Cisco Systems Inc Implementing Erp

After studying how the logistics industry benefited from using Enterprise Resource Planning system, SAP software, we found the following.

Although all of above factors played very important role in the success of ERP implementation, the most important one should be the clear understanding of its strategic goal. Cisco did correctly to define themselves and realize the current problem and make plan

Cisco is clearly the one of Information Age companies. Cisco gives the priority on the Information Technology. In the case study, Cisco adopted strategy of systematic acquisitions and strategic partners, which proof that Cisco focuses on cooperated information. Cisco also concerned about standardization, flexibility, extensibility, and scalability. The decisions that Solvik and his team made during this case trends to emphasize how more Cisco becomes closer to the definition of Information Age company. They applied internet and intranet which is not so popular at that year for employee self-service, communication and distance learning, customer

The selection committee also did some benchmarking on each vendor’s implementation strategies and their success rates so far. NIBCO had the option to choose between selecting the best in-class supply chain and finance solution and selecting a single solution that had tight integration between all of the modules. Being a manufacturing company, it makes sense that the company was interested in the strengths of the core modules of the organisation are it supply chain and finance systems. However, the management opted for the latter as it meant that they wouldn’t have to invest as much time and money into building satellite solutions and smaller applications around the ERP system. This also meant that the data flow and interaction between the various modules (and thus, functional silos) of the ERP would be much

BPOC was set up in the late 2002. BPOC was a cross-functional decision-making group created to set and drive corporate priorities for the company. The role of the BPOC was like the COO. BPOC had full formal authority to approve any IT initiatives. Though it did not fund the IT projects, it approved them. BPOC was created to set and drive the corporate priorities for

Prior to his arrival, CISCO had a decentralized approach to IT spending. Independent business groups were making decisions in fuctional silos. Each group their own funds for IT, therefore, redundant applications such as CRM systems were created. This was a global issue as well as a localized issue.

They had taken the technology for granted and did not allocate the proper resources for such an integral system. Their technology was outdated and they failed to manage the integration process properly. They failed to control changes made to the network effectively. Their people also lacked the training necessary to maintain the network. Likely as a response to the cost cutting, they also failed to build in enough redundancy into the system and did not have an effective maintenance program to keep the network going.

The case about Bombardier and the implementation in a large scale of an ERP system explains the different steps taken by this organization in order to successfully implement and execute this system. Team #3 in their presentation made special mention to the IT Governance and explained trough the presentation how this element allows the managers from Bombardier to bridge the gap between control requirements, technical issues and business risks within the organization. Moreover, when the project went live, the continuous monitoring of the process involve in the system and the comparison of actual results with the ones planned are the perfect examples of a proper application of IT Governance by Bombardier. Also, during the post-implementation considerations

1. Cisco suffered from inertia when an attempt was made to engage business management in selecting software for their individual areas, and/or agreeing to participate in the ERP implementation project. List and explain reasons why management would hesitate to become engaged in the IT process/project.

Such a move was attributed to the fact that, they wanted to prove that the proposed system helps the company operate more effectively. Senior administrator was more on ensuring that the system installed was not default in nature. The customization process of the ideal system was put in a greater focus and that enabled the company gets appropriate information technology system (Diffin, 2010). The company had a suitable information technology system with qualified personnel and its machines were in the right condition. I observed that the company had an IT expert who oversaw all the operations carried out by selected team. Use of high-quality equipment within the operations platform made the management buy the idea of installing the SharePoint administrator technology system plus the data backup system. The company had all its trust on my advice, training, and design of the new system (Carr,

Boston believed that “standardization has to be seen in the context of something that is gained.” (Glaser, p.33). There were many projects going on that didn’t benefit the business and needed to be put on pause. Boston’s highest priorities were to upgrade the Oracle ERP system, develop a single, master customer database and establish an enterprise reporting and BI solution. (Case study, p. 5). First, the upgrade would impact all the other systems that were added on and it needed to be done very carefully and strategically. Culture was a problem. The IT funding model needed to change because managers were used to doing what they wanted as far as what technology they were implementing. If they were going to standardize cross functionally, then they had to stop creating customized tools. Boston decided that the business units would no longer be in control of their own destinies and instead each needed to contribute resources to the larger good of the organization. (Case study, p. 6). Everyone needed to be accountable, even the corporate IT function that in the past would do whatever the business unit asked. Boston’s solution was to break down the allocation into three categories: infrastructure, application development and direct charge items. Corporate IT would control the infrastructure, keeping the business units in control of application development and direct-charge funds. (Case study, p. 6). Everyone needed to contribute to companywide initiatives. It

Changing the IT infrastructure however would prove problematic. Cisco had a policy of centralized IT yet the company had several legacy systems that had become siloed, and lack of integration to them was slowing down sourcing, supply chain integration to manufacturing and also drastically slowing down revenue recognition as exemplified with the many problems with general ledger and other core transaction processing applications. Making matters worse, Cisco has deliberately created system workarounds to circumvent their legacy systems that had been causing the slow-down in core manufacturing and accounting system.

Because Tektronix previously had problems implementing IT projects, the company was mindful that replacing their legacy systems could be a risky undertaking. Further, it was well-known that wide-scale ERP implementation would be a very costly endeavor. Consequently, Tektronix managed the risks of its ERP implementation by having a coherent, guiding vision entailing: 1) separability of the businesses; 2) leveraging shared services; and 3) staying as "plain vanilla" as possible.

ERP, which is an abbreviation for Enterprise Resource Planning, is principally an integration of business management practices and modern technology. Information Technology (IT) integrates with the core business processes of a corporate house to streamline and accomplish specific business objectives. Consequently, ERP is an amalgamation of three most important components; Business Management Practices, Information Technology and Specific Business Objectives.

To uphold a good relationship with them is the answer to minimise the risk. Thus, offering them the new integrated online system which will ease and simplify their deal, will be very advantageous.