Cisco It Case

Compose your write-up following the assignment instructions provided in the course space. Please remember to answer each of these questions:

1. How did Cisco find itself in such trouble with regard to its internal IT in 2001? Why didn’t the single ERP system help more?

The underlining core issue was that each group and line managers made independent IT decisions. Ultimately Cisco was in trouble with regards to its internal IT mainly because of the decentralization program brought in by Solvik. When Solvik begin the implementation, the ERP and its purpose maintained consistency, however, over time that consistency deteriorated due to the decentralization. Similar IT tools used different data and definitions for a particular group’s needs. As a result, reporting channels as well as reports were detreated and less accurate and conflicts arose. To put it into Charlie S Feld and Danna Stoddard’s terms taught in the article “Getting IT Right”, IT decisions were being made in terms of “old silo architecture”. (Getting IT right) There was no accountability or no centralized group with the assignment of ensuring there were no conflicts or redundancies. There was so much customization being made within the line groups by the line managers that it ultimately became a long term issue. This then led to the data integrity issues in situations where different tools were pulling the same data from different sources that used different definitions.

Why didn’t this ensure more consistency?

Cisco implemented an ERP system, but there was no plan to tie all of the tools together; in short, there wasn’t essential standardization of the IT interfaces or any way to customize the various tools and applications. As a result, there was a lack of insurance for the full IT system to have any consistency.

2. Would you approve the call center project? Why or why not?

I would approve the call center project. Cisco is a consumer oriented and customer focused company. In order to enhance productivity, manage calls efficiently, gain consumer confidence and reduce overall costs incurred by an existing system, cisco would benefit by implementing the call center project. One way cisco would benefit from approval of the call center project would be the alignment of the organizations goals with IT and the objective to grow globally. Moving forward from a decentralized approach to a more centralized based company is essential; this project has the potential to add significant value to the company in this way. Another way the call center project may add value is through more efficiently routing customer calls, which would result in cheaper processing expenses and improved consumer confidence through their experience. Finally, this project