Cisco Systems (2001): Building and Sustaining a Customer-Centric Culture Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

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Additionally it is closely interwoven with its organizational construction that reaffirmed its worth while part of this is linked to values retained by subsequent management and set in place by the founders. Until 2001, Cisco had Commercial: Enterprise, Service Provider, and a decentralized organizational structure with three business units organized around each of its three chief customer kinds. Each unit developed and promoted a complete product line for its specific customer group farther reaffirming its belief in the centrality of different customers. A variety of structures, other systems, and behavioral mechanisms reaffirmed the significance of customer centricity.

Ultimately, Cisco Systems decided to transform the business from a decentralized to central organization. While recognizing that a centralized, practical structure was crucial to avert resource and merchandise redundancies, it also threatened Cisco's customer-centricity in that the centralization of R & D and marketing made them more distant from Cisco's customers. To defeat the perceived misalignment between its structure and culture, Cisco introduced several initiatives like the Customer Focus Initiative (CFI) to ensure that while the construction was turning away from customer centricity, the beliefs and activities of its workers kept that focus. In doing so, management sought means to compensate for this perceived difference and accepted the likely misalignment between its structure and culture.

PUBLICATION DATE: January 06, 2009 PRODUCT #: 409061-PDF-ENG

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