Cisco Systems Case

Assignment Questions

1. At the end of the case, Pete Solvik has a number of questions. Please think about these questions, and be prepared to give your answer:

What factors had made the difference between success and failure of the Cisco ERP project?

Answer:

1. The company was a startup company and it was easy to perform changes to its current business process

2. The company had huge growth rates as far as the revenues were concerned, so that company was no short of the funds required for the ERP Project.

3. The employees were very enthusiastic to work for the new project as they found it interesting from the otherwise monotonous tasks. So the company could embark upon its intelligent employees for the success of the project.

4. The company enjoyed full support from the top management which was one of the major reasons for the success of the ERP project. The management was 100 % in favor of the project implementation.

5. The choice of Oracle as an implementation partner also helped in the success of the project because this project was being driven by manufacturing and Oracle was better than the other vendors as far as the manufacturing capabilities were concerned.

6. The choice of KPMG as the integration partner also helped a lot in turning the project into a big success. It was committed and dependable and was keenly interested in this project and it saw an opportunity to really build a business around putting in these applications.

Where had the ERP team been “smart”?

Answer:

The things that Cisco managers did right are discussed below:

1. The decision to implement the ERP project was the major decision taken by the managers at Cisco, this was taken at a time when Ciscos legacy environment was not able to support the operations. In January of 1994, Ciscos legacy environment failed to such an extent that the losses could not be ignored and something had to be done to handle them. Such was the state of the company those days that it had to be shut down for two days.

2. The managers were very particular of the team members that will work on the project. They took the best of their employees for this project so that they get the best brains to work on this project avoiding any chance of inefficient manpower.

3. The managers also made a particular choice in deciding the partners for them. They weighed their options very well before finally deciding the name of KPMG as their integration

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