Case 5 Bety Maitre

Cisco EPR Implementation May 20, 2008

ISM 5021
Was the project a success? Enough of a success to distribute bonuses? Be
sure to define success, then offer alternatives and make a recommendation,
justified by your criteria for success.

The Cisco ERP implementation project was not a success. To have been a
success, Cisco would have had to meet the budget, time, and project
objective constraints. This would have involved Cisco starting off with a well
assessed and documented business case that was completely in-line with the
company’s business strategy.

A well written business plan would have helped the stakeholders fully
understand the content and complexity of the ERP project by offering clearly
stated and evaluated issues, scope, risk, cost, mitigations and benefits of the
project. The business plan would have broadened the scope to serve the
needs of the organization better and required various levels of departmental
end users input to realize that modifications were absolutely necessary.
Furthermore, with so much resources being absorbed by the ERP projects
and the importance placed on succeeding, top management should have
been presented with more than one investment option to ensure that the
resources were working on the highest yielding opportunities. Last, a
business case would have given the project more structure through metrics
that the steering committee could have traced and measured the
deliverables and benefits of the ERP implementation project. Periodic
reviews of metrics outlined would ensure the project was being managed
properly.

Some disadvantages to constructing a business case prior to implementation

existed as well. First, the time taken to reach the decision of going with
Oracle would have increased if the team had to come up with other
alternatives. In addition, the stakeholders may have chosen to go with a
different venture if financial analysis of several investment ventures had
occurred and revealed other attractive alternatives. Finally, the decision of
going with an ERP implementation would have been left to the board. With
only one choice presented and the issues stated so grave, the board really
had no choice but to go with the choice presented.

Affects of Organizational Structure, Culture and Top Level Support

Cisco’s decentralized organizational structure changed the course of the

system implementation. The fact that the current situation was affecting
everyone at Cisco helped to decentralize the organization but the focus still
remained on the issue, organizational needs were not really addressed,
causing the scope to change. With a changing scope, the project now
included more work and needed more resources in order to have it
completed.

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Case 5 Bety Maitre
Cisco EPR Implementation May 20, 2008
ISM 5021
Cisco’s culture was conducive to the ERP system Implementation. Strong
unit integration allowed the project managers to select the best candidates
to help with the implementation process. Cisco has a high degree of risk
tolerance; the team leads were granted the project and were allowed to
make changes in the middle of implementation. Cisco’s employees identify
more with the organization as a whole rather than with their type of job.

Top level support played a major role in pulling off the implementation of the
new ERP system. First, the project required stripping the company of its best
and brightest to get the project done, which would not have happened if the
support did not come from the top. In addition, top level helped the team
form solutions as they faced difficulties and allocated resources efficiently to
get the implementation done.

Balance Technical and Business Approaches

Cisco attempted to balance technical and business approaches by creating a

management team that had a mix of people from both the business and IT
community, partnering with KPMG, having vendor software demonstration,
and having the IT department customize the ES to meet business needs. But
the attempt was not balanced because all of Cisco’s decisions were time and
cost motivated. In order for the technical and business approaches to have
been balanced a scope motivated approach should have been taken with a
technical and business outlook.

Prototyping

Rapid iterative prototyping was very helpful to the implementation process.

The four phases that the implementation was divided into allowed the teams
to understand the ES and the way it works. The Conference Room Pilots
(CRP) gave the group critical insight during the prototyping process. During
CRP0, Cisco realized that modification would be necessary. In the course of
CRP1, Cisco grasped that Oracle couldn't support all of the business
processes. During CRP2, the project manager realized the need for a data
warehouse. Finally, after going live, Cisco recognized the need for testing at
the same scale as the system during CRP3.

Contributing Success Factors

Strong support from third party stakeholders played a major role in

contributing to the success of the project. First, Oracle’s commitment led to
an economic loss, but aided in the stabilization of the new system and a
great reference. Also, KPMG saw the business opportunity that the success
of this project would bring and offered Cisco experienced consultants that
could help with emerging issues and leave a great reference. Furthermore,
using the best people as a part of the team helped the team to overcome
issues. Last, contracting with the hardware vendor based the hardware's

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Case 5 Bety Maitre
Cisco EPR Implementation May 20, 2008
ISM 5021
capability instead of configuration helped tremendously when the system
began crashing.

Recommendations

Initially, we should figure out all the technical, business, and organizational
benefits and implications that the project will have on the organization.
Subsequently, the project team should research and formulate feasible
alternatives to solve the issue at hand. Third, our company would run test to
data at an accurate level. Finally, we should definitely start out with a
business plan. Collectively, all four will ensure we have detailed the
problem, the scope, the risk, the cost, and evaluated all feasible solutions.