eCase Study: Cisco Systems

Cisco systems has developed a quality approach to satisfy his customers. The approach is published at: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac208/about_cisco_approach_to_quality_customer_success.html# customerneeds

Approach to Quality
Executive Message
Dedication to customer success is a core value that affects everything Cisco does. We recognize that we must earn the right every day to continue to serve our customers. It is this understanding that drives our belief that Cisco's quality mission includes building and maintaining strong customer relationships and customer listening systems that in turn arm us with information to drive behaviors and change that increases customer value in our products, support and systems. Cisco's customer focus culture permeates every layer of the company, from CEO John Chambers to each individual contributor. Customer satisfaction is so important at Cisco that it is a direct and explicit component of employee compensation. We set yearly business objectives around customer satisfaction goals and initiatives. Cisco's approach to quality is simply: Focusing on our customer Meeting their needs Delivering the highest value for them

The first step in our dedication to quality is reflected in the way we communicate and act upon customer feedback. An on-line ongoing customer satisfaction survey helps us discern gaps between customer expectations and our priorities, offerings and products. It also provides us insight on where our customers would like us to improve as well as where we might overinvest - things that we do well, but that aren't priorities for customers. We can, and do, move resources from those overinvested areas to areas of opportunity to create unprecedented value for our customers. Through mechanisms such as Technical Advisory Boards (TAB), Customer Advocacy Advisory Council, Advanced Engineering Services (AES), availability programs and executive briefings, customers influence our goals and objectives, products, acquisitions, and our business practices. We not only strive to offer our customers the best networking products, service, and support, but we also constantly seek to understand their preferences, values, and their changing needs so that we can respond with new products and services. Transactional feedback on each Cisco touch helps us to improve operationally.

Cisco combines a progressive approach to gathering customer information with Quality processes and tools, such as: The Great Engineering Methodology (GEM), a concurrent engineering lifecycle approach Product and Software Quality Improvement Plans, Goals and Metrics Product design performance prediction compared to actual results Defect Reduction Teams Quality Summaries Engineering Failure Analysis Manufacturing Autotest System, shared with ecosystem manufacturers Distributed Defect Tracking System (DDTS), provides internal process support and customer access to known bugs for risk assessment System, regression and test labs Problem solving methodology ISO-9001-2000 (International Standards Organization) quality and business management systems audit and

certification processes. These key components of our Quality Management System represent the cornerstone of our closed loop process for delivering products of the highest quality to our customers. Cisco has implemented systems for measuring and managing customer loyalty within all levels of our organization. Using loyalty segmentation data allows us to easily explore how different segments respond to different possibilities so that we can choose the most effective way of allocating resources to please our all our customers. Meeting our customers' needs means continuously improving our systems and processes, as well as adopting approaches and practices that have demonstrated their value. Via the links to the left, you will find information on our Business Management System and the various processes for integrating customer knowledge into our business strategies for both immediate success and sustainable, long-term growth. Today, more than ever, Cisco is committed to responding to customer input and driving systemic improvements and discipline across all functions. . At Cisco, we are very proud of our accomplishments, humbled that our customers allow us to be a critical and key part of their business, and recognize the value of our partnership with our ecosystem teams. We look forward to the future - most of all, we look forward helping our customers to leverage technology that increases their productivity. Thank you for your partnership in changing the way we all work, live, play and learn.

Rich Goldberg Vice President of Corporate Quality Cisco Systems, Inc

Customer Success

Customer Needs | Partnership | Quality | Loyalty | Value | Satisfaction

Cisco has established a truly customer-focused culture throughout the organization and not just in the customer-facing departments. Everyone at Cisco is empowered to act on behalf of customers and acknowledge that we all have a role that impacts their behaviors and attitudes. Experts with years of industry knowledge and Internet business solutions experience bring high return on investments to our customers by understanding their perception of our products and services and their value. At Cisco, partnership is a key component of our strategy for delivering more complete and customized solutions to our customers. Through partnerships Cisco can offer complete networked-enabled productivity solutions that drive customer success today and in the future. We encourage our partners to use customer satisfaction knowledge to manage their businesses and improve our customer experience. Cisco promotes an environment where customers opportunities are constantly analyzed and maximized by implementing business practices and methodologies that increase loyalty, satisfaction and retain customers business over their lifetimes. Customers drive our business strategies to achieving success and excellence in everything we do, and will continue to be our key focus for developing products and services that accelerate their capability to prosper in the Internet business. Identifying and meeting our customer needs is key to Ciscos continued business success. Listening to our customers is what determines our business strategies and drives our culture. Acting on cus-

tomer input is what makes the difference in our successfully role of serving customers. Creating and managing the customer relationship is a company-wide task. Cisco as a whole defines and clearly communicates to every employee what it wants to be the basis of the customer relationship. Acquiring and continuously updating knowledge about customer needs, motivation and behavior drive our approach toward customer excellence. The focal point of all Cisco software and hardware maintenance and support services is the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC). The TAC is staffed by senior Customer Engineers who have experience with the Cisco product line and all aspects of data communications networking technology. The TAC provides worldwide technical support on a worldwide, 24x7 basis. Additionally, Cisco has developed Internet Commerce Applications to enable customers to manage a variety of business processes on line, including ordering networking products, tracking shipments, and accessing maintenance and warranty information. Internet commerce leverages the Internet to significantly streamline and simplify the everyday tasks of conducting businesses. These tools not only speed product delivery, they also help streamline business processes, which lowers administrative costs. Because the Internet Commerce Applications are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, our customers are able to access critical information at their convenience. Partnership is one of the pillars of growth for Cisco. Crucial partnerships with industry-leading technology and integrator companies are managed at Cisco by the Strategic Alliances team to accelerate new market opportunities and deliver best-in-class products and solutions to our customers. Instead of the customer going out and trying to fit various solution pieces together, Cisco and its strategic alliance partners anticipate their needs and assemble those pieces. When the customer has an unmet need outside our area of core competency, we work with the respective technology units or functional line organizations to evaluate whether a partnership could help us to address that need. The best partner for a specific market is selected based on the benefits the alliance can offer to the customer, a shareable vision of business, and a commitment of executive and operating resources. Through working in partnership with technology leading companies, we ensure that a relationship of trust, teamwork and common benefit is built to deliver more complete solutions to our customers, enhancing productivity and business efficiencies. Cisco believes in fostering an environment where highly motivated, action-oriented employees work together to continuously create and deliver high-quality, innovative products and services. The combination of Cisco's vision, mission, and cultural statement explains Cisco's Corporate Quality Policy. These items forms Ciscos dynamic roadmap to achieving customer satisfaction and promoting continual improvement of our Quality Management System. Our quality vision and mission is best explained by promoting customer focused, prevention based continual improvement that supports unconstrained growth. This is accomplished through: Integration into existing systems Easy access to quality information Deployment through the entire life cycle

Ciscos culture involves several elements that drive our business practices and strengthen our interaction with external parties: Quality Team: Attracting, growing and retaining great talent is critical to sustaining Cisco's competitive advantage. Cisco believes that a high quality team will help us maintain our leadership position and ensure that we remain one of the best places to work. By recruiting the top 5% in the industry, Cisco maintains agile and innovative in the context of an everchanging market environment. No Technology Religion: Because customer satisfaction is our number one priority, Cisco employees are to actively listen, share and explore to ensure we provide the best solutions to meet our customers' needs. Stretch Goals/Continuous Improvement: The focus on stretch goals is founded on a belief that to be the very best, we must continually strive to work smarter and achieve increasing levels of efficiency and productivity. Teamwork: We rely on teamwork by providing a collaborative environment that thrives on working across geographical and organizational boundaries, sharing information and find-

ing new and better ways to support each other and our customers. Teamwork brings good people and good skills together in ways that help us continue raising the bar on our success. Empowerment: The Internet Revolution is about knowledge and how that knowledge is applied. It's about economies of skill and empowerment. At Cisco, empowerment is part of our culture. All employees are empowered to make decisions that achieve results. Fun: Cisco continually strives for developing an environment that enables our employees to enjoy what they do. By providing a framework of learning, opportunities, teamwork, and development, we build employee loyalty and satisfaction. Trust/Integrity/Giving Back: Cisco was founded in an environment of open communication, empowerment, integrity and trust. These values remain at the forefront of our culture and our business decisions. We must maintain our commitment to these values and continue building a culture that understands what is acceptable and what is not. We will never compromise on issues of integrity. We give back to our community. Just as every employee is empowered within Cisco, we contribute to the empowerment of our surrounding and global communities to help people lead rich and rewarding lives. Through education, technology and charitable giving initiatives, Cisco and its employees have taken great strides to help others in need. Drive Change: We must measure ourselves against both our internal goals and against how well we execute on the opportunities in the market. One of the keys to our success has been our ability to listen to our customers and react quickly and effectively to meet their needs. Only by continuing to drive change in the industry will we stay one to two waves ahead of the competition. Profit Contribution: At Cisco, profit contribution is accomplished by reassessing everything we do to ensure we place the greatest number of resources in areas that have the greatest profit potential. Market Transitions: Part of Cisco's business success has always been based on our ability to take advantage of market transitions, disruptions and inflection points by adding resources and focusing on building relationships. Open Communication: Good communications both internally and with our customers and partners directly affects customer success. Every member of the Cisco team is responsible for making communication a priority. This means being a good listener and taking the time to understand and respond to the issues behind the questions and concerns. Customer Success: Our first priority as a company is to ensure customer success. No matter how good we are, the one thing that can bring us down is getting too far away from our customers. At Cisco, customers influence everything we do as a company and are critical success factors in fully realizing our potential to influence the entire Internet Economy.

Cisco also uses a series of key quality system components to measure, monitor, analyze and control the effectiveness of the products and services that we deliver to our customers, and the processes that form our business management system. The combination of these tools, processes and methodologies enable the implementation of a close loop system that add value to our business and stress the importance of optimizing the value of each customer relationship. On a continual basis they are revisited and improved to enhance their effectiveness and quality of the deliverable: The Great Engineering Methodology (GEM) The engineering-related processes and requirements for product development and maintenance to be followed by all engineering organizations The Software Release Process Ciscos phased approach to software release and control Product Quality Metrics - Key customer focused and internal quality measures used by Cisco to monitor performance and drive improvement Defect Reduction Teams Cross functional teams designated to drive top production issues to closure as well as to identify and drive process improvements and preventive action Business Objects Quality Summary Automated data analysis system used by Cisco Quality to evaluate product reliability and quality from a customer perspective Engineering Failure Analysis - Ciscos closed loop failure analysis process for the identification of root causes of field hardware failures Manufacturing Autotest, MeTeR and DOM (Date of Manufacture) - Automated tools that

control testing & measure test results throughout the Cisco manufacturing process Distributed Defect Tracking System (DDTS) - System to track and manage problems and enhancement requests related to software Annual Customer Satisfaction Surveys Ongoing web based surveys of the customers perception of all aspects of Ciscos performance E-Sigma One of the methodologies used for problem solving and continual improvement of our business processes Internal Audit Process - Process to monitor the on-going effective implementation of the quality and environmental management systems. Internal Audits are used to identify best practices, identify potential areas for improvement and verify conformance to IS0 9001 and ISO 14001 requirements

Building loyalty with customers is the central role of Ciscos efforts. We use the information obtained from customers to increase loyalty, improve processes, and to better monitor and understand customers concerns and expectations. Cisco has set a goal of transforming into a true loyalty-based organization by understanding and measuring what drives loyalty in core and new products. Networkers, Executive Briefing Center (EBC) visits, customer visits, and targeted Technical Advisory groups are some of the direct interfaces that Cisco has with customers to ensure their concerns are addressed and resources deployed to correct or prevent problems. These interactions also serve as a vehicle to gather information on products and services that is then fed back into the organizations where improvements to products, services and business processes are defined and implemented. One method that we use to improve our customer relationship is the segmentation and analysis of customer loyalty data. The knowledge acquired from this data help us to strategize and plan how resources will be employed to reach each customer segment more effectively. It also serves as a tool to continually expand and evolve our opportunities to respond rapidly to our customers needs and expectations. Cisco is committed to continuously improve performance through a process of learning from successes and failures. We manage and enhance the value to both customer and Cisco within the relationship by developing and understanding of our customers, their needs and their wants. We then use this knowledge to develop better products and services. This learning experience enables Cisco to engage in a more intimate value-added relationship. Ciscos Internet Business Solution Group (IBSG) focuses on several industries and solutions to better target individual company needs and provide specialized expertise for these industries. It also uses workshops, return on investment (ROI) tools, and Internet Capabilities to increase the expertise of customers implementing Internet business practices in the areas of: Web Foundation E-Learning Customer Care Supply Chain Management Workforce Optimization E-marketplace

Customer satisfaction is essential to continually improve the effectiveness of our processes and to establish our quality objectives. Complete and reliable information about our customers represent a key and a sustainable competitive advantage for us. Cisco has created customer satisfaction metrics to monitor customer success and tie a level of employee compensation to achieving those metrics. The analysis of this information is used to determine the goals and initiatives for each year and the strategies that will make us successful in reaching those goals. Selected data is shared with our partners so that they can benefit from our customer insight and enhance services and support. The Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey is conducted via the Internet and lets us collect feedback from customers worldwide. Satisfaction is measured on a 5-point scale (5=Very Satisfied; 1= Very Dissatisfied). Results are made available to all Cisco employees to foster quality improvement and to provide a point of reference for those areas where we may need to employ resources more productively. In addition to the annual survey, Cisco also conducts many transactional surveys, such as: Order Management, New Product Introduction, and Technical Support..

Corporate and Social Responsibility

Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey
Customer Satisfaction is a Core Value Customer Satisfaction is a core value at Cisco Systems. Since 1992 we have been conducting an Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey. Using the valuable input we receive from our customers, we establish the principal objectives for each of our functional areas. In addition, hiring and resource allocation decisions are based on consolidated customer feedback scores. Cisco believes so strongly in customer satisfaction, that a corporate-wide bonus is tied to our results. Every year we set goals to increase customer satisfaction. The information we gather measures our high level relationships with customers and spotlights areas where we need to focus more attention. At times, the survey leads to the development of focus groups and follow-up surveys, which help dig more deeply into customer issues. Such initiatives, when coupled with data from transactional measurements, provide a rich source of direction from our customers.

Seventeenth Annual Survey Starts in August

The 17th Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey will be conducted via the Internet allowing us to collect feedback from customers worldwide throughout the fiscal year. Invitations are sent by Cisco or a Cisco partner. Satisfaction is measured on a 5-point scale (5=Very Satisfied; 1= Very Dissatisfied). For this fiscal year cycle, our survey starts August 1, 2007, and concludes on July 15, 2008. We partner with Walker Information, an expert in this field, to conduct the survey and analyze the results. The survey has been designed to take approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Results will be made available to all Cisco employees to foster quality improvement and to provide a point of reference for areas where we may need to sharpen our focus. We also will share select data with our partners so that they, too, can benefit from customer insight and enhance services and support.

Quality Certifications
Cisco is committed to continually improving of quality, and to continually meeting and exceeding rigorous international standards. (Please select a link for more information.):

ISO 9001 Cisco's Quality Management System is registered to ISO 9001:2000 by a third-party registrar. The scope of Cisco's registration includes the design, manufacturing, service, and support of internetworking products worldwide. Cisco was first registered to ISO 9001 on November 24, 1993, and has received regular surveillance audits since then. Cisco has 125 sites certified worldwide, which include all major manufacturing, engineering, and customer advocacy organizations. Our most recent certificate for registration to ISO 9001:2000 is dated December 2006, and can be accessed at the link below. ISO 9001 Certificate TL 9000 TL 9000 is a quality standard developed by "Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications Forum", better known as the QuEST Forum ( http://questforum.org ). TL 9000 is a globally recognized quality standard and is designed to improve telecommunications products and services. It includes all of the elements of the ISO 9001 quality standard, plus additional focus on customer needs, strategic planning, and accountability. In addition, registered companies must report standardized metrics around performance, reliability, and delivery, which together provide industry-benchmarking capabilities. Below is Cisco's TL 9000 certificate, which covers Cisco's flagship router, the CRS-1, as well as most of Cisco's strategic metro optical core products: ONS 15310, ONS 15327, ONS 15454, and ONS 15600. It also includes 6500 (Native Mode), 7600, 10000/10720, 12000, IP Solution Center, IOS Software and SPAs and the Cisco Transport Manager element management system. Our Global Technical Assistance Center organization is included in its entirety. In 2006 the following was certified: MGX 8800, MGX 8900, Firewall Services Module (excluding other Security Line Cards) and the Network Systems Integration and Test Engineering organization. The original registration was completed December 10, 2003 and updated in December 2006. To better support the needs of our Service Provider customers, Cisco will continue to expand its TL 9000 registration. TL 9000 Certificate ISO 14001 The Cisco Environmental Management System is a continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing, and improving Cisco processes and actions to meet its environmental obligations. It serves as a vehicle to ensure that activities, products, and services conform to the ISO 14001 standard and environmental requirements. (PDF - 1.1 MB) (PDF - 1.1 MB)

ISO 14001 Overview: What is ISO 14001?

ISO 14001 is an internationally accepted standard for environmental management systems. ISO 14001 was first published in 1996 by the International Organization for Standardization and is reviewed periodically. ISO 14001 provides a single, world-wide framework for environmental management systems and serves as the basis for 3rd party auditing and certification of ISO 14001 programs. An ISO 14001 environmental management system is a continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing, and improving of an organization's management system, environmental aspects and impacts on the environment, environmental programs and commitment to environmental regulatory compliance. Key Benefits Associated with ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems:

Improved environmental performance Improved compliance Enhanced customer and public trust Increased employee involvement Fewer accidents Reduced costs

ISO 14001 Certified Sites

Cisco's on-going commitment to the environment includes expansion of our ISO 14001 certification. The following are Cisco ISO 14001 certified sites and these sites comprise approximately 65 percent of Cisco employees:
San Jose , CA , Corporate Headquarters: 2000 Monza , Italy : 2002 Research Triangle Park , NC : 2003 NEDC-Boxborough , MA : 2004 Richardson , TX : 2004 Amsterdam , Netherlands : 2005 United Kingdom : Bedfont Lakes and Reading : 2005 Austin , TX : 2005 Herndon , VA : 2006 Boulder & Englewood , CO : 2006 Diegem , Belgium : 2006 Paris , France : 2006 Tokyo , Japan : 2006 Sydney Australia: 2006

ISO 14001 Certificate (PDF - 583 KB) Cisco Corporate Environmental Policy Other Accreditations A2LA Accreditation (EMC) - NEDC (PDF - 4 KB) A2LA Accreditation (EMC,Telecom, Safety and NEBS) - San Jose Campus (PDF - 1 MB)