Live@WWAC: It's the processes, stupid

Cisco is a networking company and if you walk around our campus, you’ll see that we practice what we preach. Everything is networked and the most common answer to virtually any question is, “It’s on the web.”

But is that enough for Cisco to reduce costs and increase productivity? Uh-huh… not by a long shot. Cisco is the first to admit that IT alone does not improve productivity. Added IT use needs to be coupled with a change in business processes, which take into account the new IT infrastructure.

In fact, Chambers even highlighted today how Randy Pond, Cisco’s SVP of Operations, told him that to change Cisco’s processes to accommodate its own technology would take 1-2 years.

Bottom line, change may be painful but altering business processes to accommodate new technologies is the best way to reap productivity gains. Plan for 3-5 years, because that is how long it will take.

Cisco did a Net Impact study on this very topic looking at how business process change helped improve eGovernment in Europe.