Cisco Systems Inc., Implementing ERP
Cisco, incorporated in 1984 by 2 Stanford scientists, was fast growing technology company in the nineties; but its internal IT could not adapt very well to its rapid growth. The UNIX based software system that supported its various functions was more suited for a smaller company. This and other events made the adoption of ERP inevitable for Cisco.
What factors had made the difference between success and failure of Cisco ERP project? Where had the ERP team been smart? Where had the ERP team been plain lucky? Do you think that the Cisco team could do such a project again if they had to? Why? Why not?
From the case it is evident that Cisco’s ERP implementation was a success and the following are the success factors
1. Organizational structure – ERP implementations are relatively smoother in centralized organizations than in decentralized ones. Morgridge, Cisco’s CEO, maintained a centralized functional organisation – manufacturing, customer support, finance, HR, IT and sales organizations were centralized. Hence for Cisco it was more of software replacement than change management (compared to the kind of resistance to ERP and accompanying standardization in decentralized organizations).
2. Cisco’s strong tradition of standardization – ERP implementation entails integration of
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Partner and software solution selection – Cisco was implementing ERP for the first time and the implementation was extremely critical to business. They could not take any risk in selecting the integration partner or the solution. KPMG was selected as an integration partner because it was very experienced, had great technical skills and business knowledge and demonstrated great commitment. For selecting the solution they did lot of research – asked large corporations, the “Big six” accounting firms, Gartner etc. – before zeroing on five packages. Also during the RFP phase they contacted the “reference clients” for feedbacks. Eventually they selected
If we had been able to play one or even two additional rounds; our strategy would have been to increase the automation of our products to lower their costs and increase our contribution margin. This would have put us on a more comparable path of the computer teams. To stay on track with our previous decision, we would have introduced additional products either in the high-end markets to continue our strategized shift. The trick would have been repositioning the products as they moved to different segments.
The larger chain business should probably use an ERP because it offers more benefits to larger companies and would be able to keep large business processes running more smoothly. 6-2. If the freshman class for next year grew by 20%, the college would face many decisions and challenges with the system they already have set up. Challenges would be seen in on-campus housing, desk availability, registering, food services, and having enough teachers or resources for the influx of students.
One of biggest roadblock that companies have to face is to invest a lot of money on implementing a software system and have employees ignore it and keep trying to do the task in their own way. This the reason why the provider that you choose for implementing your software have to be a natural fit for the organization. If the owners and employees have the same passion and understanding of the product that they would implement the result would be a success (Phillips, 2016).
This made them feel more secure and allowed them to lower their guard a little bit, but I would have felt the same way. Knowing that customer information is the main element they need to project and they would not want to be the person that allows a mistake to happen. I got the database team involved because they receive all of the information that comes in and would need to know if we are going to start encrypting certain fields or all the
So they quickly went to one of the above options or they
1.2.3 Strategies • Review IT organizational structure • Review IT policies and
Did they consider other solutions? Give examples. Ans. The objectives were not laid down well and the project was not planned properly. They planned to meet the project requirements as they arise, and did not plan for them in advance.
Implementing the e-commerce will require Catatech to have formal IT to take an increase in demand and this will fail in Catatech seeing that the communication within the corporation is very poor. We believe Catatech should have the new IT system before strategy implementation in order to get better results. Implementing a new strategy without the proper IT can affect the current ERP system of the company due to incompetent use of the company’s resources. The new IT system will make it easier for Catatech to implement a
Bean should enter into an agreement with all its vendors detailing the various terms and conditions relating to conduct of business, transparency in dealing, confidentiality, minimum business commitment etc. This will enable L.L.Bean hold vendors accountable for non performance on their (vendor’s) part. Such an agreement will eliminate any ambiguity or grey areas in the business relationship between L.L.Bean and the vendors. Step 2: Joint business planning Vendors are an important partner in scripting the success story. It is prudent to include vendors during the strategy formulation and business planning process so that they can orient their goals in line with L.L.Bean’s objectives and goals.
They developed a back-office accounting software product. They believed that flat organisational structure, collegial culture would strengthen employee morale and also heighten company performance. With 25% of client renewal rate and most of the clients retained services for at least 4 years, the firm earned good revenues. It had about $100 million in revenues and 400+ employees in its regional offices. The founders retired and the new CEO looked for young sales directors.
The first aspect concerns Zollo and Winter’s (2002) learning mechanisms, as summarized in Table 6. In addition to the restructuring of the company, observed through the expansion of a commercial building from three to eight floors, the IT department was completely remodelled, with the acquisition of new machines, new licenses and software and the employment of specialized personnel. Realizing that Petrobras demanded increasingly detailed and complex projects, GPR created in IT department a “Research and Development Centre” to develop new software engineering tools. After presenting the first project using the COMOS software, GPR was invited by Petrobras to commercialize the customized version of the software, which is now standard for Petrobras projects with all engineering companies. Here, there is a clear case of creation of capabilities to be able to compete for contracts with
They wanted an increase their increase efficiency, so FoxMeyer Drugs purchased an SAP system and a warehouse automation system as well as hiring Andersen Consulting to integrate and implement the two systems, it was told to be a 36 million dollar project but by the time it was 1996 the company was bankrupt and then had to sell the company to a competitor for 85 million dollars. There are reasons for failure, FoxMeyer Drugs had set up an unrealistic goal and wanted the entire system to be implemented and working in a year and a half. Another reason is that the employees whose jobs were affected by this new system were not happy with the project. After the warehouses were closed, the first warehouse that was going to have the new system implemented was affected badly with stock being damaged by workers and orders not being done. The new system turned out to be less productive than the previous one.
Assignment: Teradyne Corporation: Jaguar Project Case Students Name Institutional Affiliation Teradyne Corporation: The Jaguar Project Case Introduction Teradyne corporation is a semiconductor test machine manufacturer. The new range of testing equipment had been eagerly awaited since the traditional system had exhibited quite a number of challenges in project development. The project introduced useful aspects of project management such as formal project tracking tools, effectively and adequately designed development process and the principle of upfront planning. O’Brien’s strategies had experienced much success especially in hardware development but seemed to struggle in the software department in software implementation. The main question is `Did the new tools affect development processes.
One thing though with this type of market the technology industry is forever changing and consumers want the latest updates. Cisco gives their customers, that option they can manually go and update their software themselves. This means customers are not waiting for long periods of time before they have the latest updates to their system. This is good for Cisco as existing customers can’t say that they are behind as opposed to their competitors. Demand for more extra added features in regards to the type of services provided may need to be updated regularly again because customers do not want to be waiting for ages to get
- IT platform and core applications software support world-class SCM - Advanced decision support capabilities have the greatest impact on business performance - Data are required to manage the core business