Assignment

(Competitive Advantage and IS/IT; Cisco Case Study)

Reading (Work on the homework problems and do the readings in parallel):

• Laudon and Laudon, "EMIS", Chapters titled "Achieving Competitive Advantage with Information Systems", and "Achieving Operational Excellence....";

• Course Reader: Cisco Systems Case Study,

• Course Reader, Messerschmitt, UNA, Chapters 4, 5

Homework Problems

For each problem below proceed in the following structured manner: define the problem; plan the treatment of the problem; execute the plan; draw conclusions.

1. US Mobile Telephony ("cell-phone service provider") Industry:

• Perform a Porter Analysis of the US Mobile Telephony (aka "cell-phone service provider" industry). What is the competitive strategy of each competitor in this industry.

• Pick one of the competitors in this industry, and for this competitor answer the following questions:

o If this enterprise wants to automate the entire set of operations of the company (payroll, finance, HR, product design, manufacturing, supplier sourcing, supply chain, customer interactions, knowledge collection, etc. etc.), specify the types of application software it should use.

o For each software type, specify the functions of the software. Also specify whether these functions are related to the primary or secondary activities of the business value chain.

o List the software vendors for the different application types. What technology platforms does each vendor use to deploy the software.

2. Cisco Systems Case Study:

Please read the case study Cisco Systems, Inc.: Implementing ERP and answer the following questions:

1. What were the reasons behind Cisco's decision to deploy an ERP system?

2. What partners did Cisco choose for its ERP system and why?

3. What are the key challenges in implementing the ERP system at Cisco?

4. How did Cisco address these challenges?

5. What were some problems in the implementation of the ERP system at Cisco, and how could they improve?

6. Imagine that you were asked to lead an ERP deployment at another company,

a) What ideas would you borrow from Cisco's ERP project?

b) What factors worked in Cisco's favor that might not apply to other companies trying to do an ERP project?

c) What mistakes made by Cisco would you avoid and how?

Attachment:- Cisco Case Study.rar