Cisco Australia Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Cisco Australia - Case Study Example The company could well be on its way to wearing Australia's best employer crown. So what is Cisco all about Cisco, which was founded in 1984 by two computer scientists from Stanford University, began life as a manufacturer of routing systems. Since it sold its first router in 1986, the company has more than lived up to its vision of 'Changing the Way We Live, Work, Play and Learn'. Apart from its core development areas of routing and switching, Cisco has now branched into various technology-related fields like IP communications, wireless LAN, home networking, application networking services, network security, storage area networking and video systems. The company, which has its corporate headquarters in San Jose, California, soon became one of the leaders in the global networking industry with a presence in over 115 countries. Today, it has a 47,000-strong employee base. Using the acquisition-partnership route, Cisco managed to make inroads into multiple fields. Today, Cisco's products provide solutions to a wide range of customers from business enterprises like corporations and government agencies to educational and research institutions. In 1994 Cisco set up base in Sydney, Australia, which was one of the company's first operations outside the United States. Today, Cisco Australia operates from around six cities and has over 600 employees on its payrolls. Australia is home to the company's Asia Pacific Technical Assistance Centre and Customer Assurance Group. Here's a list of the awards that the decade-old Cisco Australia won: Prime Minister's Award for Community Business Partnerships in August 2001. No 1 in the Hewitt Associates survey "Best Employers to Work for in Australia" in the under 1,000 employees category in 2002 and 2003 MAS National Award for Corporate Citizenship at the 2005 Australian HR Awards. [B(1.1)] Does Cisco Fit The New Workplace One of the main reasons for Cisco's almost meteorical rise to success was its ability to adapt to the new work order. Around 15 years ago, the same time that Cisco began operations; the new workplace became an important word in management parlance. Computers and the Internet were changing the way the world worked. Managers realized they needed to implement solid workplace strategies, to provide the infrastructure for enabling global, 24x7 work processes and remote collaboration "anytime, anyplace." (Aperture Technologies 2006, online ) This 'anytime, anyplace' strategy proved extremely beneficial for both organizations and their employees. It gave them considerable freedom, as they could now be mobile and work from just about anywhere. Freed from geographical and time constraints, an organization's managers could employ qualified people from just about anywhere in the world. A look at Cisco's growth graph during the past 20 years shows that in just over a decade, the company had spread its wings across continents. It managed to get the best in terms of qualified employees and a bigger customer base. A downside of this new workplace was that it put a strain on the companies' infrastructure and also affected workplace dynamics. This meant that enabling and empowering employees with a superior workplace was of paramount importance to the