Implementing a Custom ERP in Nine Months and on Budget With Cisco Systems

De Marco once said that you can't manage what you can't measure. Academics and practitioners in software engineering and information systems projects consistently point out that the "intangibility" of software leads to conflicts between stakeholders and a lack of support from top management, resulting in over 75% of information systems projects failing. Cost overruns and delivery delays not only led to the withdrawal of some projects but also led to disastrous results. ERP packages, despite their well-known advantages, have their disadvantages in terms of the feasibility and scalability of the system to meet customer requirements. Cisco's scepticism about the ERP system was well-founded. But the instability and regular shutdowns of their existing system, with its inability to support the growing needs of the company, left them no choice. This case study details how Cisco consolidated a team of its own members, KPMG, and Oracle, combining the robustness of a sequential life cycle model with the flexibility of an iterative prototyping model to develop a working system in as little as 9 months. This also kicks off the top management support that Cisco has received since the beginning of the project. In most cases, information systems development projects do not receive a favourable culture from top management. In addition, the Cisco, KPMG, and Oracle teams have come together as one with a common goal. Finally, the case ends with the debatable question of whether Cisco's success can be repeated, the question of whether Cisco won at the expense of technical resources and key points. The lessons learned to provide a summary of the key success factors and gaps that contributed to the successful deployment of the $15 million Cisco ERP project in just nine months