Enterprise Resource Planning Case Study : Cisco

The case shows the implementation of SAP ERP solution in NIBCO, a manufacturer of pipe and fittings, a mid-size manufacturer with about 3,000 employees and revenue over 460 million USD. The company

John Chambers was hired in 1991 and quickly became CEO of the company in 1995. He came up with a plan that would help the company work more efficiently and effectively. This plan consisted of four steps: First, he assembled a broad product line so that Cisco could serve as one-stop shopping for business networks. This would help make purchasing products and receiving needed information much easier for

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 future direction of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is being increasing defined by the needs of business units and divisions, less by the hierarchical requirements of IT departments. This transition is occurring with increasing speed and velocity, shifting the balance of political power in organizations to the line-of-business users, away from IT, while also drastically changing the architecture and platforms of ERP systems (Markus, Petrie, Axline, 2000). The intent of this essay is to define how ERP will develop over the next five years, also defining what ERP's development will mean for business and organizational models of public-service contractor companies and the U.S. Government. The essay will continue with prescriptive guidance of whether public-service contractor companies need to take a leadership or followership role with respect to the future of ERP.

The Cisco Company began its web development in the early 1990s and that was an attempt which made them to move forward for the web enablement after the big investment on the ERP system. There were major benefits associated with the system and the big investment of almost 100$million. The main plan was that the company would enable all of their application which will lead to the high percentage of the Cisco customers, partners, suppliers and the interaction with the company is network based and also that begins at the Cisco home page. The other reason for implementing the web enablement was that the company built its business process on its own with the global internet.

Can give you a competitive advantage. For example, Companies in India recently looked at the cost/benefits of using an ERP system, like SAP or Oracle. The results that they found were extremely impressive. Overall, they concluded that Using ERP could lower procurement cost, drastically improve productivity, eliminating personnel and reducing the cost of IT overall (Annamalai, 2011). One of main reasons to upgrade for Kudler is its lack of security. Kudler mentions that its IT is flawed with this respect, but this is understandable due to their current technology. Upgrading to a secure ERP

Pros. An ERP system is a necessary investment for Riordan because it integrates all departments and their respective functions across the organization into a single IT system (UMaine, 2009). There are three main benefits of ERP systems that directly address problems with Riordan’s operations. One benefit is a logical solution to a mess of incompatible applications currently in use by the organization. ERP also allows global access and sharing of organizational data as well. Additionally, implementing an ERP system will help the organization bypass the difficulties and expenses of replacing legacy systems (UMaine, 2009). An analysis of Riordan’s current issues with its Finance

Brown et al., (2012) stated that responsibilities would be distributed among the triad as co-leads with each individual responsible for different aspects of the project, Wilson for technology, Beutler for business coordination, and Davis for change management. The co-leads met daily to coordinate efforts, discussed issues and made decisions together, so as to work together as one team in order for strategic plan to align with the business plan and continue to meet the strategic goal. The co-leads planned for every conceivable scenario that could happen along the path in implementing the new ERP system. Communication played a key role with the co-leads and the other project stakeholders. The co-leads communicated every issue and asked for input from the entire firm to ensure no process or step was overlooked so as to capture the processes in the planning stage. The project had management’s support as well as a project champion which assisted in positively encouraging management and the staff on the benefits and advantages of the new

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

The Cisco philosophy regarding IT was simple: As long as someone was willing to pay for it, the IT department would work on whatever process/project specified. This is not only a waste of money, but it also creates problems when trying to work across teams. If two teams use two different processes to come

Riordan Manufacturing will need to create a project plan for the ERP rollout to the company. Piloting the software at Michigan, Georgia, and China may necessitate purchase of additional hardware to provide service to the three locations. The distance between locations requires evaluation of software response. Determination of this evaluation dictates whether the server infrastructure will be throughout the company or maintained in the San Jose office. Upon completion of the ERP pilot phase and testing completed, loading information from the current finance and accounting information from and decommissioning of the old systems will commence.

This report is going to highlight the major events over the history of the MeadWestvaco Corporation. It particularly demonstrates how the MeadWestvaco used information systems to bring together the companies Mead and Westvaco into one integrated company and further explains the detailed implantation of ERP along with the related issues and challenges.

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.

The problem presented by Joseph-Armand Bombardier is the upcoming third round of ERP implementation in his organization. Even though a big improvement over the efficiency and success of execution between the first ERP round (Mirabel plant) and second round (Saint-Laurent plant), there is still room for improvement.

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.