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 to meet Cisco’s needs. Cisco was also prudent to pull people from within the company that were involved in mission critical business processes so that the requirements needed to run these business processes would drive the specifications for the ERP’s different modules. Cisco also had an effective and efficient implementation team structure, with an IT Steering Committee sponsoring and