PRAXIS BUSINESS SCHOOL

Cisco Systems Architecture: ERP and Web-enabled IT

Case questions












Submitted By:
Debasish Devkumar Padhy
Kushal Roy
Richa Daruka
Sabyasachi Sahoo
Sonam Keshri
Sumedha Dutta
Was the decision to implement ERP justified for CISCO?

Yes the decision to implement ERP is justiIied
Iirst legacy system in CISCO constantly needed maintenance and the upgrade
available was too small. Secondly CISCO's system was neither Ilexible nor robust
enough to accommodate its growth so, ERP implementation Iacilitated up gradation
which brought reliability and redundancy in the system.
aving an aim oI "broad product line" which will enable them to serve as one stop
shopping so they required a system to support their business requirement.
As CISCO wanted to collaborate with suppliers, distributors, partners and customers
so ERP will help them in their business activities like controlling inventory, customer
services and order tracking.
supply chain automation through ERP system will allow the demands to reach
directly to the contract manuIacturer without any delay.

2 What were some of the key factors that enabled them to implement the system in nine
months?

The project was assigned as one oI the top 7 goals oI the company in that particular
year. so people Irom every department were picked up and asked to implement the
system in a quick and eIIicient way.
Cisco` alliance with KPMG in the implementation oI a new system
They applied best oI breed approach Ior vendor selection - Finally Oracle was
selected to provide ERP product as they were having high manuIacturing capability
and their promises oI long term development and Iunctionality oI the package
ig ang Approach: Decided to replace the system as a whole rather in parts.
Adopted a standard ERP system by which everyone was trained and not a
customization system which would have required training in every department .
Auditors will Iace problem iI the system will be down during the audit season which
will lead company to troublesome.


What are the benefits of the Web Enabled architecture at CISCO? What are the
drawbacks of the architecture? As CIO, would you have done anything differently?

Benefits for employees
CISCO was able to do business more eIIiciently and eIIectively.
ink to vendors and customers allowed CISCO to collaborate more eIIiciently with those
outside the company.
Corporate Intranet
CISCO employee connection (CEC) provided centralized access to inIormation,
tools and resources in order to streamline processes.
"uarterly meeting could be watched Irom employees desktop.
Distance learning modules were accessible Irom every desktop.
"My Yahoo" speciIically modeled Ior CISCO employees
Benefits for customers
CISCO.COM online support Ior customer, answering questions, diagnosing network
problem, providing simple solutions.
Through Cisco Connection Online (CCO), the customer navigated to the inIormation
needed Ior the interaction work, or 'published and subscribed that is, the customer directly
contributed inIormation required to do business with Cisco.
Supply chain mechanism
Maintained an eIIicient supply chain between itselI and its suppliers.
ew product introduction which reduced the amount oI time and cost simultaneously.
PerIormed tests automatically with minimal labor and standardized product tests.
Return On Investment increased with reduced operation.
Drawbacks
security breach could occur.
soItware malIunction may take place.
As CIO
Will look aIter the security issues and install Iirewall to prevent database Irom hacking.


How would you justify the expenditure that CISCO incurred in implementing the web
enabled architecture? You do not have enough information to actually do a cost-benefit
analysis However, you can discuss what approach you would use to justify the
expenditure



Total cost Incurred

1. ERP implementation- 15$ million

SoItware- 2.4$ million
ardware- 4.8$ million
head count- 2.1$ million
system integration-5.7$ million
. Replacing existing IT application- 100$ million
Benefits
1. e commerce revenue - 5$ billion
. Online support to customers and resellers. 506$ million
3. Productivity gains. 60 for CISCO and 0 for customers and resellers
4. profit for CISCO (1997). 75$million
5. NPI. reduced time to volume by 3 months and total cost reduced by 49$ million.
SofLware
16
Pardware
32
Pead
CounL
14
SysLem
lnLegraLlon
38
Lxpend|ture done on Lk
|mp|ementat|on