The given case revolves around the Cisco Systems, a company founded by two Stanford computer scientists in 1984. The company provided its customers with the combination of hardware and software that acted as a traffic cop on the complex TCP/IP. networks (Austin, Nolan and Cotteleer 1). The nature of the company and its focus on the Internet technologies conditioned its blistering development and by 1997 Cisco ranked among top five companies with the high revenues. In 1998, the companys market capitalization was about 100$ billion (Austin, Nolan and Cotteleer 1). At the moment, it remains extremely popular and continues to implement new technologies into its functioning.
Besides, Pete Solvik joined the company in 1993 as its CIO. He contributed to the development of the company greatly as he recognized the necessity of the initiation of the change process. However, Solvik tried to avoid usage an ERP solution as he was sure that the strong tradition of standardization would contribute to the efficient functioning of various databases characterized by similar architecture. Yet, the problem remained as the system replacement difficulties promoted the significant decrease of the level of Ciscos performance and deterioration of its legacy environment (Austin, Nolan and Cotteleer 3).
System outages became one of the major concerns of the company. One realized the necessity of the implementation of new practices which would be able to solve the problem as the essential Ciscos systems were going to fail.
Mainly due to these reasons, the officials of the company recognized the significance of the implementation of new systems to meet the business needs and guarantee the further development of the company. The choice of Oracle was one of the possible solutions to the existing problem. It was determined by the great manufacturing capability of Oracle, perspectives for its development. and by the flexibility suggested by it (Austin, Nolan and Cotteleer 6).
Resting on these facts, Cisco decided to obtain strong partners and initiated its cooperation with KPMG. The given strategy was accepted after the long-term analysis of its main aspects. Therefore, the implementation of new solutions and cooperation with KPMG promoted the further development of the company and guaranteed its existence.
The case also provides several recommendations related to the process of the implementation of a new system and the creation of the positive environment. Besides, Cisco accepted the idea that the usage of ERP is the complicated process that requires a solid base and involvement. For this reason, the company aligned the close cooperation of the IT and business departments to guarantee the positive results. Moreover, it could be recommended to create the more detailed implementation plan for the company to be able to get rid of the nagging problems related to the usage of Oracle and the problems which appeared at the first stages of its testing.
Having analyzed the case, one realizes the significance of the IT technologies and the need for their implementation. Being an outstanding company, Cisco was not able to face the appearing challenges without the efficient approach that implied the usage of systems like Oracle and cooperation with KPMG. These measures contributed to the improvement of the companys image and reconsideration of its functioning. In these regards, the benefits provided by the modern IT technologies become obvious. Their usage could promote the creation of the efficient model that will guarantee the evolution of the company. Finally, the case proves the efficiency of the multi-faceted approach that implies consideration of IT and business needs.
Works Cited
Austin, Robert, Richard Nolan and Mark Cotteleer. Cisco Systems Inc.: Implementing ERP. 2002.