Cisco Systems Architecture Essay

cisco is a community with a clear vision and an ambitious goal of becoming the spheric Internet expert. The c entirelyer-out curing its sights on challenging the norm of the cartridge holder and working on making voice calls over the Internet free. realised in 1984 by two Stanford graduates, cisco became the most valucapable seam on earth by March 2000. The conjunctions scheme is to provide a complete ancestors offer to its customers with offering a wide product range and growing the stage condescension through acquisitions and business alliances. From its original core technology of routers, the company is now focusing in three independent networks of phone, local and wide area and broadcast networks. The opposite point for the company was its database failure and forced two-day shutdown in 1994. This gist highlighted the invite to change companys approach to systems replacement and the need to integrate all of companys applications.The company decided to cod new pra ctices and retrain its staff rather than mirroring the old and tried. The end was made to collaborate with Oracle to develop a single ERP response to replace all current systems. The project was a success and was followed by replacement and standardization of all companys platforms and applications worldwide. Further to this project, Cisco web-enabled all its applications, resulting in customer service, HR and supply chain efficiencies. Ciscos success continues and is existence made possible by its branch through acquisitions and strategic alliances (such as that with KPMG). The company is where it is today largely referable to its effective integrated Internet business systems, resulting in great efficiencies for the company and its various stakeholders.1) Cisco Information climb on Company.Cisco is far from being an industrial Age Company. The main case for this is that the company has been able to understand the take to be in IT and use it to better their performance an d achieve the want growth. According to Weill & Ross (2009), it is a characteristic of an IT Savvy firm. To be more specific, through integrating their processes and applications into an ERP solution and then to proceeding to full replacement of all of its IT solutions worldwide, Cisco moved to a digitalized platform. According to Weill & Ross (2009), digitalized platform is an integrated set of electronic business processes and technologies. This would hardly be a characteristic of an Industrial Age company. Further to that, Ciscos approach to implementation of its ERP solution and deciding not to mirror known and learnt old approaches but to cause a bold move and rather retrain its people in new systems, demonstrates forward thinking and innovation, which is critical to get significant value from IT.Again this is a more fitting characteristic of an Information Age company rather than an Industrial Age company. In implementing the ERP system, the company successfully identified w here it lacked necessary expertise and was not scared to outsource their needs analysis to KPMG and then the ERP project to Oracle, who had significant knowledge and experience in the solutions Cisco were after. The outside the square thinking allowed the company to focus on own competences and keep them in-house while tapping into the expertise of others through outsourcing and alliances. This is a decided characteristic of an Information Age company. Finally, keeping communication lines open crosswise functional divisions and getting an input from across the business to avoid making the project an IT-only initiative and to ensure it addresses the real needs is another reason why Cisco is an Information Age company.2) IT contribution to the companys strategyIT greatly contributed to the companys strategy to provide wide one-stop-shop business networks solution for its customers, to set industry standards for networking, to systemize acquisitions and pick the rightly partners. F irstly, it was the companys IP-based IT Architecture that enabled them to effectively and smoothly handle business acquisition and fully integrate these new acquisitions in a pithy period of time. Secondly, ERP implementation and application of web-enabled IT allowed Cisco to meet its goals of streamlining its internal processes and upward(a) productivity, to rectify customer satisfaction through the provision of online technical retain, to initiate net commerce and set industry standards and to achieve an extremely efficacious supply chain.IT and systems implemented were at the heart of executing the companys strategy. Thirdly, IT is an integral part of Ciscos development system. According to Picolli (2008), information systems satisfy firms information needs and thus improve firms efficiency and enable it to achieve its goals. Being an serious part of this efficiency improvement process makes IT a significant reader to Ciscos strategy.3) The role of CIO Pete SolvikPete So lviks role was integral in Cisco being able to derive significant value from IT and get by it as a strategic asset as opposed to a liability. Prior to Ciscos defining moment, it had the ambitious goals but the company was running standard operations not being able to support what it aspired to become. Solvik brought fresh visions and innovative thinking to the company. His initiatives were to redefine how IT was viewed internally and depart from finance cost centre reporting perception of the department. He was also able to see the limitations of Ciscos systems and the potential of improvements. According to Weil & Ross (2009), when IT systems are wanting(predicate) you need to first change the entire approach to IT. Only at one time this is accomplished can the digitalized platform be implemented. Solvik did manage to do that. Weil & Ross (2009) try the need to strong leadership in turning IT into a strategic asset. And this is ultimately what Solviks role was in Ciscos transfo rmation.