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Sound-alikes Sysco, Cisco consider joint tech project
Executives meet after years of confusion over names
Key Takeaways:
- Cisco and Sysco executives met at an Arizona conference after years of name confusion between the technology company and food distributor.
- Their LinkedIn exchange drew hundreds of comments highlighting long-standing mix-ups, while the companies already share business ties through technology purchases and food deliveries.
- The executives agreed to explore a joint customer-data technology project as Sysco also manages fallout from a lettuce-linked cyclosporiasis outbreak and recall.
Cisco Systems Inc. and Sysco Corp. have long been at the center of one of corporate America’s most persistent cases of mistaken identity.
Over the years, employees at the technology giant have found themselves repeatedly explaining that they work at the Cisco with a “C,” while staffers at the nation’s largest food distributor constantly clarify that they’re employed by Sysco with an “S.” Sysco buys technology from Cisco, while Sysco trucks deliver food to Cisco offices, deepening the confusion.
The brand bewilderment came full circle at a recent conference in Arizona when Fran Katsoudas, Cisco’s chief people, policy and purpose officer, caught wind that a senior executive of Sysco was also in attendance. Katsoudas, who had never met anyone from Sysco, asked for an introduction to Aayush Bhatnagar, Sysco’s global head of customer experience, and a corporate face-to-face ensued.
“We acted like we were long-lost friends that were reunited,” Katsoudas said in an interview. “We hit it off,” Bhatnagar said.
They posed for a photo together, which led to a LinkedIn post from Katsoudas that garnered almost 200 comments, most of them from employees at both companies who shared their own experiences with the sound-alike names. “After years of explaining that Cisco is not Sysco, I finally met someone who spends their time explaining that Sysco is not Cisco,” she said in the post. A mergers and acquisitions strategist at Cisco soon commented: “I have this conversation what seems like once a week.”
The recollections were at times surreal. One person disclosed a Cisco-Sysco romantic connection, while another recalled employees from the two companies purposely sitting together at another work conference “just to confuse people for fun.” There’s even a project manager at Cisco whose last name is Sisco, which “always makes for some fun conversations,” Jessica Sisco said.
Conversation between the two companies will likely increase now that Katsoudas and Bhatnagar agreed to explore possibly collaborating on a joint technology project, focused on customer data. They might not have to travel far to brainstorm: Both companies have offices across the country, and Sysco’s Fremont, Calif., supply hub is just 20 minutes north of Cisco’s San Jose headquarters. (Bhatnagar is based in Miami.) More than 20 people have gone straight from working for one of the companies to the other, according to data from Revelio Labs.
For Sysco, the linkup with Cisco provides a welcome distraction from the widening cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to tainted iceberg lettuce from Mexico that has sickened thousands of people. Sysco was named in the recall notice for lettuce products from grower Taylor Farms, which has suspended iceberg lettuce production in central Mexico. For its part, Sysco halted sales and distribution of the lettuce a day before Taylor’s recall, when it learned of a potential link between that produce and the outbreak, a Sysco spokesperson said.
Sysco ranks No. 3 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America and No. 1 among food service carriers.
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The two companies’ homophonic names are mere happenstance. Founded in 1969 through the merger of nine regional food distributors, Sysco is short for “Systems and Services Company.” Cisco, meanwhile, pays homage to San Francisco, near the Stanford University campus that employed its two founders, computer scientists Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack.
They’re not the only sound-alike brands out there. Delta is the moniker of an airline, a faucet maker and a provider of dental benefits, although they’re likely not often confused for each other. And before Apple made computers and phones, it was a London multimedia company founded in the late 1960s by the Beatles. (The two companies tussled in court for years over trademarks.)
The Cisco-Sysco mashup should have a happier ending. But the confusion will likely endure. Maria Fonferek spent about 20 years at Cisco and lives near California’s Salinas Valley agricultural region, where Sysco has a big presence. Commenting on Katsoudas’s LinkedIn post, she deadpanned: “The struggle is real.”
