...Cisco systems Architecture: ERP and Web-Enabled IT Case Introduction and Background and analysis of the Business Cisco Systems, a Global leading company that manufactures and markets Internet Protocol (IP) equipment, uses routers to send digital and voice data over the Internet. Founded in 1984 by three former Stanford University Students, Cisco first found early success by targeting Government agencies, Universities, and the Aerospace industry. In 1998, Cisco began targeting big businesses and other agencies. Cisco did their Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 1990. However, disagreement between founding partners led to two of the founding members parting ways with the company. In 1994, Cisco suffered another major setback: “Cisco’s legacy environment failed so dramatically that shortcomings of the existing systems could no long be ignored” (Nolan, 2005, p.4). However, after costly repairs and creating a brand new IT platform architecture, Cisco was able to recover and continued to move forward. Cisco immediately began expanding by acquiring smaller entities which expanded the company’s market share. In 1998, Cisco successfully reach the coveted $100 billion landmark. Over the next two years, Cisco continued to expand and “acquired more than 20 companies, including wireless network equipment maker Aironet. With a market capitalization exceeding $500 billion, Cisco enjoyed a turn as the world’s most valuable company in 2000” (Hoover, 2012, p.1.) Cisco’s product’s mix includes;...
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...initiatives must be consistent with company strategy—goal organization and management provide stable benefits to a fast growing, fast moving company - Companies must retain functional organization structure to scale without sacrificing control during high levels of growth - Install resource planning systems that smoothen company processes (don’t mirror old inefficient practices) - “Global Networked Companies” experience higher productivity and profitability - Standardization of Internet business solutions across functional areas leads to increased competitive advantage and shareholder value More in-depth Summary I. Cisco Systems Architecture: ERP and Web-enabled IT a. Company vision i. Pioneer ”New World Network” where voice calls are free over the Internet ii. Cisco = “Internet experts: the Global Internet Company” b. Company background i. Founded by two Stanford scientists in 1984 / went public in 1990 ii. Dominates “Internetworking” Market iii. March 27, 2000, Cisco overtook Microsoft as most valuable business on earth (market cap of $531 billion) iv. Cisco core technologies 1. Began with routers (what make the computer work) 2. Now challenging world of three independent proprietary networks 1. Phone networks (voice) 2. Local and wide area networks (data) ...
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...CISCO case analysis Introduction and background As one of the largest makers of computer network gear Cisco provides a broad line of products for transportation of data, voice and video all over the globe. Cisco is one of the big impacts on how we connect as people, communicate and collaborate. Cisco are focused on the delivery of intelligent networks, technology and business architecture built on integrated products, services, and software platforms to its customers. This case is going to analyze the ERP rollout that took place after system failures in the years 1994-1995. Cisco was founded by two Stanford computer scientists in 1984 and brought public in 1990. In 1997, Cisco featured in the list of Fortune 500 companies and ranked in the top five companies in Return on Revenues and Return on Assets. Cisco passed the significant $100 billion mark in 1998 and in 1999 Cisco had more than 75% internet sharing (Nolan, R. 2005). Problem Cisco’s legacy IT department was too traditional and internally oriented and was considered being a cost center. The legacy system was very traditional only having the capabilities of very simple tasks. Cisco made years of modifications and customizations to the system which made it very complex that was comfortable for the users. In January 1994, Cisco’s legacy environment failed dramatically. The failure was so bad that the system actually was on the brink of complete failure. An unauthorized method for accessing core application...
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...Cisco Systems ERP – Case Study Andree Grecchi Hawai’i Pacific University 2/19/2014 IS 6005 Professor: Ken Rossi Table of Contents Who is Cisco? 2 Prehistorical Infrastructure 4 Seeking for a new start 4 Evaluation 6 Conclusion 7 References 8 Who is Cisco? Cisco is one of the most powerful and successful corporation in the IP network industry. In the fiscal 2013 their revenue totaled $48.6 billion and their Net Income was $10.0 billion (Cisco 2013 Annual Report). Cisco focuses on delivering products and services that consists in integrated networks for all forms of communication and IT. They provide their customers with an integrated architectural approach that gathers application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) software, hardware, and services. In December 1984 Cisco Systems Inc. was founded by two computer scientist at the Stanford University, Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, husband and wife. The two lovers wanted to communicate by email from their respective offices, but at the time different local area protocols communications didn’t exist. As a result the first multi-protocol router came out. Since then Cisco lead the networking market allowing “the transportation of voice, data and video within buildings, across campuses and around the world” (Cisco 2013 Annual Report. P.1). This is possible thanks to the routers, its core technology. A router is a device that joins multiple networks together, it allows the connection...
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... PDF Version [pic] How Cisco IT Upgraded Its ERP Manufacturing and Finance Modules (PDF - 255 KB) Don’t fix it if it’s not broken - especially if you are talking about an extensive enterprise software foundation, right? Not necessarily. In the case of the Oracle software environment, Cisco® management teams decided that it was time to upgrade even though the Oracle 10.7 software was still getting the job done. IT, operations, and executive teams all concurred that this vital component of the company’s IT infrastructure needed to be modernized. While there would be clear benefits from an upgrade to Oracle 11i, the main decision drivers were the need to move away from an outdated platform that was becoming cost-prohibitive for supporting Cisco’s growth and evolving business requirements. In particular, any future development of enterprise solutions would be compromised if developed on a less-than-current Oracle platform. “Remaining competitive on a global scale often comes down to our ability to efficiently respond to changing operations, to work with new partners and suppliers, and to make sure that our employees have fast access to the latest productivity-enhancing technology and decision-making tools. Having an integrated, modern platform allows us to more rapidly respond to changing business requirements and to improve partner productivity and customer satisfaction,” says David Murray, director for release management, Oracle Projects, Cisco IT. “We knew that an upgrade...
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...9-605-015 REV: AUGUST 20, 2007 ANDREW MCAFEE F. WARREN MCFARLAN ALISON BERKLEY WAGONFELD Enterprise IT at Cisco (2004) On a Monday morning in March of 2004 Brad Boston, CIO of Cisco Systems, was preparing for a meeting with the six other members of Cisco’s Business Process Operating Committee (BPOC). This group of senior executives met twice each month to review and prioritize key initiatives that impacted the entire company. Since its first meeting in 2002, BPOC had focused its attention on several major enterprise-wide projects such as upgrading the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and developing a comprehensive customer database. As these projects started to wind down, the committee began considering new proposals that typically fell into one of three categories: “one-off” programs with specific short-term goals, “must-have” programs mandated for regulatory purposes (such as Sarbanes-Oxley compliance), and bigger enterprise initiatives that had to be prioritized relative to other projects with high resource requirements. Although BPOC did not fund the projects it approved, the committee’s recommendations deeply affected Cisco’s overall commitment to various IT initiatives. As Boston thought about the projects that were going to be covered at the next BPOC meeting, he knew that one request had the potential to generate a great deal of discussion. Cisco’s customer advocacy group was proposing an overhaul of Cisco’s call center processes—the group wanted...
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...to End-To-End Communication An Analysis of Cisco Systems and how the use of Information Technology gave them a Competitive Advantage Mira Vissell ISM 158 Business Analysis Paper March 4th, 2004 Table of Contents Objective Section I: Industry Summary: An Analysis of Network Equipment Industry A. Industry Profile B. Competitive Strategies within the Industry C. Porter Model Evaluation of Industry Forces D. Globalization of the Industry E. Importance of Information Technology in the Industry Section II: Company Perspective: An Analysis of Cisco Systems A. Cisco Systems profile B. Market and Financial Performance C. Competitive Strategy Statement D. Significance of Information and Information Systems E. Strengths and Weaknesses of Cisco Section III: Structured Analysis of Information System Use A. Strategic Option Generator B. Roles, Roles and Relationships C. Redefine/define D. Significance of Telecommunications E. Success Factor Profile Section IV: A Final Analysis of the Success of Cisco Systems A. The Success of Business Strategy and IT used to Date B. The Effective Position of the Company for Future Performance Bibliography Objective The objective of this paper is to analyze how Cisco Systems gained competitive advantage in the networking industry through the use of information systems and key business strategies. This paper has four...
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...the IT That Makes a Competitive Difference The Idea in Brief It’s not just you. It really is getting harder to outpace the other guys. Since the mid1990s, competition in the U.S. economy has accelerated to unprecedented levels. The engine behind this hypercompetition: IT. Thanks to powerful tools like ERP and CRM, backed by cheap networks, companies are swiftly replicating business-process innovations throughout their organizations. The firm with the best processes (order fulfillment, field installation, job closing) wins, but not for long. Rivals are striking back with their own IT-based process innovations. To gain—and keep—a competitive edge in this environment, McAfee and Brynjolfsson recommend a three-step strategy: • Deploy a consistent technology platform, rather than stitching together a jumble of legacy systems. • Innovate better ways of working. • Propagate those process innovations widely throughout your company. By taking these steps, elevator-systems maker Otis realized not only dramatically shorter sales-cycle times but higher revenues and operating profit. The Idea in Practice The authors recommend these steps for staying ahead of rivals through IT-enabled process innovation: Deploy. Adopt a uniform technology platform...
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...group read several chapters from the textbook, Information Technology for Management: Improving Performance in the Digital Economy (Turban and Volonino, 7th Edition), as well as numerous articles on various information technology subjects. A topic which received a significant amount of attention throughout our readings is the importance of aligning IT strategies with the business priorities of the company, and how this is critical to the success of an organization. An important component of this alignment is ensuring that the IT division in involved in the development of business strategies. A company’s business strategy is basically the overall direction or plan of the business. Information Systems (IS) strategy defines what information is required and what systems are needed to support the business strategy. Information Technology (IT) Strategy determines how services are delivered by the organization. IT-Business...
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...7 e-Business Systems CHAPTER OVERVIEW Chapter 7: e-Business Systems describes how information systems integrate and support enterprisewide business processes, as well as the business functions of marketing, manufacturing, human resource management, accounting, and finance. LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading and studying this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Identify the following cross-functional enterprise systems, and give examples of how they can provide significant business value to a company: a. Enterprise application integration b. Transaction processing systems c. Enterprise collaboration systems 2. Give examples of how Internet and other information technologies support business processes within the business functions of accounting, finance, human resource management, marketing, and production and operations management. SUMMARY • Cross-Functional Enterprise Systems. Major e-business applications and their interrelationships are summarized in the enterprise application architecture of Figure 7.2 . These applications are integrated cross-functional enterprise systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and supply chain management (SCM). These applications may be interconnected by enterprise application integration (EAI) systems so that business professionals can more easily access the information resources they need to support the needs of customers, suppliers,...
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...Introduction The many advantages of improving and corporation's network, particularly its Virtual personal Networks (VPNs) from IPv4 to IPv6 create the expenses related to the move recoverable from increased network steadiness, auto-configuration, security, mobility, increase and quality-of-service and multicast capability (Cisco 2007). First, in phrases of quantitative, address varies for an IPv6-based network is 128-bits, providing the company lots higher security, likewise (Fink, 1999). Secondly, the safety concerns with regards to utilizing DHCP to assign information science addresses victimization IPv4 these days will be mitigated with the homeless reconfiguration capability of IPv6 (Lehtovirta, J 2006). With several of the systems throughout the company administered remotely exploitation IPsec-based VPNs, the opportunity to maneuver to more secure VPNs attributable to IPsec-mandated end-to-end security exploitation IPv6 also adds in greater levels of security moreover. The increasing use of wireless connections by members among the IT employees to observe and maintain IT systems also can currently be potential exploitation Mobile IP with Direct Routing (Cisco 2007). The redoubled support for protocols specifically for multicast routing are also supported in IPv6, that may build marketing’s’ several webinars and on-line initiatives additional expeditiously delivered, moreover. Most vital concerning the upgrade from IPv4 to IPv6, the requirement also exists to update the many...
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...(Hang Zhou, China). Each plant contains the same basic departments, to include Sales and Marketing, Operations, Finance and Accounting, Information Technology (IT), Legal, and Human Resources. The problem; however, lies in all four plants Sales and Marketing, Operations, Finance and Accounting, and Human Resources departments, which have outdated and unconsolidated systems. China Physical Layout One location is China. The Wide Area Network being used has three T1 connections in the United States and a Satellite connection in China. This paper is used for determining the architecture for the Riordan WAN and then research what possible security measures can be taken to reduce Vulnerabilities. The Layout is below: • Ethernet Backbone 1G • Windows Exchange server Email • Windows Network server Domain controller • Unix Server for ERP/MRP Customer and Vendor Relations • Linksys Wireless Router • VOIP Satellite Connection • 35 Dell Optiflex Desktops with windows 2000 • T1 Connection Immediate recommendations that stick out would be several things such as encryption, firewall, and outdated operating systems. The firewalls could be set up in multiple facets like Stateful Inspection, Application filtering, IP filtering, Protocols filtering and whatever access control setup is...
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...Board, one that justified, on an array of criteria, the rationale for this award. If it did happen, tiny Nakisa would take its place, in a very small and select circle, alongside such companies as Adobe, Cisco, and Microsoft. Five years ago, SAP would likely have built the application with its own engineering organization. Yusuf’s team had worked with SAP’s product management organization to put together a deck of slides on the Nakisa partnership to be presented to the SAP Board. Yusuf flipped through the deck and wondered if the recommendation to elevate Nakisa to Tier 1 status really made sense. Yusuf reflected for a moment on how far things had come in just a few years, to even be considering this. Prior to 2000, organizations in the enterprise resource planning software (ERP) industry—notably archrivals SAP and Oracle—played clear-cut roles in the complex process of developing and installing enterprise applications, even as the nature of the product demanded extensive collaboration between software supplier, enterprise customer, and the system integrators that drove implementation. SAP’s technology and its ability to create new areas of business process expertise for new applications were instrumental in making the firm the world’s leader in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) field (see Exhibit 1). In the new century, with the...
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...either a public or private organization can be defined as e-procurement. These include software, B2B market exchanges, B2B auctions and purchasing consortia purported to atomize workflow, influence organisational spend, as well as seek out contemporary sourcing opportunities virtually (Davila et. al, 2003). E-procurement is evident as several norms. Some of the general types include, but are not limited to; - Electronic systems supporting conventional procurement such as - Web- enabled Electronic Data Exchange (EDI-IT) - EDI functions as an application that enables the transmission of messages between computer programs of 2 differing entities. The migration to open networks allows messages to be communicated in batches and eliminates for data duplication. A concern with EDI would be the higher costs of implementation, as both the sender and receiver needs to have EDI implemented. EDIs are extensively used to exchange concerns relating to ordering, products confirmation, and transportation and invoicing. - Web-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) o These are management information...
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...PART I IT in the Organization 1. Information Technology in the Digital Economy 2. Information Technologies: Concepts and Management 3. Strategic Information Systems for Competitive Advantage CHAPTER Strategic Information Systems for Competitive Advantage Rosenbluth International: Competing in the Digital Economy 3.1 Strategic Advantage and Information Technology 3.2 Porter’s Competitive Forces Model and Strategies 3.3 Porter’s Value Chain Model 3.4 Interorganizational Strategic Information Systems 3.5 A Framework for Global Competition 3.6 Strategic Information Systems: Examples and Analysis 3.7 Implementing and Sustaining SIS Minicases: (1) Cisco Systems/ (2) Aeronautica Civil 89 LEARNING OBJECTIVES 3 After studying this chapter, you will be able to: Describe strategic information systems (SISs) and explain their advantages. Describe Porter’s competitive forces model and how information technology helps companies improve their competitive positions. Describe 12 strategies companies can use to achieve competitive advantage in their industry. Describe Porter’s value chain model and its relationship to information technology. Describe how linking information systems across organizations helps companies achieve competitive advantage. Describe global competition and global business drivers. Describe representative SISs and the advantage they provide to organizations. Discuss the challenges associated with sustaining competitive advantage. ROSENBLUTH INTERNATIONAL: COMPETING...
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