Cisco Implementation of ERP

Cisco


1. The ERP implementation process provides several examples as to why Cisco is Information Age company as opposed to an Industrial Age company. Although Cisco’s ERP vendor selection was driven by the manufacturing groups needs, this does not qualify them as an Industrial Age company proving that even a manufacturing focused company can still categorize itself as an information age company because of factors such as structure, resource allocation, and communication across functional groups.

One key difference in the two types of companies is structure. In Industrial Age companies, a hierarchy was the dominant business model – with power very centralized among top management. While John Morgridge, CEO, ‘maintained a centralized functional organization,’ at Cisco, the structure of the ERP task force team was nearly the opposite of a hierarchy and in fact drew key people out of many business units. The leaders of the project, Peter Solvik and Randy Pond colla...