Cisco to axe 5,500 employees by next year

Cisco has today confirmed the company will cut up to 5,500 positions - almost 7% of the company's global workforce.

The move is reportedly part of an effort to recruit staff that can provide more centralized expertise to develop software-defined networking (SDN) products and services.

Which, in a statement released today, Cisco has addressed.

The company says that in today's market, it has to be more decisive and attempt to make moves to drive more innovation than ever before.

Cisco claims the restructuring will enable the company to optimize their cost base in lower growth areas of its portfolio and further invest in key priority areas.

Already ahead of the game, Cisco is currently in the top 5 vendors for the security-as-a-service space - which it plans to work on. 

The company wants to spend more time on security, Internet of Things, collaboration, next generation, data centers and the cloud.

"We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth," a company statement read.

The company isn't all that unfamiliar with job cuts in order to get the job done - In 2015 the company transformed its executive team to move into its next phase of growth and in 2013 made plans to cut 4,000 jobs.

Cisco says it will commence its restructure in the first quarter of fiscal 2017.