Sarah Operations Assignment

8/13/2019 Sarah Operations Assignment

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Operations and

Project Management Assignment

An Operations Overview of the Telecom Cost

Management department within Cisco

Systems Ltd, and an investigation into

implementation of the new data loading

process.

y

Sarah !inchester

"#$%&#'(



'.# )*ec+tive S+mmary

This report will cover the operational strategy of the global Telecom Cost Management

(TCM) team, looking at their key performance objectives as well as their processes and process management.

Also the report investigates if the gro p!s main tool the "#$T database is the best

available and what are some of the challenges the team faces sing it.

The report finds that the c rrent database is a man al tool with repetitive m ndane tasks.

%t can not perform all the reporting f nctions the team need so the team are not meeting

all their three main performance objectives, Cost, & ality and 'ependability.

Therefore the team needs to look for a new database that is more a tomated in some of

the f nctions, so to free p the teams time. They can then do more on their performance

objectives especially on decreasing costs for Telecoms. The processes they need to se to

pload data wo ld be shorter and more acc rate.

"o as to move to ayes and heelwrights stage * in their performance strategy it is

recommended that a new database is implemented.

+' -A perations Management /



Contents

0.1 #2ec tive " mmary......................................................................................................./

/.1 %ntrod ction....................................................................................................................**.1 perations verview.....................................................................................................3

*.0 -rocess Management 4 The +o r 5!s........................................................................6*./ peration -erformance............................................................................................00

7.1 Analysis of the 'ata 8oading -rocess 4 The before 5iew..........................................0*

3.1 %mprovement plan 9 $ecommendations.....................................................................0:

3.0 The $e;designed view of the process......................................................................0<3./ %mplementation %ss es.............................................................................................0=

:.1 +indings and concl sions.............................................................................................06

:.0 Assessment of operational performance and contrib tion to strategy...................../1<.1 ibliography................................................................................................................/0

=.1 $eferences..................................................................................................................../0

.# -ntrod+ction

Cisco is the described on their company website as

+' -A perations Management *



has increased. The main short fall for the database is in its reporting f nction and the

man al effort involved loading in the data.

The team covers all co ntries that Cisco has a presence in, from one employee in

FaGakhstan to *=,111 in the " and for all services. They are split into three regions,

@orth America, Asia -acific, # rope and #merging (incl ding 8atin America).

This report will foc s on the TCM team and the "#$T database they se daily. The

reason for foc sing on one department is d e to the large scale and comple2 nat re of

Cisco. There are many different divisions i.e. %T, +inance and each of these is then split

into s b divisions. #ach division will have its own operational processes for day to day

activities so therefore it is impossible to disc ss all of Cisco!s operational processes in

this report.

%.# Operations Overview

The Telecoms team is a rather niB e team as not many b sinesses globally have an

internal team that foc ses on this spend and have a database. Most b sinesses hire o tside

companies to do this for them after being approached by the specialist. The ind stry

+' -A perations Management 3



average is that most Telecom provider!s invoices are 01H incorrect each month and with

most b sinesses not checking their invoices they are potentially over spending each

month.

At Cisco the telecoms team is tasked with finding these savings as well as making s re

that everyone at Cisco is aware of their spend. Their daily tasks are to collect the data

from service providers and load this into the "#$T database. Then do any reporting some

monthly and others B arterly.

elow is the inp t;transformation;o tp t model for the Telecom team.

+' -A perations Management :



$dapted from %lack operations and process management page &'

+' -A perations Management =



managers, directors. #veryone can view their data. Many senior people know of the

database and reB est reports from the team so they can review their teams spend.

+ig re two below shows the mapping of the fo r 5!s for the Telecom Team at Cisco.

Low 2igh

2igh Low

2igh Low

2igh Low

(igure two taken from %lack )perations and Process *anagement page +,




%. Operation Performance

#ach department in a company will have its own operational processes. These will all be

part of the company!s vision to where it wants to be. Cisco!s vision is

Changing the ay e ork, 8ive, -lay and 8earnD

-l s it is to be the market leader in all areas. %n order to do this one of the company goals

is to red ce e2penses. This is where TCM comes in with monitoring telecom e2pense.

TCM ses the five operation performance areas to prioritise what actions it does.The five areas and their definitions according to "lack (/11:) are

& alityI ; 'oing things right, error free services, first time.

"peedI ; 'oing things fast, minimising the time between when the c stomer asks for

something and it is delivered.

'ependabilityI ; 'oing things on time and when yo say yo will.

+le2ibilityI ; changing what yo do or how yo do it. The ability to adapt or change to

different sit ations.

CostI ; 'oing things cheaply. -rod cing goods and services at a cost that means they are

marketable and allows for a good ret rn to the organisation.

The TCM team!s priorities can be seen on the diagram below on the bl e line with low

priorities towards the middle and high towards the o tside.




")3 TCM Team 4 l+e dotted line Cisco as a whole 4 5ed line

The red line, which shows a near reg lar pentagon, is how Cisco wo ld like to be as a

company. All +ive performance objectives have the same amo nt of priority. This

priority will be high for each objective. #ach division in Cisco wo ld then decide which

objectives are more important to them and so each team!s diagram wo ld be different.

+or the TCM team & ality, 'ependability and Cost are the top three priorities for the

team. These have a strong link to each other as we need to provide good B ality data and

load it correctly first time. e need to do this on time, reg larly as we have 7<,111

people relying on s providing the data.

Cost savings are a big part of the team!s directive. The teams main reason for e2istence is

to report on Telecom spend and ens re we are invoiced correctly for services. Cost is the

n mber one priority for the team and they are tasked with a target of 01H costs savingseach B arterly.

+' -A perations Management

Cost

'ependability"peed

& ality +le2ibility

0/



6.# Analysis of the 7ata Loading Process The 8efore 0iew.

The TCM team ses the "#$T database daily to perform the f nction of loading in how

m ch we have spent with all the telecom providers across the global. 'ata is loaded by

co ntry and by service provider. "#$T is old and was not designed to handle the amo nt

of data it now has to cope with. As the teams are across all time Gones, there is never any

downtime for the database to have maintenance done to it, as well as no b dge for any

maintenance or enhancements. %t is sed contin o sly and especially at month ends it can

become very slow.

The reporting arm of the database was designed for the " market, where there is j st

one co ntry only. "o for other regions like # rope where there are m ltiple co ntries tor n a report on total spend in # rope as a whole, yo need to r n it by co ntry as there is

no f nction to r n the report by region. This means 7: individ al reports rather than j st

the one. This is very man al and time cons ming.

+or # rope alone to load the data into the database takes three people for Client services

and one for the corporate side. The whole team is involved and it!s a very man al

process. The process is highlighted in the following diagram.

+' -A perations Management 0*



7escription of )lement Operationor tas9

Movement ofinformation ormaterial

-nspection 7elay Storage ofinformation

0 $eceive data from "ervice providerin m ltiple formats

/ "end data to developer

* Man ally manip late the data so itcan be loaded into the database.

7 8oad the data into database.

3 Check that all entries load

: Any entries that do not load,investigate the reason. This co ld

be wrong name of employee, leftemployee, or the service may

sho ld have been terminated< "end details to the service

provider, and the provisioningteams of entries that have not goneinto the database

= ait for resol tion

6 #ither re;enter them or delete fromload

01

$e;load the file so all entries nowcan be entered into the database

00

ait for all service provider data isloaded into the database.

0/

"end notification to the employeesthat details of their spend is in thedatabase

Separate process with no lin9age to previo+s one.0*

Acco nts pay the invoice and donot allocate costs to employeesdepartments

07

%nvoice is not checked againstsers to as to whether it is corrector not

03 @o one at Cisco approves theinvoices for payment.0:

"ervice provider is paid




$. -mplementation -ss+es

There will be some resistance to the new database as people will think it is taking their

jobs away. $eass rance and incl sion in the project co ld be one way to set peoples

fears to rest.

The team!s role will change from a very man al process to a more a tomated approach,

as well as the performance objectives mentioned earlier in the report, being met to a

m ch higher standard and the team can concentrate more on these.

Transferring 3 or more years of data to the new database will need caref l consideration

as it has to be moved over for reporting p rposes. The implementation plan says that it is planned to take 3= days to transfer over the data that e2ists now to the new database and

to do testing to ens re it is correct. nce this has been done new data can be added into

the new database however the old database will still need data entered into so sanitary

checks can take place. This will allow the team to check all the correct data is going to

the correct place. owever the total implementation time is 6 months at least, before the

old database co ld be t rned off completely.

The new system will need to interlink to other Cisco systems that provide $ data and

provisioning data. As these are live systems pdated ho rly contin al checks to make

s re pdated information is in the new system a tomatically will need to take place,

otherwise this can affect the invoice processing

+' -A perations Management 0=



<.# /indings and concl+sions

%n concl sion the analysis shows that the c rrent sit ation is not s stainable and that a

new database is needed in order to help the team met their performance objectives of

Cost, & ality and 'ependability. The high amo nt of man al work to inp t the data

means the error rate co ld be high leading to additional costs and bad B ality.

The new database will become self f nded after the initial o t lay. Altho gh the initial

costs will be high, in the region of ?0 million for the first 3 years, as there is a lot of work

to do the cost savings will pay for the database. %t is predicted this will happen within the

first 0= months. The team will stop having to do monotono s tasks and become more prod ctive.

The team has high visibility at the moment so the improved reporting tools will mean

better more acc rate res lts B icker and easier. "ome reporting will be able to be

a tomated too so managers will get the details they want reg lar with no additional work

load on TCM.

This means that TCM will fit in with Cisco!s corporate strategy as part of their

operational costs. They will help to lower the company!s e2penses which will enable

higher profits. These in t rn will help the share price for the stakeholders. The

information employees, managers and directors will be able to see will mean they can

directly impact how they contrib te to the cost for their mobile phones or the phones on

their desk.




<.' Assessment of operational performance and contri8+tion to strategy

The diagram below shows ayes and heelwrights view on how a company!s operations

can affect their ability to be a market leader or if their systems are holding them back.+or the TCM team the operation processes in the team mean it is at stage / as most large

companies do not have any review of their telecoms. This is shown on the diagram by the

red star. %t will be stage * once the new database is installed as then we will be the only

%T Company that will be doing this kind of review on a reg lar basis.

Link StrategyWith

Operations

Give anOperationsAdvantage

Externallysupportive

Adopt bestPractice

Correct theWorst

Problems

I n c r e a

s i n g c o

n t r i b u

t i o n o f

o p e r a

t i o n s

nternallysupportive

Externallyneutral

nternallyneutral

The strategic role of operations can be defined by itsaspirations (Hayes and Wheelwright)

STAGE 1 STAGE STAGE ! STAGE "

Theability

toI#ple#ent

Theability

to$ri%e strategy

Stop holdingthe

organisationbac&

'e as goodas

co#petitors

'e clearlythe best in

the industry

edefine theindustry s

e*pectations

The ability to

supportStrategy

Adapted from "lack, perations and -rocess Management -age *6

+' -A perations Management /1



=.# i8liography

0. 'oran, /11*, perations and -roject Management, Fingston, Fingston siness

"chool.

/. "lack, Chambers, >ohnston, /117, perations Management, fo rth edition, #sse2,

-earson #d cation ltd

*. "lack, Chambers, >ohnston, etts, /11:, perations and process Management

principles and practice for strategic impact, #sse2, -earson #d cation 8td.

(.# 5eferences

www.cisco.com = > ne /11<

http://www.cisco.com/



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