Cisco Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Cisco - Essay Example ntation of the strategy that we believe will help Cisco goes through the economic downturn and position it to take advantage of the rebound that we hope will happen soon. In 1997 Cisco structured its business around three distinct business units: Enterprise, Service Provider and SMB (Small and Medium Business). The organizational structure was designed to address two major new market opportunities at that time: the service provider migration to IP services and the adoption of IP products by small and medium-sized businesses through channel distribution. The change was a clear move from a product-focused structure, which had been Cisco’s organization model since its beginning, to a customer-oriented, solutions-based structure. All of Cisco’s research-and-development, marketing and solution integration would be organized under the three Lines of Business. The Line of Business teams were responsible of defining and implementing both market and operational strategies that enabled them to deliver end-to-end solutions to their target customers. The main objective of the organizational alignment was to increase focus on specific and dedicated customer to provide complete end-to-end solutions, including system integration, integrated software, and network management. The different Line of businesses at the time had nothing in common. The fact that Cisco was making higher profit and phenomenal growth in the networking industry meant Cisco did not have to worry so much on costs since margins were very high. In August-2001, Cisco changed its organizational structure to deal with the changing environment of the industry and customer requirements, and to position the company as a dominant force in the networking industry. Customer segments and product requirements that were distinct in the past had come under the same umbrella. The downturn in the telecom and networking industry across the technology sector in early pushed Cisco to act quickly to minimize costs and