...Raymond Braselman Cisco Systems Case 1. Cisco’s management was very reluctant to significantly alter the structure of their IT system, even though the system was consistently failing. There were a few reasons for this reluctance. First, Pete Solvik, the CIO of Cisco at the time, was hesitant to even consider an ERP system in the first place, because he believed that each functional silo of Cisco should decide which applications it utilized (while also using common architecture and databases to accommodate the disparate systems, which complicated matters). Then, this attitude became pervasive among other managers, because most were concerned that implementing a large scale ERP system would disrupt business operations too drastically for such an implementation to be practical. 2. Once Cisco’s managers realized that their IT system needed a major overhaul, they became very focused and dedicated. One of the first aspects that led to the implementation’s success was convincing the Board of Directors of the need for an ERP system and to commit to the project, setting a “tone at the top” that established the project as a company-wide priority. This led to Cisco being able to develop an implementation team comprised of experts. From the beginning, Cisco leveraged the experience of others, and eventually prompted KPMG to become involved, not only during the actual implementation, but also throughout the drafting of the RFP and the consideration of different vendors...
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...Cisco Systems, Inc.: Implementing ERP Introduction Cisco Systems Inc. was founded in 1984 by two of Stanford University’s computer scientists. In 1990, a matter of just six years from the start-up date, Cisco became publically traded. With the massive growth of Internet Technologies, demand for Cisco products increased dramatically, resulting in Cisco dominating the marketplace. The contributing factor to Cisco’s dominating presence in the market is due to the company’s primary product, the “router”. This is a combination of hardware and software that acts as a traffic cop on the complex Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networks that make up the internet as well as corporate intranets. TCP and IP networks provided a robust standard for routing messages between LANs and created the potential to connect all computers on an ever-larger Wide Area Network (WAN). Financially, the company experienced consistent growth from July 30, 1995 up until July 25 1998. Using figures provided in Exhibit 1 of the case study, it can be calculated that Net Sales increased a whopping 279% from 1995-1998. The year 1997 proved to be a milestone for the company. It was the first year for the company to feature on the Fortune 500 list. Cisco was ranked among the top five companies in return on revenues and return on assets. Some industry pundits predicted Cisco would be third dominating company alongside Microsoft and Intel, to shape the digital revolution. The reasoning...
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...Cisco Case Study Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Founded by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer operations staff members at Stanford University, along with Nicholas Pham, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. For the first time in a decade Cisco experienced its first negative quarter in 2001. The loss of earnings was due to the economic down. Their sales declined by 30%, inventory surplus was written off as a loss to the tune of $2.2 billion, 8,500 workers were laid off and stock prices plummeted by almost 60%, as of April 6, 2001 stock prices were $13.63 per share, down from $82 per share 13 short months earlier. Cisco leaders blamed the economy for its decline; the economic downturn was only partly to blame for Cisco’s problem. To analyze and interpret the article What Went Wrong at Cisco in 2001, I will first explain what actually went wrong, second I will Show a SWOT analysis to identify Cisco’s strengths, weaknesses, and threats, third we will analyze and discuss the nature and problems of the Cisco’s business-level and corporate strategy, last I will present my solutions and recommendations for Cisco in the future. What Went Wrong at Cisco In 2001? Cisco’s problems were only magnified by the economic downturn but there had been signs of...
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...Assignment: Enterprise IT at Cisco Case Write-Up | Summary: Enterprise IT at Cisco Systems is an interesting case that demonstrates what happens when a company’s IT infrastructure is decentralized. In the case of Cisco, the word decentralized was demonstrated in how the individual departments conducted business in their own ways and not in conjunction with other business functions. At one point, this approach was encouraged as it was believed to allow departments, and the people running them, the ability to avoid company politics, to ensure their priorities were met, and to encourage each department and individual the opportunity to be creative and innovative, which is a fundamental component of Cisco’s company style. Brad Boston, CIO of Cisco, believed that it was possible to retain that company attitude of innovation in a more centralized manner to decrease redundancy and formally integrate systems. While there was a great deal of pushback from employees, and the full centralization will take a great bit of time, Boston was making the best choices for the company. 1. How did Cisco find itself in such trouble with regard to its internal IT in 2001? Why didn’t the single ERP system help more? Why didn’t this ensure more consistency? As briefly mentioned above, Cisco found itself in such trouble as a result of allowing every department and employee operate freely and with little regard for what others were doing. As stated on page 4 of the case study, “Boston also discovered...
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...Nicolas de Gonneville, Jeremy Lipszyc, Rayan Mekouar Corporate Strategy Cisco System: New millennium – new acquisition strategy? 1. What was unique in the way Cisco managed its acquisitions in the 90’s? During the 90’s, Cisco has based its growth strategy mainly on acquisitions. From the first acquisition of the company called “Crescendo” in 1993, Cisco has bought more than 45 firms until 1999. Cisco can be considered as unique in its way of managing its acquisition deals because of the methodology that they have created and the kind of expertise that they have developed. The Cisco’s acquisition framework focuses on 2 main steps: targeting and integration. § Targeting: In order to enter in niches markets, to acquire a technology, to add a product to its range or to reinforce a specific process, Cisco’s strategy was based on the purchase of smaller and innovative companies. The selection process includes 6 main criteria: -‐ size; focus mainly on small companies, -‐ growth; fast growing companies, -‐ strategy; Cisco is looking for focused companies with a strong expertise, -‐ entrepreneurial spirit, -‐ similarity in culture, -‐ and geographical proximity especially for the largest targets. Cisco is looking for good fit, complementarity of visions, quick wins for shareholders and long terms wins for all stakeholders. § Integration According to Cisco’s management, post-acquisition integration...
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...Background In 1995, John Chambers joined Cisco Systems as president and CEO. After six years under the supervision of Chambers, the company went from generating $2.2 billion in annual sales to $22.3 billion. As a result of the market downturn in 2001, the company suffered its first loss and laid off 18% of its workforce. Chambers quickly realized Cisco was in need of significant organizational restructuring if Cisco were to survive and thrive the downtown. This change shifted the company from a decentralized firm that only focused its three work silos of Marketing, Engineering and Sales to segregated and specific customer groups to a centralized firm that focused on collaboration and relevant technologies for given customer groups. This shift in organizational restructuring significantly reduced product and resource redundancies – a major contributing success factor for Cisco’s market position today. The Problem The implementation of the cross-functional business councils greatly strengthened both Cisco’s competitive position as well as their organizational culture. However, Cisco now faces the problem of how to sustain and implement the new internal governance system across new and expanding business lines within the company in addition to maintaining the new collaborative culture while retaining its customer-centricity focus. Adjustments will need to be made to ensure that systems can be scaled to address new market transitions. The three councils that were originally...
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...The problem bothered Cisco a lot in 2001 is an example of company doesn’t do anything about centralized monitoring. The decisions may different with company strategy, which may lead a waste of human resource and money. This case shows the importance of collaborating between all departments in business. After reading this case, bunch of questions jump out of my mind: would I approve the call center project if I were Boston? If yes, what kind of benefits will bring to company? If no, why? Admittedly, call center project was very important and valuable, but so were many others considered by BPOC. So the main questions for approving call center project are: would its benefits are much more than risk? Would it against other projects? Would it also benefit to other functional areas? How much will it cost- the percentage in total IT budget, people and training cost? To answer the question of if I will approve call center project, I need the answers of the questions I mentioned before. However, I can’t get perfect answers for these questions. Besides, the most urgent thing for Cisco now is to upgrade its ERP project. Even though Cisco had ERP system to store all the data, there was no common business logic allowed all the applications to read and interpret the raw data in a consistent manner. So it is more important to upgrade ERP system to capture more and accurate information about the customer. It would be better if Cisco do the ERP upgrade first, and then consider the call...
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...when the CEO John Chambers uses just three words to describe the benefits of the San Jose networking giant’s management system: “speed, skill, and flexibility.” This is relates a published list of values by Cisco. Another example is with Manny Rivelo, a senior vice president at Cisco Systems, that 70% of his compensation is based on the council’s ability to meet revenue targets and collaborate. As to espoused values, they represent the explicitly stated values and norms that are preferred by an organization. In Cisco’s case, it was Chambers’ idea originated by a loss of $2.2 billion loss in 2001, which involves grouping executives into cross-functional teams. This concept would lead to faster decision making. Basic assumptions are unobservable and represent the core of organizational culture. I feel that Rivelo’s one quote sums of the basic assumptin for Cisco, “I’m on a litany of them-three councils, maybe six boards, and five working groups”, suggests that being involved in numerous groups makes the company as a whole grow faster and be better ready for the economy. 2. Use the competing values framework to diagnose Cisco’s culture. To what extent does it possess characteristics associated with clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy cultures? Discuss. I feel that Cisco Systems use a clan and adhocracy culture rather than a market and hierarchy. It really depends on the company and what...
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...Cisco Systems Uses Its Culture for Competitive Advantage Case Study 1. What are the observable artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions associated with Cisco’s culture? Explain. The above terms are also known as the three fundamental layers of organizational culture, each varying in outward visibility and resistance to change an each level influences another level. Observable artifacts are the most visible and also cosist of the physical manifestation of an organization’s culture (Kreitner and Kinicki,2010, pg.65). An example of this when the CEO John Chambers uses just three words to describe the benefits of the San Jose networking giant’s management system: “speed, skill, and flexibility.” This is relates a published list of values by Cisco. Another example is with Manny Rivelo, a senior vice president at Cisco Systems, that 70% of his compensation is based on the council’s ability to meet revenue targets and collaborate. As to espoused values, they represent the explicitly stated values and norms that are preferred by an organization. In Cisco’s case, it was Chambers’ idea originated by a loss of $2.2 billion loss in 2001, which involves grouping executives into cross-functional teams. This concept would lead to faster decision making. Basic assumptions are unobservable and represent the core of organizational culture. I feel that Rivelo’s one quote sums of the basic assumptin for Cisco, “I’m on a litany of them-three councils, maybe six boards, and five working...
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...CISCO case analysis Introduction and background As one of the largest makers of computer network gear Cisco provides a broad line of products for transportation of data, voice and video all over the globe. Cisco is one of the big impacts on how we connect as people, communicate and collaborate. Cisco are focused on the delivery of intelligent networks, technology and business architecture built on integrated products, services, and software platforms to its customers. This case is going to analyze the ERP rollout that took place after system failures in the years 1994-1995. Cisco was founded by two Stanford computer scientists in 1984 and brought public in 1990. In 1997, Cisco featured in the list of Fortune 500 companies and ranked in the top five companies in Return on Revenues and Return on Assets. Cisco passed the significant $100 billion mark in 1998 and in 1999 Cisco had more than 75% internet sharing (Nolan, R. 2005). Problem Cisco’s legacy IT department was too traditional and internally oriented and was considered being a cost center. The legacy system was very traditional only having the capabilities of very simple tasks. Cisco made years of modifications and customizations to the system which made it very complex that was comfortable for the users. In January 1994, Cisco’s legacy environment failed dramatically. The failure was so bad that the system actually was on the brink of complete failure. An unauthorized method for accessing core application...
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...Cyber Café orders PC for a large quantity, the transaction is considered B2B transaction and as a result, the product is no longer B2C, but B2B. Building a brand in a business-to-business context is different from doing so in the consumer market because of the nature of buyers. In the B2B mode, buyers are normally another manufacturer, wholesaler or a retailer. While in the B2C market, transactions occur between a company and end users. By entering a new markets Cisco has gained new competitors such as IBM, Microsoft etc. In order to compete against these competitors Cisco uses the outstanding methods of both business to business and the consumer marketing. Initially, Cisco has been selling products to other businesses. B2B markets are generally small vertical markets, often niche in size. Branding in B2B is centered on the relationships of many different companies. This is quite visible in the case study when Cisco developed partnerships with Sony, Matsushita, and US West in order to co-brand its modems with Cisco logo for the interest of building brand value and recognition. As said earlier, the target...
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...9-605-015 REV: AUGUST 20, 2007 ANDREW MCAFEE F. WARREN MCFARLAN ALISON BERKLEY WAGONFELD Enterprise IT at Cisco (2004) On a Monday morning in March of 2004 Brad Boston, CIO of Cisco Systems, was preparing for a meeting with the six other members of Cisco’s Business Process Operating Committee (BPOC). This group of senior executives met twice each month to review and prioritize key initiatives that impacted the entire company. Since its first meeting in 2002, BPOC had focused its attention on several major enterprise-wide projects such as upgrading the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and developing a comprehensive customer database. As these projects started to wind down, the committee began considering new proposals that typically fell into one of three categories: “one-off” programs with specific short-term goals, “must-have” programs mandated for regulatory purposes (such as Sarbanes-Oxley compliance), and bigger enterprise initiatives that had to be prioritized relative to other projects with high resource requirements. Although BPOC did not fund the projects it approved, the committee’s recommendations deeply affected Cisco’s overall commitment to various IT initiatives. As Boston thought about the projects that were going to be covered at the next BPOC meeting, he knew that one request had the potential to generate a great deal of discussion. Cisco’s customer advocacy group was proposing an overhaul of Cisco’s call center processes—the group wanted...
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...Cisco was founded in 1984 by two employees of Stanford University and became a public company 6 years later. After the company became public, the founders of Cisco decided to sell their shares and leave the company. This allowed the company to have a more receptive environment for growth and new management. Cisco became a fast growing and fast moving company due to the consistency of strategy, goals, organization and management that was implemented. Cisco’s goal was to become a leader in technology for the new internet based infrastructure where voice data and video could be transferred from one user to another over a single network. Cisco provides products and services that transport voice, data and video around the world. The company designs and manufactures products and services associated with the communications and IT industry as well as internet protocol networking. There are three categories of products offered by Cisco: core technology, routing and switching, advanced technology, and other products. Cisco also provides service offerings, technical support and advance support for networking devices, applications, solutions, and complete infrastructures to support the customers that purchase their products. Because Cisco provides a variety of products and services in the networking and communications industry, there are several competitors they face on various levels. The competitive environment for Cisco can be seen by looking over Porter’s Five Forces. At the time...
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...Cisco IT Case Study – August 2013 Big Data Analytics How Cisco IT Built Big Data Platform to Transform Data Management EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHALLENGE ● Unlock the business value of large data sets, including structured and unstructured information ● Provide service-level agreements (SLAs) for internal customers using big data analytics services ● Support multiple internal users on same platform SOLUTION ● Implemented enterprise Hadoop platform on Cisco UCS CPA for Big Data - a complete infrastructure solution including compute, storage, connectivity and unified management ● Automated job scheduling and process orchestration using Cisco Tidal Enterprise Scheduler as alternative to Oozie RESULTS ● Analyzed service sales opportunities in one-tenth the time, at one-tenth the cost ● $40 million in incremental service bookings in the current fiscal year as a result of this initiative ● Implemented a multi-tenant enterprise platform while delivering immediate business value LESSONS LEARNED ● Cisco UCS can reduce complexity, improves agility, and radically improves cost of ownership for Hadoop based applications ● Library of Hive and Pig user-defined functions (UDF) increases developer productivity. ● Cisco TES simplifies job scheduling and process orchestration ● Build internal Hadoop skills ● Educate internal users about opportunities to use big data analytics to improve data processing and decision making NEXT STEPS ● Enable NoSQL Database and advanced...
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...CISCO CASE STUDY QUESTION 1 How is building a brand in a business-to-business context different from doing so in the consumer market? ANSWER First of all we must describe what is meant by business-to-business. Business-to-business is a transaction that occurs between a company and another company, as opposed to a transaction involving a consumer (R wright, 2004). R .Wright further elaborates it as a term that may refer to a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This can happen through a business sourcing materials for their production processes or a business re-sells goods and services manufactured by other companies. Creating a strong brand that is able to set a business apart from other companies is always an important job. However for this to succeed knowing who the intended clients are, will assist the company in determining how to build their brand. According to Nick Kendall (2015), he describes a brand as a product, service or concept that is publicly distinguished from other products, services or concepts so that it can be easily communicated. e.g.(sign, symbol, words or combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product). Business-to business branding requires that the business be willing to accept the time to completely educate the professional buyers about the product, instead of mass marking and small advertisements. The reason to have professional buyers is because they are already well informed...
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