Cisco ERP Implementation
Background
Pete Slovick, CIO comes to Cisco from Apple in Jan 1993
Cisco is growing like crazy
1995 96 97 98 99 2000
$2B $4B $6.5B $8.5B $12B $19B
January 1994 Legacy Systems Fail leaving company shut down for 2 days
ERP Project: June 1994-Feb 1995
Leadership
Action and Role Played by Senior Management
CEO-Morgridge, Made it clear to CISCO that the ERP project was a priority (one of seven goals for the year
Board of Directors, Approved project and showed by actions (including final party) their support
Redfield, SVP of Manufacturing, initial business sponsor, recognized importance of project being
a priority
Executive Steering Committee—see role and membership
CEO of Hardware vendor post implementation during performance problems—Exec Sponsor
IT-Slovik
Pond, director in manufacturing—helped sell the project, later promoted to VP (eventual co-leader of the project
Mark Lee, KPMG, senior (former IT director) and experienced with ERP
Tom Herbert, Program manager
Project Approach
Tight schedule/definite project end date
“Big Bang” implementation, not phased approach
Limit customization
Put the “best and the brightest” on the implementation team, people that the business units did not want to give up
Use of outside experts—KPMG
Rapid Prototyping method used
CRP—Conference Room Pilots (4 of these phases, each more sophisticated and detailed)
Testing process (good and bad—used sequential, not parallel processes and limited database)
Use of weekly executive meetings to review project status post implementation (performance problems)
Use of SWAT team approach to improve performance and stabilize the system post implementation
Project Management
Vendor selection process
Contracts with key vendors—promises from Oracle and performance from hardware mfg., not just equipment
Project organization—functional tracks, see Fig. 4
Team training and use of “Tiger” team
Two day offsite team...