BCO6653 Case Analysis: IT Manager Interviews for CISCO

This case study analyzes interview responses from a CISCO IT manager, focusing on marketing strategies, social media's role, and IS planning. It examines CISCO's mission, vision, and IS planning based on the BOST framework, including literature analysis on business capabilities and Oracle 11i implementation. The report explores CISCO's marketing strategies, including demographic segmentation and value-based positioning, and its approach to social media marketing. It also covers the success factors for marketing strategies, competitor tracking, client engagement platforms, and software used for business process management, such as Oracle 11i and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. The analysis provides insights into CISCO's IT management practices and strategies for business development.

BCO6653  Management of Information Technology
ASSIGNMENT #2
Case Analysis for
CISCO
A study of issues in:
List the topic areas here such as (order matching ‘submitted by’ list):
IT Human Resource Management
Submitted by:
Place your student numbers and names here; these match the topic order above
Group # (place your group number here)
Place date submitted here

BCO6653  Management of Information Technology
IT Manager Interviews for CISCO
List your names here followed by a comma and your email address:
Jane Smith, [e-mail]
Abstract
This report focuses on the analysis of the interview questions that are being asked from a single
individual and the responses that are being recorded. The overall report explains the major
statements, objectives as well as strategies that encompasses the organization of CISCO. Many
various aspects regarding the organization has been asked all through the interview procedure and
many responses have been saved. In this report, one of these responses are taken into account and
analysis is being done is accordance to the responses.
Introduction
The introduction deals with the various statements and strategies that are being responded by an
individual while he / she was facing an interview at CISCO. The main focus of this report is to deal
with the marketing strategies, social strategies, activities for marketing changes, effectiveness of social
media in accordance with the organization, attracting clients for the enhancement of business at
CISCO and many more. This questions are being asked at an interview and this report will be dealing
with the analysis of this single response of the specified individual.
Organisation background
CISCO
The organization CISCO Systems is identified as an American technology industry that has
its headquarters at San Jose, California. The organization mainly deals with the specialization of the
technologies that encompasses the specific technologies like domain security, energy management and
internet of things. The services and the products that are provided by the IT department of the
organization of CISCO incorporates the VoIP services, network emergency responses, hosted
collaborating solutions and the certifications are provided by the organization to willingly persons
who wants to increase their knowledge regarding the services provided by CISCO. The URL of the
company is https://www.cisco.com/c/en_au/index.html and the home screen provides a great overview
of the whole aspects that are incorporated within the organization (Cisco, 2019).
The mission statement of the organization may be stated as that CISCO wants to shape the
Internet’s future by developing the opportunity as well as value for the organization’s customers,
investors, ecosystem partners and employees. Moreover the vision of the organization states that it
will change the way of working, playing, learning as well as living.
IS Planning
The information System planning regarding the organization of CISCO represents the
planning of the network in regards to the model of the network analytics. The IS planning of CISCO
is based on the BOST Framework. This framework provides IT as well as stakeholders of the
organization with enhanced taxonomy that is shared and the interconnections between the four views
of architecture that are identified as operations, business, technology as well as systems.
IS Planning Literature Analysis
According to (Chen, 2017), within the framework of BOST the capabilities of the business are
to be understood in regards to the comparison of the target states. The assurance of the alignment as
P a g e | 2

BCO6653  Management of Information Technology
well as the accountability in the overall business architecture of CISCO. There are 14 bundles of
architecture according to the IT department of CISCO. The roadmap of the multiyear architecture
allows the business of CISCO to help the business regarding the capabilities for the achievement of
the set goals of the organization. The architecture team helps in the transition of the programs that are
proposed for the team that are associated with the investment planning (Gillooly, Crowther and
Medway, 2017). Many researchers also states that the interconnection between the two methodologies
that are likely to be run-the-business (RtB) and Change the business (CtB). Both the methodologies
are said to be consolidated as well as prioritized within the organization of CISCO.
The implementation of Oracle 11i is said to be an important enhancement in the IS Planning of the
organization of CISCO. The enactment of this technology within the framework of CISCO may be
conducted by the SCM team of the organization thus making the deployment of this technology to be
fruitful within the CISCO environment (Li, Robinson and Oriade, 2017). The program of Oracle 11i
is mandated by the management of the organization and then analysed for carrying out the IS process.
Marketing strategies
The organization of CISCO is a network-based company that uses the demographic variables
regarding segmentation for serving the customers in a much enhanced manner thus augmenting the
proposition of growth. The organization is using the distinguished strategy of target for developing the
products that are IT based as well as the available of services thus customizing the customer’s needs
(Hacklin, Björkdahl and Wallin, 2018). Moreover, the organization also uses the propositioning
strategy of valued based that establishes the trust among the different partners that are interconnected
among the various networks. The marketing strategies of CISCO are stated to be the most innovative
as well as customer centric regarding the set organizational goals by the company.
Social media as a platform for marketing
The organization is developing a coordinated strategy regarding the use of the social media
that are determined as an excellence centre. CISCO assures the general elaboration of written
guidelines as well as advises. The organization manages the corporate branding of social approach
thus gathering the knowledge and analyses the metrics regarding it (Mitchell, 2018). The general
approach regarding the individual groups of targets are adhered by the responsible persons that are
present in particular departments. The purpose of changing the philosophical standards for the strategy
of the particular projects. This is said to the effective methods that have the excellent knowledge for
their target audiences.
Success factor for using the marketing strategies
The organization of CISCO follows the strategy that is “At Cisco it's okay to fail, as long as
you learn something from it”. This is stated by LaSandra. This strategy develops a culture of dynamic
company where the fear is stated as not overpowering. In large scale organizations, the employees’
remains afraid as the different departments are expecting approval. The overall aspects of the
organization is checked before its launch, which curbs the overall flexibility as well as dynamics
(Rogers, 2017). For the creation of the comfortable spaces it is necessary to have great
understandings. The culture of CISCO encompasses the facility to provide the employees regarding
the creativity as well as stimulation of the entrepreneurial standards.
The marketing of the products through the platform of social media is said to be an effective
marketing strategy for the organization of CISCO.
Tracking the activity of competitors
The marketing changes for tracking the activity of the competitors can be done by the
following seven methods:
 Analysing the rankings against the keywords- This marketing strategy is said to analyse the
ranking capabilities of the keywords, which are used by the management team of the
organization to deal with the upcoming services of CISCO (Wang and Hao, 2018).
 Tracking of the new links- The competitors in the global market follows the links for
maintaining the tracks of the newly provided products by the competitors. This is well
analysed by CISCO for enhancing their products as well as deliverables towards their clients.
P a g e | 3

BCO6653  Management of Information Technology
 Doing research for the most shareable content- The organization CISCO also keeps a track
regarding the clients most shareable as well as searchable content so that they can deliver the
product or service, which will mostly satisfy the customers.
 Removing cover of the keywords that are being targeted- The customer targeted keywords
must be well observed by the organization so that the products can be enhanced for the
effectiveness of the customers.
 Monitoring the social activities- The social activities are well monitored by the organization
of CISCO to cope with the customer’s needs regarding the products as well as services. This
monitoring helps the organisation to be capable of analysing the products that are needed by
the customer.
 Focusing on the Newsletters as well as blogs- The organization also thrives to maintain a
constant check on the digital newsletters as well as effective blogs where the customer’s
desires are well stated.
 Staying alert for the innovated contents- The company stays alert in terms of the innovative
contents that are being developed by the competitor organizations for giving a potential
competition to the organization of CISCO.
Platforms regarding the Engagement of the clients
The organization has started the Lifecycle Advantage Program by which the clients of the
organization understands that CISCO is maintaining a proactive search regarding the clients. However
the organization believes that the clients expect to receive the notifications digitally. Moreover, the
clients possess a greater visibility regarding the technology services and the values that is being
delivered by the organization (Sawhney and Goodman, 2017). There exists a proactive conversation
between the clients and the organization that provides a renewal time before the approach of last
support day. This approach may be defined as something that tends the organization to grow as well
as allows CISCO to serve the clients better. There are mainly no disadvantages regarding the usage of
the platforms. The organization of CISCO thrives to engage the clients via the use of various
platforms rather than social media regarding the enhancement of the relationship among the clients
and the organization. The CISCO is stated to be one of the important organization that thrives to
maintain an excellent relationship with the clients as they know that the client base is the sole
important factor for the organization to run their products as well as services.
Softwares for managing the business process
The utilization of a software is said to improve the productivity as well as performance of the
organization at CISCO. The chief softwares for the usage at CISCO for the enhancement of the
software management processes are stated below:
Oracle 11i implementation: The enactment of the Oracle 11i is said to introduce the unparalleled
amount change regarding the organization of CISCO. The organization employees 400 to 500 coding
developers for writing the code such that it simplifies the promotion of the production that cannot
enable the management as well as tracking of the products that are developed (Salwan and Sharma,
2018). It is observed that before the implementation of this software within the customer services at
CISCO, the SCM team of the organization conducts an analysis that is examined by the business risks
which are associated with the failure as well as it can be concluded that the IT services of the CISCO
needs to deploy the change of application and it is to be strict for managing the process of deployment
and thus it can achieve success. The mandate regarding the industrial standards of the SCM
department that can help the program manager of oracle 11i regarding the release of the CISCO
management offices.
The act of Sarbanes-Oxley: The executives of CISCO are stated responsible for the information
regarding the financial constraints that are reported to the outside world (Rio, 2016). This is said to be
an added motivation regarding the help for avoiding the outages which may affect the proper delivery
time as well as providing the accurate information.
The transition towards a process-focused organization: The transition in the IT services at CISCO is
stated to be process-focused regarding the enterprise that increases the scale as well as complexity
regarding the implementations of the software (Mozaffar, 2018). The overlap in the IT projects helps
in the generation of great volumes of change as well as dependencies of cross function. This reduces
P a g e | 4

BCO6653  Management of Information Technology
the operational expenses regarding eth failures in the system even though there is a simultaneous
increase in the complexity which remains a priority of the organization.
Thus to cope with the challenges, the organization needs a new and enhanced exemplar
regarding the software project which can help the enhancement of quality as well as to mitigate the
risks that can emerge in the creation of the processes which tends to be repeatable as well as
predictable thus reducing the cost of the development. This is stated as an important component
regarding the strategy of SCM.
Conclusion
Thus from the above assignment it can be stated that the organization of CISCO is thriving
more to put an emphasis on the customer’s desire for the product and delivery of the services. The
above report deals with the certain areas such as the social media platform regarding the marketing
strategy of the organization, the competitor analysis of the present global market in the networking
sector as well as some other marketing policies of CISCO. Thus it can be concluded that the
organization of CISCO is thriving forward for the implementation of the new marketing policies
rather than the social media for enhancement the client relationship along with the specified business
of the clients along with the specified organization.
P a g e | 5

BCO6653  Management of Information Technology
References
Chen, H., 2017. The success of cisco systems, Inc.’s human resource management strategy. Journal of
Service Science and Management, 10(03), p.206.
Cisco (2019). Cisco – Australia & New Zealand. [online] Cisco. Available at:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en_au/index.html [Accessed 26 May 2019].
Gillooly, L., Crowther, P. and Medway, D., 2017. Experiential sponsorship activation at a sports
mega-event: the case of Cisco at London 2012. Sport, Business and Management: An International
Journal, 7(4), pp.404-425.
Hacklin, F., Björkdahl, J. and Wallin, M.W., 2018. Strategies for business model innovation: How
firms reel in migrating value. Long range planning, 51(1), pp.82-110.
Li, S.C., Robinson, P. and Oriade, A., 2017. Destination marketing: The use of technology since the
millennium. Journal of destination marketing & management, 6(2), pp.95-102.
Mitchell, W., 2018. Cisco: strategic alliances-who, when and why. The Business & Management
Collection.
Mozaffar, H., 2018, July. Entangled Biographies: A Multi-Biographical Approach in Study of User
Communities Around Information Infrastructures. In ECRM 2018 17th European Conference on
Research Methods in Business and Management (p. 287). Academic Conferences and publishing
limited.
Rio, C., 2016. Para Quem é Sua Torcida? Cisco.
Rogers, B.H., 2017. The marketing performance credibility gap: The growing importance of
developing financially credible measures of the contribution of marketing to enterprise value, profits
and growth. Applied Marketing Analytics, 3(3), pp.194-198.
Salwan, P. and Sharma, K., 2018. Developing High Adaptive Capabilities: The Case of CISCO. Indian
Journal of Industrial Relations, 54(1).
Sawhney, M. and Goodman, P., 2017. Cisco systems: Launching the ASR 1000 series router using
social media marketing. Kellogg School of Management Cases, pp.1-16.
Wang, C.L. and Hao, A.W., 2018. Advancing theoretical and strategic development of branding in
industrial marketing.
P a g e | 6