EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
January 1994 Cisco's legacy system surpassed its standard modification requirements and encountered a malfunction that resulted in corrupting the database. The company was almost completely shut down for two days. It became clear that the legacy system would not continue much longer and a solution was required.
Cisco was faced with the dilemma of selecting from three potential solutions to the system issue: 1) Upgrade to the new version of the legacy, 2) Implement a single integrated replacement of all applications in parts, 3) Implement a single integrated replacement of all applications as a whole. After careful analysis of the three alternatives I chose to support the third recommendation. Details defining this issue and supporting my recommendation can be found within the remainder of this document.
Cisco Systems, Inc. a technology-based company was founded in 1984. By 1993 Cisco had grown to a $500 million company. However, Pete Solvik the company's CIO projected growth to $5-billion plus per year in the future. The UNIX-based software package that had been used to support all core business processing could not sustain the current level and certainly not future growth.
By January 1994 the legacy system surpassed its standard modification requirements and encountered a malfunction that resulted in corrupting the database. The company was almost completely shut down for two days. It became clear that the legacy system would not continue much longer and a solution was required. The question that demanded attention within this case pertained to how the legacy system should be replaced.
The current system had coincided with Solvik's organizational and budgetary approach that allowed budgetary decisions to be made at the functional level, but left IT organizations reporting directly to him. This allowed the modifications required by the legacy system to be addressed by each functional area as required. Ultimately, these modifications ("workarounds") contributed to the systems malfunction. Ironically, the three alternatives produced to address the issue were all consistent with initially removing the functional level budgetary responsibility. This was based on two reasons: 1) the lead-time involved in the implementation would not allow for multiple areas performing their own investigation, and 2) the functional areas could not justify the investment of at least $5 million each.
The factual content of the case provides Cisco's system requirements and current limitations, along with budgetary considerations.
Upgrade of the Trust’s old legacy mainframes systems to convert to a more efficient software system called “Access Plus”, an asset management system developed by Select One.
Cisco Designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol (IP) - based networking and other products related to the communications and information technology (IT) industry and provide services associated with these products and their use. The company provides products for transporting data, voice within buildings, across campuses and globally. The products are utilized at enterprise businesses, public institutions, telecommunications companies and other service providers, commercial businesses, and personal residences. Cisco conducts its business globally and manages its business geographically. Its business is divided into the following three geographic segments: The Americans; Europe, M...
In 1994, Jim Donehey was brought in to update Capital One’s IT system. His solution was to replace their aging mainframe computers with an object-based system, but this technology had never been used on such a large scale. In contrast, two-thirds of Capital One’s competitors outsourced their IT functions. Within 5 years the company had the world’s largest Oracle database with 23 terabytes of data – winning them the Gartner Group’s Excellence in Technology Award.
Group behavior in AT&T is of higher regard than some other companies.Verizon and AT&T are two of the largest land line and cellular phone companies in the world. Both have survived major changes and evolution in the communication industry, as well as endured fierce competition from other carriers, particularly in the wireless communication industry. AT&T corporate business has many different guidelines to follow. Not only the code of ethics (as seen below) but they also have a honest and ethical conduct policy, conflicts of interest, disclosure, compliance, recording and accountability, opportunities, confidentiality. fair dealing, and protection of the company and its assets. AT&T Inc. (stylized as at&t) is an American multinational telecommunications corporation, headquartered at Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas, Texas. AT&T is the second largest provider of mobile telephony and the largest provider of fixed telephony in the United States, and also provides broadband subscription television services. AT&T is the third-largest company in Texas (the largest non-oil company, behind only ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, and also the largest Dallas company). As of May 2013, AT&T is the 21st largest company in the world by market value, and the 13th largest non-oil company. As of 2014, it is also the 20th largest mobile telecom operator in the world, with over 250 million mobile customers. Communication is a big a key in organizational behavior. AT&T’s website is easier to navigate, and offers essentially the same information as Verizons. Both companies have active foundations for charities. The way the employees are treated seems to be a major difference between both organizations, with interviews with an employee of both companies ...
Cisco is one of Americas greatest corporate success stories. Since shipping it’s first product in 1986, The company has grown into a global market leader that holds No.1 or No.2 market share in almost every market section in which it participates. Cisco went public in 1990 on the nasdaq stock market with annual revenues at $69 million in that year. But now their revenues are at $12.2 billion in fiscal 1999. Their revenues in the last four quarters are shown in the figure below.
During 2003-2007, cisco registered a top durable top line growth period. They take a strong ability to manufacture and design new products with how the new world processes information. They have strong strategic industry partners and they have a good customer relationship. Cisco is a company that focuses on their core competencies. When they monitor and manage more than 10,000 devices, it becomes time consuming. Even with these problems cisco systems does have many strength...
Custom Chip, Inc case describes the situation of a company where lack of coordination and cooperation among different departments is hindering them to achieve their common or ultimate goal as a single business entity. Applications engineering, product engineering and manufacturing are all inclined towards achieving their individual objectives and timelines rather than collaborating and synergizing their efforts in order to attain a common goal of effective production with improved cost reduction. Few of the primary reasons are insufficient and unorganized company policies for coordination and cooperation, poor networking with in the organization especially on management level, lack of communication and influence among managers and VPs, insufficient human resource, and measuring a department's effectiveness solely on its performance based on individual objectives, rather than checking its effects on over all company's performance.
The development (or iteration) of the new system was approved due to successful budgetary results over the previous two years and growth trends expected over the next two years. Additionally, ongoing maintenance on the system as problems began to arise was beginning to negatively influence production performance, and a need to iterate the system to incorporate evolving production goals was identified. The successful budget of the previous years encouraged the approval of replacing the current conversion system with a successor that promises to increase production performance while lowering the fixed costs of salaried programmers needed to maintain it.
The Consumer and Industrial Products, Inc a company where their headquarters is based in the United States , also doing business internationally with facilities in Europe, Asia and South America. They are a manufacturing company what produced well known products to individuals and industries. This company is experiencing a great deal of trouble with their internal Payable Audit System (PAS) and how it would purchase goods; receive goods and pays for them. They are challenged with the redundancy and the lack of productivity to their system. They were finding ways to lower costs and eliminating steps in how these processes are getting accomplished. They decided that they needed to change their system and the way they did things at their business. There are some people, their roles and departments that will be closely involved with the process of this project. Some of these important roles will come from Ted Anderson director of disbursements, Peter Shaw the user project manager and Linda Watkins project director for the Payable Audit System (PAS). In addition, the Steering Group and the IS management department will have some important roles to the project too. Finally, there will be several major problems with the development of the project and how the one person would deal with these issues.
Hardware, software, support and maintenance costs grow each year with multiple systems in each local region running different types of software and hardware. The application and hardware support teams are larger than could be possible with one integrated solution.
Flynn, Donal J.; "Information Systems Requirements: Determination and Analysis"; McGraw-Hill Book Company; 1992Parnas; 1985; taken from: Sherer, Susan A.; "Software Failure Risk – Measurement and Management"; Plenum Press; 1992Jones, Carpers; "Patterns of Software Systems Failure and Success"; Thomson computer press; 1996Neumann, Peter G.; "Computer Related Risks"; Addison-Wesley publishing company; 1995Petroski, Henry; "To Engineer is Human"; MacMillan Publishing; 1985Flowers, Stephen; "Software failure: management failure"; Chichester: John Wiley and Sons; 1996.Report of the Inquiry into the London Ambulance Service; February 1993. Simpson, Moira (1994); "999!: My computers stopped breathing !"; The Computer Law and Security Report, 10; March – April; pp 76-81Dr. Dobbs Journal; January 1997 edition<a href="http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks">http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks<a href="http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk ">http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/sections/travel">http://abcnews.go.com/sections/travel
The systems planning phase is the first phase completed in the SDLC. It encompasses evaluating the feasibility and the cost of the system, identifying the risks involved with implementing the system, and determining the responsibilities of each of the team members. To begin the planning phase, a systems request is submitted to the IT department, detailing the problems and changes to be made in a system. (Rosenblatt, 2014). It is important to note that the request may be a large, significant request, or it can be a smaller, more minor request; however, each request should be addressed using the systems development life cycle. After the request has been made, a feasibility study is conducted that determines the costs and benefits of the new or improved system. The study then recommends a strategy that is best for the system in terms of technical, monetary, and time factors.
Apple Inc. was established by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak on April 1, 1976 as a computer designer, developer and seller company. However, the company shifted its focus from only personal computer to include other consumer electronics such as portable media player and mobile phone in 2007. Apple Inc becomes one of the most popular makers in its field since it seems that its popularity has increased according to a report on www.statista.com that Apple Inc’s products sales was generally increasing throughout the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2014. On the one hand, it has increased its revenue from about 14 billion US dollars to more than 170 billion US dollars in 2013. All in all, the company is highly successful corresponding to its products’ development and their sales growth in world’s market.
Organisation Analysis Apple - Value proposition and Culture Apple - Company Description Apple Inc., was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on 1976, is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers. Its best-known hardware products are the Mac line of computers, the iPod media player, the iPhone smartphone, and the iPad tablet computer. Its consumer software includes the OS X and iOS operating systems, the iTunes media browser, the Safari web browser, and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites. Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by revenue and the world's third-largest mobile phone maker. “Fortune” magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012.
They are facing a severe capital expenditure problem. They couldn’t run new software on the equipment they purchased 2 years ago and it is no longer useful. They require a reliable, predictable usage – linked cost structure. They want to buy fewer boxes but get maximum capacity and coverage to stay competitive.