The Cisco® Internet Business Solutions Group Innovations Practice focuses on innovative uses of Internet technology and the efficiencies that can be achieved by using Internet capabilities to transform key business processes. The Supply Chain Management/Product Life Cycle Management (SCM/PLCM) team in the Innovations Practice helps customers meet business objectives using a common set of tools and methodologies grounded in the real-world SCM/PLCM experience that Cisco has gained and in our experience in applying these approaches to assist our customers.
Over the past 10 years, Cisco has significantly leveraged the Internet (and networked applications, in general) to scale from US$1 billion in revenues to $24 billion today while simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction and gross margins, and integrating more than 70 acquisitions to date. Cisco has leveraged Internet solutions to tightly integrate its business processes across an extended virtual supply chain of component suppliers, contract manufacturers, 3PLs, distributors, and resellers. We currently execute more than 90 percent of our sales orders online without any contact from a Cisco employee, and 98 percent of our products are manufactured by our partners. We also share extensive forecasting and planning information with partners across our supply chain using advanced business-to-business solutions. IBSG’s SCM/PLCM practice uses our best practices and significant industry expertise to accelerate the success of our most important customers in using technology to drive business results. Cisco continues to push the envelope with its own SCM/PLCM initiatives. In fiscal year 2004, Cisco realized $270 million in benefits internally from Internet capabilities in SCM/PLCM.
Lean Asset Management Solution
The Innovations Practice Lean Asset Management solution embodies a structured approach to strategically assess a company’s end-to-end supply chain to identify opportunities for technology introduction that typically yield simultaneous improvement in four main drivers of supply-chain value: inventory, costs, service level, and risk.
Intelligent Device Management Solution
The Innovations Practice Intelligent Device Management solution helps companies create new revenue opportunities, greater customer intimacy, and improved efficiency by developing strategies to exploit the next-generation extended Internet of intelligent devices enabled by low-cost connectivity and sensors.
