John T. Chambers Quotes

A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message.

The key for us is always a multiple-year strategy, and a multiple-year strategy means great products, great customer relationships, and doing solid engineering.

My famous line is 'Product is king.'

Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.

Great companies are built on great products.

Focusing on the long term and building a great product that is scalable ultimately leads to a great company.

The most interesting information I can have about a competitor is the cost.

The most successful company in Silicon Valley is Apple, and they're the most secretive.

I think the high-tech industry is used to developing new things very quickly. It's the Silicon Valley way of doing business: You either move very quickly and you work hard to improve your product technology, or you get destroyed by some other company.

Television networks are a lot like automobile manufacturers or anyone else who's in commerce. If something out there catches on with the public... I guess you can call it 'market research.'

I think the only way to maintain profitability is to meet the needs of the customers.

People think about their business instead of their products.

We really don't look at our competitors. The market is big. If you focus too much on competitors, you can lose focus on the customer. If we make our customers happier, we are going to win.

When I arrived, I didn't understand London customers perfectly, but we've developed the right style with the right price, and step by step, I'm in harmony with London.

Patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents

I just want to make things that people want to buy. I have no confusion about this.

I can't understand the conditions of a corporate product being designed and getting millions. I admire it, it's great, but I don't know how to do that.

If you are focused on profits right out of the gate, you're gonna have the smallest profitable business that has ever been seen.

All business is basically about customers and marketing and making money and capitalism and winning and promoting it and having something someone really wants.

If you ask me, 'So what is your business model?' Our business model's always about shifting to higher value opportunities.

There had to be a market in order for you to be successful in a business. The market had to need your business, or the product of it.

I said from the very beginning, 'Yahoo should position itself as a technology innovation company, not as a media company.'

When a market isn't in transition, gaining market share is hard - you're fighting to take one or two points of share from competitors.

Apple is a failure because they missed social? Nobody would say that, because they are having great success.

The biggest challenge to thriving in the marketplace is identifying the strategic moves that will keep us ahead of the competition.