vision for AI data center designs. Complex data processing tasks can be offloaded to the DPUs on the switch to improve both network architecture and security posture. We integrated these switches with Cisco Hypershield, our cloud-native and AI-powered solution for highly distributed security built into the fabric of the network, converging networking and security into a single offering. We also introduced our Cisco 800G optics, designed to support high-density switch ports to deliver scalable, high-performance networking optimized for AI workloads across data centers and edge environments.

Our service provider routing portfolio includes AI Infrastructure solutions for service provider customers, including our hyperscaler customers. We are focused on transforming connectivity to the Internet and the cloud environment by efficiently meeting the growing demand for low-latency and higher speeds. Our routed optical networking systems and our pluggable optic solutions allow us to transform the economics of building and operating networks for our service provider customers. Our Cisco 8000 series routers, which are based on Cisco Silicon One, provide broad capacity in high-density designs, allowing our customers to reduce operational footprints, lower carbon emissions, and transition to more efficient network architectures.

We also have enterprise routing solutions which interconnect public and private wireline and mobile networks, delivering highly secure and reliable connectivity to campus, data center and branch networks. These offerings are designed to meet the scale, reliability, and security needs of customers of any size.

Our wireless solutions deliver robust indoor and outdoor coverage, supporting seamless roaming for voice, video, and data applications. With a product portfolio that includes both on-premises and cloud-managed wireless access points and controllers, we provide customers with a powerful and intuitive converged access solution when paired with our switching portfolio.

Our networking portfolio also extends to Industrial IoT, providing ruggedized switching and routing solutions designed to maintain connectivity and security in harsh, mission-critical industrial environments. These solutions help to ensure that operational technology (OT) is as secure and manageable as traditional IT infrastructure.

Security

Security is at the core of our business strategy, reflecting our commitment to address the evolving needs of organizations of every size across every industry. Our security portfolio spans Network Security, Identity and Access Management, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and Identity and Agentic Security solutions. We are dedicated to continuous innovation, with significant investments in cloud-based security, AI-driven threat detection, and end-to-end security architectures designed to help customers proactively safeguard their most critical assets. Our Extended Detection and Response (XDR) offering is a unified and highly effective solution to help prevent, detect, and respond to sophisticated cyber threats. Our SASE architecture delivers a seamless combination of network and security functionality through a single, cloud-native platform. Our security offerings also include Cisco Hypershield and AI Defense. Cisco Hypershield is our cloud-native and AI-powered solution for highly distributed security built into the fabric of the network, converging networking and security into a single offering. AI Defense leverages machine learning and advanced analytics to proactively identify, analyze, and neutralize cyber threats in real-time, thereby strengthening the security posture of digital networks and data. Our security strategy positions us well to capture growing market demand for comprehensive, scalable, and integrated security solutions.

Collaboration

Our Collaboration portfolio consists of our Webex Suite, Collaboration Devices, Contact Center and Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) offerings. These offerings consist of software, including perpetual licenses and subscription arrangements, as well as hardware. Our objective is to create more inclusive and engaging employee and customer experiences by providing technology that enables distributed teams to collaborate effortlessly. We offer end-to-end collaboration solutions that can be delivered on-premises, from the cloud, or within hybrid cloud environments. AI and machine learning capabilities are embedded across the Webex portfolio to help improve productivity. Our CPaaS offering is a cloud communications platform that integrates communication channels and existing back-end business systems to help enable the orchestration and automation of all customer and employee interactions.

Observability

Observability consists of our observability suite and network assurance offerings. Our unified observability offerings connect insights across AI agents, applications, infrastructure, networks and digital experience to help improve service resilience, which is especially important in the AI era with concerns around “tokenomics.” Splunk Observability correlates telemetry and business context across traditional cloud-native and AI environments to connect service health and customer experience issues to causes and business impact and enable timely action. Its agent observability capabilities add continuous evaluation and insight into AI agent behavior, quality, performance and cost. ThousandEyes, our network assurance offering, extends the system beyond customers’ owned environments, adding network assurance and intelligence across enterprise, Internet and cloud networks to show how connectivity affects application performance, digital experience, service quality and resilience.

Services

In addition to our product offerings, we provide a comprehensive portfolio of technical support and professional services designed to help customers enhance the business value of their technology investments. Central to our services strategy is Cisco IQ, a unified digital interface that serves as the primary delivery vehicle for Cisco Support and Professional Services. By integrating AI and automation, Cisco IQ equips customers with landscape clarity, proactive resilience, rapid resolution, and highly contextualized professional services.

Cisco Technical Support provides robust assistance including software support, hardware replacement, and accelerated issue resolution to ensure that our customers’ products and networks operate efficiently and remain highly available. These offerings are critical for helping customers protect their infrastructure investments, manage operational risk and minimize downtime for systems running mission-critical applications.

Complementing our support capabilities, our professional services portfolio encompasses planning, design, implementation and high-value consulting, aimed at aligning technology deployments with strategic business outcomes. We continually invest in the modernization of our services by embedding AI-driven insights into Cisco IQ and expanding our expertise beyond core networking to encompass security and analytics, ensuring our customers are well-positioned for resilient, forward-looking digital transformation.

Customers and Markets

Many factors influence the IT, collaboration, and networking requirements of our customers. These include the size of the organization, number and types of technology systems, geographic location, and business applications deployed throughout the customer’s network. Our customer base is not limited to any specific industry, geography, or market segment. Our customers primarily operate in the following markets: enterprise, public sector and service provider and cloud.

Enterprise

Enterprise includes businesses that are large regional, national, or global organizations with multiple locations or branch offices, or mid-market and small businesses. Many enterprise businesses have unique IT, collaboration, and networking needs within a multi-vendor environment. Our mid-market and small business customers typically require the latest advanced technologies, but with less complexity. We offer service and support packages, financing, and managed network services, primarily through our service provider partners. We sell these products through a network of third-party application and technology vendors and channel partners, as well as selling directly to these customers.

Public Sector

Public Sector includes federal, state and local governments, as well as educational institution customers. Many public sector customers have unique IT, collaboration, and networking needs within a multi-vendor environment. We primarily sell to public sector customers through a network of third-party application and technology vendors and channel partners.

Service Provider and Cloud

Service Provider and Cloud includes regional, national, and international wireline carriers and hyperscalers, as well as Internet, cable, and wireless providers. We also include media, broadcast, and content providers within this customer market, as the lines in the telecommunications industry continue to blur between traditional network-based, content-based and application-based services. This customer market offers data, voice, video, and mobile/wireless services to businesses, governments, utilities, and consumers worldwide. Service provider and cloud businesses use a variety of our products and services for their own networks. In addition, many service providers use Cisco data center, virtualization, and collaboration technologies to offer managed or Internet-based services to their business customers. Compared with other customers, service providers are more likely to require network design, deployment, and support services because of the greater scale and higher complexity of their networks, whose requirements are addressed, we believe, by our architectural approach.

Sales Overview

As of the end of fiscal 2026, our worldwide sales and marketing functions consisted of approximately 25,400 employees, including managers, sales representatives, and technical support personnel. We sell our products and services both directly and indirectly through a variety of channels with support from our sales workforce. A substantial portion of our products and services is sold indirectly through channel partners, and the remainder is sold through direct sales. Channel partners include systems integrators, service providers, other third-party resellers, and distributors.

Systems integrators and service providers typically sell directly to end users and often provide system installation, technical support, professional services, and other support services in addition to network equipment sales. Systems integrators also typically integrate our products into an overall solution. Some service providers are also systems integrators.

Distributors may hold inventory and sell to systems integrators, service providers, and other third-party resellers. We refer to sales through distributors as our two-tier system of sales to the end customer. Revenue from two-tier distributors is recognized based on a sell-in method. These distributors may be given business terms that allow them to return a limited portion of inventory, receive credits for changes in selling prices, receive certain rebates, and participate in various cooperative marketing programs.

Our service offerings complement our products through a range of consulting, technical, project, quality, and software maintenance services, including 24-hour online and telephone support through technical assistance centers.

For information regarding risks related to our sales channels, see “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factors entitled “Disruption of or changes in our distribution model could harm our sales and margins” and “Inventory management relating to our sales to our two-tier distribution channel is complex, and excess inventory may harm our gross margins.”

For information regarding risks relating to our international operations, see “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factors entitled “Our results of operations may be negatively impacted by unfavorable economic and market conditions and the uncertain geopolitical environment;” “Entrance into new or developing markets exposes us to additional competition and will likely increase demands on our service and support operations;” “Due to the global nature of our operations, political or economic changes or other factors in a specific country or region could harm our results of operations or financial condition;” “We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates that could negatively impact our financial results and cash flows;” and “Cyber attacks, data breaches or other incidents impacting our solutions and IT environment may disrupt our operations, harm our results of operations or financial condition, and damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business; and cyber attacks, data breaches or other incidents on our customers’ or third-party providers’ networks, or in third-party products we use, could result in claims of liability against us, give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business,” among others.

Financing Arrangements

We provide financing arrangements for certain qualified customers to build, maintain, and upgrade their networks. Cisco Capital, our financing arm, helps customers acquire the technology they need to achieve their business objectives and stay competitive. Cisco Capital financing provides flexibility in acquiring hardware, software, services, and complementary third-party equipment. We believe customer financing is a competitive advantage in obtaining business and enabling sales, particularly for those customers involved in significant infrastructure projects. Our financing arrangements include loans, leases (sales-type, direct financing and operating) and channel financing arrangements.

Acquisitions, Investments, and Alliances

The markets in which we compete require a wide variety of technologies, products, and capabilities. We continue to evaluate opportunities to acquire and invest in businesses and technologies that complement and enable further investment in our key priority areas.

Acquisitions

We acquire companies in order to gain access to talent, technology, products and features, operational capabilities or new markets. The risks associated with acquisitions are more fully discussed in “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factor entitled “We have made and expect to continue to make acquisitions that could disrupt our operations and harm our results of operations.”

Investments in Privately Held Companies

We make investments in privately held companies that develop technology or provide services that are complementary to our products or that provide insights into emerging technologies that may become relevant to our businesses. The risks associated with these investments are more fully discussed in “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factor entitled “We are exposed to fluctuations in the market values of our portfolio investments and in interest rates; impairment of our investments could harm our earnings.”

Strategic Alliances

We pursue strategic alliances with other companies in areas where collaboration can produce industry advancement and accelerate new markets. The objectives and goals of a strategic alliance can include one or more of the following: technology exchange, product development, joint sales and marketing, or new market creation.

The risks associated with our strategic alliances are more fully discussed in “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factor entitled “If we do not successfully manage our strategic alliances, we may not realize the expected benefits from such alliances, and we may experience increased competition or delays in product development.”

Competition

We compete in the networking and communications equipment markets, providing products and services designed to transport, and help secure data, voice, and video traffic across cloud, private and public networks and the Internet. We compete with numerous vendors in each product category. The overall number of our competitors providing niche product solutions may increase. Also, the identity and composition of competitors may change as we increase our activity in newer product areas, and in key priority areas. As we continue to expand globally, we may see new competition in different geographic regions. In particular, we have experienced price-focused competition from competitors in Asia, especially from China, and we anticipate this will continue.

Our competitors (in each case relative to only some of our products or services) include: Amazon Web Services LLC; Arista Networks, Inc.; Broadcom Inc.; Ciena Corporation; CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.; Datadog Inc.; Dell Technologies Inc.; Dynatrace Inc.; Fortinet, Inc.; Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company; Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.; Microsoft Corporation; Nokia Corporation; Nvidia Corporation; Palo Alto Networks, Inc.; RingCentral, Inc.; Zoom Video Communications, Inc.; and Zscaler, Inc.; among others.

Some of our competitors compete across many of our product lines, while others are primarily focused in a specific product area. Barriers to entry are relatively low, and new ventures to create products that do or could compete with our products are regularly formed. In addition, some of our competitors may have greater resources, including technical and engineering resources, than we do. As we expand into new markets, we will face competition not only from our existing competitors but also from other competitors, including existing companies with strong technological, marketing, and sales positions in those markets. We also sometimes face competition from resellers and distributors of our products. Companies with which we have strategic alliances in some areas may be competitors in other areas, and this trend may increase. For example, the enterprise data center is undergoing a fundamental transformation arising from the convergence of technologies, including computing, networking, storage, and software, that previously were segregated. Additionally, companies that are strategic alliance partners in some areas of our business may acquire or form alliances with our competitors, thereby reducing their business with us.

The principal competitive factors in the markets in which we presently compete and may compete in the future include the ability to sell successful business outcomes; the ability to provide a broad range of networking and communications products and services; product performance; price; the ability to introduce new products, including providing continuous new customer value and products with price-performance advantages; the ability to reduce production costs; the ability to provide value-added features such as security, reliability, and investment protection; conformance to standards; market presence; the ability to provide financing; and disruptive technology shifts and new business models.

We also face competition from customers to which we license or supply technology and suppliers from which we transfer technology. The inherent nature of networking requires interoperability. As such, we must cooperate and, at the same time, compete with many companies. Any inability to effectively manage these complicated relationships with customers, suppliers, and strategic alliance partners could materially harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition and accordingly affect our chances of success.

Research and Development

We regularly introduce new products and features to address the requirements of our markets. We allocate our research and development budget among our product categories, which consist of Networking, Security, Collaboration, and Observability technologies. Our research and development expenditures are applied generally to all product areas, with specific areas of focus being identified from time to time. Our expenditures for research and development costs were expensed as incurred.

The industry in which we compete is subject to rapid technological developments, evolving standards, changes in customer requirements, and new product introductions and enhancements. As a result, our success depends, in part, on our ability, on a cost-effective and timely basis, to continue to enhance our existing products and to develop and introduce new products that improve performance and reduce total cost of ownership. To achieve these objectives, our management and engineering personnel work with customers to identify and respond to customer needs, as well as with other innovators of Internet networking products, including universities, laboratories, and corporations. We also expect to continue to make acquisitions and strategic investments, where appropriate, to provide us with access to new technologies. Nonetheless, there can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully develop products to address new customer requirements and technological changes or that those products will achieve market acceptance.

Manufacturing

We rely on contract manufacturers for our manufacturing needs. We presently use a variety of independent third-party companies to provide services related to printed-circuit board assembly, in-circuit test, product repair, and product assembly. Proprietary software in electronically programmable memory chips is used to configure products that meet customer requirements and to maintain quality control and security. The manufacturing process enables us to configure the hardware and software in unique combinations to meet a wide variety of individual customer requirements. The manufacturing process also uses automated testing equipment and burn-in procedures, as well as comprehensive inspection, testing, and statistical process controls, which are designed to help ensure the quality and reliability of our products. The manufacturing processes and procedures are generally certified to International Organization for Standardization 9001 standards.

Our arrangements with contract manufacturers generally provide for quality, cost, and delivery requirements, as well as manufacturing process terms, such as inventory management; flexibility regarding capacity, quality, and cost management; oversight of manufacturing; and conditions for use of our intellectual property. We have not entered into any significant long-term contracts with any contract manufacturers. We generally have the option to renew arrangements on an as-needed basis. These arrangements with contract manufacturers generally do not commit us to purchase any particular amount or any quantities beyond amounts covered by orders or forecasts that we submit covering discrete periods of time.

Patents, Intellectual Property, and Licensing

We seek to establish and maintain our proprietary rights in our technology and products through the use of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secret laws. We have a program to file applications for and obtain patents, copyrights, and trademarks in the United States and in selected foreign countries where we believe filing for such protection is appropriate. We also seek to maintain our trade secrets and confidential information by nondisclosure policies and through the use of appropriate confidentiality agreements. We have obtained a substantial number of patents and trademarks in the United States and in other countries. There can be no assurance, however, that the rights obtained can be successfully enforced against infringing products in every jurisdiction.

Many of our products are designed to include software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties. While it may be necessary in the future to seek or renew licenses relating to various aspects of our products, we believe, based upon past experience and standard industry practice, that such licenses generally could be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. Nonetheless, there can be no assurance that the necessary licenses would be available on acceptable terms, if at all. Our inability to obtain certain licenses or other rights or to obtain such licenses or rights on favorable terms, or the need to engage in litigation regarding these matters, could materially harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Moreover, inclusion in our products of software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties on a nonexclusive basis can limit our ability to protect our proprietary rights in our products.

The industry in which we compete is characterized by rapidly changing technology, a large number of patents, and frequent claims and related litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. There can be no assurance that our patents and other proprietary rights will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented; that others will not assert intellectual property rights to technologies that are relevant to us; or that our rights will give us a competitive advantage. Further, some U.S. governmental entities and courts have expressed a position that U.S. copyright and patent protection should be limited to protecting inventions and works of authorship created by humans. Therefore, U.S. copyright or patent protection for inventions or works developed in part or wholly by generative AI tools may be limited, or not available at all. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries may not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States.

The risks associated with patents and intellectual property are more fully discussed in “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factors entitled “Our proprietary rights may prove difficult to enforce,” “We may be found to infringe on intellectual property rights of others,” and “We rely on the availability of third-party licenses.”

Government Regulation

We are subject to numerous regulations and laws in the United States and abroad that involve matters central to our business. Many of these regulations and laws are evolving and their applicability and scope, as interpreted by courts and regulators, remain uncertain. These regulations and laws involve a variety of matters including privacy, data protection and personal information, cybersecurity, operational resilience, AI, tax, trade, encryption technology, environmental sustainability (including climate change), human rights, product certification, and national security.

A failure, or alleged failure, by us to comply with regulations or laws could materially harm our business, results of operations, or financial condition. For additional information about government regulation and laws applicable to our business, see “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” including the risk factor entitled “Our business, results of operations, or financial condition could be materially harmed by evolving regulatory uncertainty or obligations applicable to our products and services” and Note 13 to the Consolidated Financial Statements, subsection (f) “Legal Proceedings.”

Talent and Culture

At Cisco, we value our people and our technology, and we leverage our broader ecosystems to positively impact the world and pursue our Purpose to Power an Inclusive Future for All. Our goal is to attract, retain, and develop talent in order to help our customers connect and secure their infrastructure and accelerate their digital agility. Our relationship with our employees is one of mutual benefit. Our employees bring talent and ingenuity to everything we do, and in turn, we provide employees with meaningful careers and development opportunities.

Cisco is currently ranked #3 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® 2026 in the United States. Fortune and Great Place to Work have published their United States rankings since 1998, and Cisco has been recognized on every annual list. In fiscal 2026, Cisco was recognized as a top three workplace in 24 countries by Great Place To Work®, including #1 wins in Costa Rica, Italy, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Taiwan.

As of July 25, 2026, we had approximately 82,400 employees and they are categorized as follows:

Compensation and Benefits

Our total compensation philosophy is designed to attract, reward, and retain talent. It provides market competitive, performance-based compensation aligned with each employee’s contribution and impact to the value we drive to our customers, partners, and stockholders. We reward and recognize our employees for effecting innovation, collaboration, profitability, and growth within our geographies, product lines, and functions.

Health & Well-being

We have an ongoing commitment to focus on the health, safety, and well-being of our employees. We seek to provide our employees and their families with high-quality, flexible, and convenient benefits and resources for their physical, mental, and financial well-being. We strive to support our employees as they balance careers and personal lives, as well as their own physical, emotional, and financial health. We continue to emphasize a focus on both physical and mental health, recognizing the need to create an environment where employees can speak openly about mental health and other matters.

We offer mindfulness courses, employee assistance program offerings, and out-of-network provider benefits for substance abuse and mental health treatment, and more. In fiscal 2026, we continued to offer employees “A Day for Me,” which were paid days off that allowed for each individual to recharge and rest. We employ a hybrid work model in certain countries, giving our employees the flexibility to work offsite or at onsite Cisco locations.

Employee Development and Engagement

Cisco is advancing new approaches to leading, learning, and working in the age of AI. We invest in developing strategic capabilities that drive business growth, while enabling employees’ personal and professional development. By aligning skilling with our Guiding Principles and business priorities, we put learning at the center of innovation.

Recognizing that each career is unique, we provide personalized learning opportunities in multiple formats that fit into employees’ daily work. We are also unifying our leadership development approach to offer a full range of programs for employees at all levels, reflecting our belief that you lead from every seat. The principle of “one company, many careers” guides us, and we are using data insights from skills intelligence to match people and opportunities. Learning and development are reinforced in our performance processes. Success at Cisco depends on both what is achieved and how it is achieved, with leaders supporting ongoing development through regular feedback and check-ins.

We believe that strong communication is key in our Conscious Culture. These communications include the Cisco Beat, which are regular all-hands meetings, and Cisco Check-Ins, which are ad-hoc meetings for important conversations. Employees also participate in our global Engagement Pulse Survey and the Real Deal Survey. These surveys allow our employees to provide confidential feedback on our culture, company strategy and trust in their direct leaders.

Information about our Executive Officers

The following table shows the name, age, and position as of August 31, 2026 of each of our executive officers:

Name						Age						Position with the Company
Charles H. Robbins						60						Chair and Chief Executive Officer
Mark Patterson						56						Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Jeetendra Patel						55						President, Chief Product Officer
Deborah L. Stahlkopf						56						Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer
Thimaya Subaiya						48						Executive Vice President, Operations
Oliver Tuszik						58						Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Chief Sales Officer

Mr. Robbins serves as our Chief Executive Officer since July 2015, as a member of the Board of Directors since May 2015, and as Chair of the Board since December 2017. Mr. Robbins joined Cisco in December 1997, from which time until March 2002 he held a number of managerial positions within Cisco’s sales organization. Mr. Robbins was promoted to Vice President in March 2002, assuming leadership of Cisco’s U.S. channel sales organization. Additionally, in July 2005, Mr. Robbins assumed leadership of Cisco’s Canada channel sales organization. In December 2007, Mr. Robbins was promoted to Senior Vice President, U.S. Commercial, and, in August 2009 he was appointed Senior Vice President, U.S. Enterprise, Commercial and Canada. In July 2011, Mr. Robbins was named Senior Vice President, Americas. In October 2012, Mr. Robbins was promoted to Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations, in which position he served until assuming the role of Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Robbins is also a member of the board of directors of BlackRock, Inc. (since 2017).

Mr. Patterson joined Cisco in September 2000 and serves as our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since July 2025. Previously, Mr. Patterson served as Cisco’s Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer from March 2024 to July 2025, as Senior Vice President, Chief of Staff to the Chair and CEO from October 2018 to March 2024, as Senior Vice President, Strategy, Planning, and Operations for Worldwide Sales and Marketing from July 2015 to October 2018, and in various other leadership and finance roles at Cisco since 2000.

Mr. Patel joined Cisco in July 2020 and serves as our President and Chief Product Officer since May 2025. Previously, Mr. Patel served as Cisco’s Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer from August 2024 to May 2025, as Executive Vice President and General Manager, Security and Collaboration from June 2021 to August 2024, and as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Security and Collaboration from July 2020 to June 2021. Prior to joining Cisco, Mr. Patel served as the Chief Product Officer and Chief Strategy Officer at Box, Inc. (“Box”) from September 2017 to July 2020, and as Senior Vice President of Platform and Chief Strategy Officer from August 2015 to September 2017. Prior to joining Box, Mr. Patel served as General Manager and Chief Executive of the Syncplicity business unit of EMC Corporation (now part of Dell Technologies Inc.). Mr. Patel is a member of the board of directors of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (since 2019).

Ms. Stahlkopf joined Cisco in August 2021 and serves as our Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer. Prior to joining Cisco, Ms. Stahlkopf spent 14 years at Microsoft, where she served most recently as Corporate Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Corporate, External and Legal Affairs from April 2018 to July 2021. Ms. Stahlkopf also served in other leadership roles at Microsoft, including as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel from December 2015 to April 2018 and as Associate General Counsel from December 2010 to December 2015. Prior to joining Microsoft, Ms. Stahlkopf practiced law at Perkins Coie LLP and Cooley Godward LLP. Ms. Stahlkopf is a member of the board of directors of NextEra Energy, Inc. (since 2023).

Mr. Subaiya joined Cisco in July 2018 and serves as our Executive Vice President of Operations since March 2024. Previously, Mr. Subaiya served as Cisco’s Senior Vice President, Chief Transformation Officer from March 2023 to March 2024, as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Customer Experience from November 2021 to March 2023, and as Senior Vice President, Customer Experience Operations and Renewals from July 2018 to November 2021. Prior to joining Cisco, Mr. Subaiya spent 8 years at Salesforce, Inc. (“Salesforce”) where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including most recently as its Chief Operating Officer of Customer Success. Before joining Salesforce, Mr. Subaiya held various leadership roles in business development and global planning and strategy at Oracle Corporation. Mr. Subaiya is a member of the board of directors of Genpact Limited (since 2025).

Mr. Tuszik joined Cisco in July 2013 and serves as our Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Chief Sales Officer since April 2025. Previously, Mr. Tuszik served as Cisco’s Senior Vice President, EMEA Sales from August 2023 to April 2025, as Senior Vice President, Global Partner and GM Routes to Market Sales from December 2020 to August 2023, as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partner Organization from July 2018 to December 2020, and as Vice President, Country Leader Germany from July 2013 to July 2018. Prior to joining Cisco, Mr. Tuszik spent over 10 years at Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, most recently serving as Chief Executive Officer Germany.