Cisco Case Study Opportunities

Question: Write about theCisco Case Studyfor Opportunities. Answer: Introduction CISCO is a multinational company founded in 1984 in the United States. The firm was founded back in 1984 by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner and it service and product portfolio includes industrial products, electrical equipment. (Bolla, Bruschi, Davoli, Cucchietti, 2011). The products and services offered include networking communication, measuring navigational instruments, electromechanical, routing switching equipment and others. The company operates in networking equipment industry (Jackson, 2010). Cisco SWOT Analysis The SWOT analysis examines the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats in the industry. The firm has various strengths such as the possibility of gaining substantial benefits in the market; it has a well-established RD division to produce innovative products and an entrenched culture of experimenting on new goods and services (Decusatis, Carranza, DeCusatis, 2012). On the other hand, the firm has various weaknesses such as the decline in the networking industry and lack of sophisticated BPO technologies and ineffective supply chain (Teare, 2010). There are various opportunities, such as acquisition and strategic alliances, the emerging market to help grow the business. There is a possibility of using new technology and excellent management to reach the market (Josyula, Orr, Page, 2011). There are threats such as the use of cloud servers, virtualization of products and services and fast growth of technology (Frahim, Santos, Ossipov, 2014). Cisco PESTEL Analysis The section explores the political, environmental, social, technological, economic and legal factors affecting the international business like Cisco. The company is subjected to political issues, and this means any change in politics can alter the stability of the nation, political factors can lead to high taxes, customs and import and export control. Besides, economic factors are likely to affect the business expansion as changes in the economic situation can lead to changes consumers switching to cheap local product and services and little revenue. There are social factors that the company relies on such as the availability of the skills in the society, perception of the products and services among the population and employment practices which has a direct effect on the company (Blackwell Eppler, 2014). Further technological factors can affect the company. For instance changes in technology has led to many businesses and people and this benefits the company as it produces the same products. However, there is the fast growth of technology and emergence of disruptive technologies that affects the growth performance. Besides, there are many legal variables which affect the company such as laws about tax, employment, and minimum wages in different countries. For the company to operate, the rules must be followed, and failure to this can cause problems. Lastly, there are environmental issues which have to be taken into consideration when operating in the environment. When working in the environment, firm practices must not harm the environment (Blackwell Eppler, 2014). Cisco Four Ps of Marketing The section explores the Four Ps of marketing of Cisco which includes price, product, promotion and place. The firm makes a product and offers services and design in a way that meet the consumer demand, needs and wants. The management has a way of dealing with products and every stage at every stage in their development cycle. The control of the price is set in a way that they are linked to the real and perceived value and also makes consideration the seasonal discounts. Sometimes the firm executives may engage in manipulation of the price and make it look like a luxury (Khan, 2014). In terms of place, the company ensures that the products and services are displayed where the consumers see them. In some cases, the firm showcases them on a web page, TV adverts, and blogs to create attention to the probable customers. Lastly promotion, the company promotes the through public relations, advertising, and other promotional strategies. The management ensures that promotion is tied to the product, place, and prices to make it successful (Khan, 2014). Issues Facing the Company Various challenges are being faced by the firm namely poor satisfactions of consumers, the growth of cloud networking and increased competition from emerging companies. These problems require an alternative solution to help the company stay competitive (Miller Rao, 2013). Alternative Strategies The company needs to employ talented networking developers to help it grow significantly. For example, to compete with the market rivals the company can search for talented to bring innovation in the areas of cloud computing and propel the company to a stronger position. To contain the aggressive competition in the market occasioned by new entrants and rival firm the company needs to invest heavily in RD. The firm can also use websites to increase the time taken to sell the products in the market(Govaerts, Kyndt, Dochy, Baert, 2011). How Well Can the Alternative Strategies Solve the Issue? The alternative to being used includes tracking consumers satisfaction, sourcing talented employees and training them and strengthening the research and development departments. For instance tracking users satisfaction will help consumers needs, wants and come up with products that satisfied the market. This will be boosted by the strengthening of RD department to help produce goods and offer services that go above the market expectation and thus create consumers satisfaction. Again having talented employees is a benefit to both as it supports the design of goods and services that are creative that meet the consumer demands, wants and needs. Recommendation The report recommends that the organization implement a raft of measures and policies that encourage research and development, tracking consumer satisfaction and training the best employees in the organization. Implementation Plan The organization should adopt an action plan that will be used to implement the alternatives namely establishing a modern research and development department and setting an integrated communication between various branches across the region and other continents. The steps are as follows. The first step is to set the goals and objectives, assessing the institutional rules and policies, develop an action plan, Implementation of the Action Plan and measuring and evaluating the results of the action plan. Risk and Mitigation Establishing a well-required research and development requires a lot of financial capital and skilled human resources personnel. Besides employees working in the department requires a lot of training and massive financial reward for continued creativity and innovation of products. After investing a lot of capital it is uncertain whether the services and products will meet the expected level in the market. References Blackwell, R., Eppler, D. (2014). An Approach to Strategic Situation Analysis: Using Models as Analytical Tools. Journal of Global Business Management, 10(1), 80-100. Bolla, R., Bruschi, R., Davoli, F., Cucchietti, F. (2011). Energy efficiency in the future internet: A survey of existing approaches and trends in energy-aware fixed network infrastructures. IEEE Communications Surveys Tutorials, 13(2), 223-244. Decusatis, C., Carranza, A., DeCusatis, C. (2012). Communication within clouds: open standards and proprietary protocols for data center networking. IEEE Communications Magazine, 50(9). Frahim, J., Santos, O., Ossipov, A. (2014). Cisco ASA: all-in-one firewall, IPS, and VPN adaptive security appliance. Pearson Education. Govaerts, N., Kyndt, E., Dochy, F., Baert, H. (2011). Influence of learning and working climate on the retention of talented employees. Journal of Workplace Learning, 23(1), 35-55. Jackson, C. (2010). Network security auditing. Cisco Press. Josyula, V., Orr, M., Page, G. (2011). Cloud computing: Automating the virtualized data center. Cisco Press. Khan, M. (2014). The concept of'marketing mix'and its elements (a conceptual review paper). International journal of information, business and management, 6(2), 95-100. Miller, M., Rao, N. 2. (2013). Are we ready for SDN? Implementation challenges for software-defined networks. IEEE Communications Magazine, 51(7), 36-43. Teare, D. (2010). Implementing Cisco IP routing (ROUTE) foundation learning guide: foundation learning for the ROUTE 642-902 exam. New Jersey, NJ: Pearson Education.