1. Cisco Announces Layoffs Involving 5 Percent Of Workforce; Real Estate Rebalancing  

Cisco in November during its fiscal Q1 2023 earnings call revealed plans to lay off employees and reduce some of its real estate as the company seeks to right-size some of its business units.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins took to the earnings call to confirm plans to “rebalance” certain business units, including its Collaboration segment. Employees started to be notified later that week. The company expects to recognize pretax charges of around $600 million in conjunction with its plan. The charges, which are primarily cash-based, will consist of severance and other-time termination benefits, real estate-related charges and other costs. Cisco said it expects to recognize about $300 million of these charges in its second fiscal quarter of 2023, about $200 million in the second half of fiscal 2023 and the remaining amount through the first quarter of fiscal 2024.

A Cisco spokesperson confirmed to CRN last month that the company would be undertaking a “limited business restructuring that will right-size our real estate portfolio and will impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce.”