On Cisco Plus

Robbins acknowledged the ongoing supply chain and the impact that it’s had on getting Cisco gear into the hands of customers, but stressed that despite those challenges, Cisco Plus was still a priority for the company because customers are looking for new ways to buy IT.

“It is a priority. I did my board meeting virtually from Vegas [this week] and this is a big topic of conversation for us. It’s something that we’re very focused on, because a couple of things that have happened. Number one, the supply chain absolutely hurt us in our ability to get even the equipment out there that is part of the as a service offers. And then we also realized we weren’t as operationally ready. And so, I think over the next 6 to 12 months, you’ll see a lot of progress on this front.”

“Customers are looking for different ways. The cost of capital has just gone nuts — it’s insane how fast it’s changed. Even things like in our M&A work. You look at some deals that looked fantastic six months ago. And now you look at the cost of capital that you have to layer in and the interest expense on the capital to actually do the deal, and deal that [once] looked good doesn’t look good at all anymore. But the underlying asset is incredible. I want to be very clear. I am not prognosticating as to what the future might hold because things could get worse. I just feel like if we had seen anything, any one thing that we’ve seen over the last three years, a decade ago, it would have resulted in a serious shift, and we just haven’t felt that.”