Cisco Systems, Inc.

:
Implementing ERP
- Submitted by group 2
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What factors had made the difference between
success and failure of the Cisco ERP project?

▸ Hi Mukul :P

▸ Partners : The partners chosen for selecting and implementing the ERP solution i.e. KPMG and Oracle were
highly committed towards making this project a success .
▸ Employees working on the project : The people who were chosen to work on this project were the best and
brightest employees of the firm. They were highly committed and worked long hours to make this project a
success.
▸ Implementation Strategy :
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Where had the ERP team been “smart”? Where had
the ERP team been just plain “lucky”?
Incidences where the team had been “smart”:
1. Selection of Oracle as Vendor for ERP
- Oracle had better manufacturing capability which was required by Cisco
- Flexibility and long term development offered by Oracle
- Oracle wanted to win the project badly, hence cisco got super deal
- Steering commitment of high level executives from Oracle
2. Selecting the people to work on the project
- Cisco picked up those people who were very important for the business and they would not want to give up
these people
3. Adapting “Conference Room Pilots” (CRP) strategy during the implementation
- Because of adapting step by step strategy, they were able to build on previous work to develop deeper
understanding of software and improve in further steps
- Ex. At the end of CRP0, they realised that there was a need of ERP modification which they denied at the start.
- Ex. At the end of CRP1, they realised the oracle package would not support after sales support needs of the
company
4. Making unusual contract of purchasing equipment based on promised capability rather than a specific
configuration
- The onus for fixing the hardware problems fell completely on the hardware vendor at the time of after cutover
issues
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Where had the ERP team been “smart”? Where had
the ERP team been just plain “lucky”? Continued...
Incidences where the team had been plain “lucky”:
1. Completing the implementation on time even with the lack of planning before
starting
- In between the implementation, the ERP team realised the need of modification and
that the selected package would not be able to serve the after sales support needs.
- These new discoveries led to change in the project plan and budget
- They were lucky to go live with both Oracle package and new after sales service
package on the same day even after the mid implementation discoveries
2. Going live with the system that was not properly tested
- The system was not tested on the full load with all the processes running together with
fully loaded database
- This could have led to many serious consequences but they were lucky to experience
on an average 1 outage per day
3. The Strong vendor commitment from partners during the issues/problems that arose
after the cutover
- They were lucky to have strong commitment from Oracle, the hardware vendors, KPMG
and Cisco IT team which led to eventual stabilization of software
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Could the Cisco team do the same project again if
they had to? Give reasons.