Cisco E-Business Process Functional Requirements Evaluation

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Cisco e-Marketing Strategy    

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Cisco E-Business Process Functional Requirements Evaluation

To be successful in today's competitive marketplace, most organizations need an edge, and using Internet technology to solve the critical e-business challenges can create that competitive advantage.  MSN.com’s MoneyCentral website reports that Cisco Systems controls almost two-thirds of the global market for routers and switches that link networks and power the Internet.  Cisco also makes network access servers and management software, virtually dominating the computer networking market.  Additionally, the company competes with giants such as Nortel and Lucent in the telecommunications sector with products designed to accommodate data, voice, and video traffic—sold primarily to business buyers.  The recent market conditions have caused the company to decelerate its typically rapid acquisition pace and while it still dominates the networking sector, Cisco faces increasing competition from relative newcomers such as Juniper Networks, who are finding new ways of attracting buyers.

Whether any company's e-business focus is business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B), their ultimate success depends not only on having a healthy Internet presence, but also on having a strong Web foundation.  The cornerstones of an effective e-business infrastructure are as much a matter of management strategy as of technology.  To navigate a strategically agile corporation that can rapidly introduce and execute business initiatives, the management team must clearly define the role of information technology and revamp the technological infrastructure of the enterprise.  A standardized and flexible architecture, with well-managed content, and advanced user management systems that help guide business processes are among the key components of Cisco’s successful e-strategy, which they first implemented on a small scale between 1995-96, and today use to successfully affirm their corporate identity and brand image.  

Business-to-business e-commerce is the vanguard of the Internet revolution.  Press coverage continues to focus on retail e-commerce, in much the same way (and for many of the same reasons) that it focuses on the stock market instead of the bond market.  However, the story of how the Internet is transforming standard line-of-business commerce is being written right now predominately in the business-to-business arena.  The stunning success of business-to-business e-commerce ensures that retail e-commerce will soon transform almost all of our everyday transactions, and Cisco has positioned itself to be a dominating force in this arena.  With increased bandwidth available, and faster speeds every month, Cisco has developed an e-business infrastructure able to support a universe of e-commerce, and is capable of handling both the business-to-business and retail e-commerce loads.  

In addition, as more "best businesses" find increased productivity and profitability on the Internet, more of them will insist that their vendors and customers become fully Internet capable.  Savings on the Web are immense--even after you factor in the technological investment--and Cisco’s e-business strategy provides those technologies and the necessary support that companies will need to capitalize on Internet glory.  These days, if the Internet is not central to your business, the belief among the ranking chieftains is that you will soon be out of business.  As Andy Grove of Intel put it recently: In five years, every business has to be an Internet business.

E-commerce in the business-to-business market portends a dramatic shift in the price-value relationship.  Big business-to-business e-commerce players like Cisco (and Intel, for comparison) are not hammering their vendors on price, as one might expect them to in typical process.  Instead, they're more interested in maintaining a long-term relationship with a valued member of what they call the "Cisco team.”

According to the textbook Electronic Commerce—a Managerial Perspective, there are several indispensable business, technology and human factors that help to achieve the desired level of organizational goals (pp. 310-311).  These thirteen major “critical success factors” for e-Business are noted below, with examples referencing Cisco Systems, Inc.:

  1. Specific products or services traded
  1. Offer everything from Access Servers, Hubs, Concentrators, Routers, Switches, Telephony, and Voice Applications to Customer Contact.
  1. Top management support
  1. All data and research indicates that Cisco has commitment, and it is absolute.
  1. Project team reflecting various functional areas
  1. The cross-functionality of the website and its content indicates obvious teamwork, and input from all departments toward a new backbone of communication.
  1. Technical infrastructure
  1. Necessary for Cisco’s specific products and service delivery, and overall success sustainability of the business; supports e-Business initiatives.
  1. Customer acceptance
  1. The dominant leader in both business and consumer markets.
  1. User-friendly Web interface
  1. One of the easiest websites to use and navigate especially compared with other B2B and B2C sites.
  1. Integration with the corporate legacy systems.
  1. Took time to integrate a major internal transformation not just in terms of customers, commerce and support, but in operations and communication.
  1. Security and control of the e-commerce system
  1. Website use (beyond general browsing) requires registration and login; maintain relationships with partners and resellers.
  1. Competition and market situation
  1. All Cisco products and service information is available online; use data mining, cookies, and communication avenues to adapt to market needs and trends.

And the final four critical factors of e-Business success are:

  1. Pilot project and corporate knowledge
  2. Promotion and internal communication
  3. Cost of the e-commerce project
  4. Level of trust between buyers and sellers

Cisco’s Internet website is more than just an information center, it is a virtual partnership with customers and users, and serves as an electronic intermediary for the e-business vehicle.  In addition to offering Online Ordering Information, Corporate News & Information, Event and Training Seminar Information, and more, their website is designed to handle technical and customer support inquires through their Internet-based Service & Support Center.  While many companies have technology infrastructures and business processes that have developed piecemeal--often resulting in a patchwork of systems that don't work together as well as they should-- Michael Munro, Cisco’s solution manager says that “It doesn't matter whether you're buying a router, troubleshooting a router, renewing your service contract, or looking up bugs in the software, [at Cisco] it's a single registration to log in." 

For some companies it may make sense to build a new foundation for their e-business initiatives, for Cisco the first step was to implement strategic (tactical) enterprise standards and enforce them across the entire business; this allows the e-business architecture to be built around the entire company’s long-term goals with a great degree of flexibility.  One B2B and B2C application Cisco has capitalized on is to integrate their Web site with key enterprise applications—both their own and those of their business partners.  This enables rapid end-to-end processes.  For example, when a customer checks the Cisco Web site to find out about a product's availability, a message is automatically sent to the appropriate back-end systems, so that the current, correct information can be made available to the customer.

Join now!

The main Cisco homepage at www.Cisco.com as a static view-only Web page, is designed to “empower the Internet generation” to access a wide variety of services and support, and almost all the information a user would need concerning Cisco as a supplier, or a vendor, or a technical support line, or as a stock investment!  The website is set up as follows:

  • Solutions for your Network
  • Ordering Info
  • Training, Events, and Seminars
  • Corporate News and Information
  • Products and Technologies
  • Service and Support
  • Partners and Resellers

This is the key to Internet commerce of all kinds:  any company’s ...

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Cisco E-Business Process Functional Requirements Evaluation
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