Enterprise IT at Cisco
Enterprise IT at Cisco
Among the vital points learned from this case is that empowering departments is a vital step in promoting innovation and entrepreneurial drive (McFarlan & Berkley, 2007). Cisco previous manager, Peter Solvik had excelled in this strategy. Solvik created an environment where each department within the organization created and funded its own IT project. This environment enhanced innovations as different department came up with solutions that were customized to the need. Operations in different geographical locations also came up with IT solutions that meet the unique need of the geographical locations.
Despite the need to empower individual department, there is a need to create a centralized body to oversee the IT project. This was not present under Solvik leadership (McFarlan & Berkley, 2007). There was no centralized group to check IT redundancies and conflicts. The company ended up developing many applications that perform similar tasks. At one time, the company had over 50 different custom survey tools. This proved to be wastage of resources as these functions could be solved with a single program. Having a centralized body would enhance efficiency of the organization. Similarly, Lack of a centralized system also made it difficult for Cisco to upgrade its enterprise wide systems. Most of the individual programs were interfaced with the enterprise wide system in different ways. This meant that the individual programs would have to be disconnected when an upgrade on the enterprise wide system is implemented. This reiterates the point of having a centralized group to manage the organization project.
Another key point that is brought out in the case is the importance of aligning teams with the overall objectives of the company. The company’s overall objectives define the reason for the company’s existence (Hiatt & Creasey, 2003). Therefore, these objectives are essential to all teams. Though different departments may have different objectives, the company’s overall goals remain the focus of all departments. Thus, all departments need to ensure that the IT projects are in line with the overall ambitions of the company. This was a major problem in Cisco’s case. Each department was pursuing its own goals leading to the neglect of the overall goals of the company (McFarlan & Berkley, 2007). The company’s cost went up while the enterprise wide system became inefficient. The new CIO, Boston wanted to change this. He forced people to think of the company in an interdisciplinary way. He wanted the employees to connect how different department interact and affect the overall strategies of the company. Boston also forced teams to think in a global context.
The case also portrays the importance of ensuring significant involvement of employees when introducing changes to the organization’s system. Changes are usually accompanied with uncertainties (Hiatt & Creasey, 2003). This is because employees are required to move from systems that were comfortable to systems that have not been proven. The sense of uncertainty tends to bring about resistance (Hiatt & Creasey, 2003). This was visible in Cisco case at first. The different managers had gotten used to running individual projects that when the decision to stop this project was issued by the new CIO, they started running underground projects.
The senior management team needs to ensure involvement of employees in the change process in order to reduce resistance (Hiatt & Creasey, 2003). This is exactly what Boston did. The CIO involved employees in identifying the priority areas of the business. The team identified three priority projects. Boston assigned responsibility to the employees. He appointed leaders for each of the three projects and other individuals to head other specific projects. The goals were to involve as many employees as possible in the change process. This creates ownership of the change process by the employees thus minimizing resistance.
References
Hiatt J. & Creasey T. (2003). Change Management: The People Side of Change. USA. Prosci Publishers
McFarlan F & Berkley A. (2007). Enterprise IT at Cisco (2004). Harvard Business School.
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