Bodhtree

Background

A global leader in networking, Cisco had a very unassuming beginning. Husband and wife Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, both working for Stanford University, wanted to email each other from their respective offices located in different buildings. The problem was they couldn't because each had different local area communications protocols. So they invented a solution. As a result, they created the first multi-protocol router. The rest is history. Today Cisco is a world leader in networking with offices in 160 countries and more than $40 billion in revenues.

The Challenge

Yes, even world leaders have issues. In this case, it was all about forecasting. Sales, multiple business units and manufacturing needed to get coordinated on how much product to build. Manual forecasting was leading to disruptions in the supply chain and imbalances with inventory management. Data validation checks alone took more than ten hours and over a day to process daily integration jobs. Cisco needed a centralized system for developing and managing forecasts. With an integrated system, manufacturing could immediately see what the business units and sales were targeting and get the necessary parts and production in the pipeline.

The Bodhtree Solution

Cisco called in Bodhtree for an answer. Step one was to create a global and consensus forecasting model that achieved the needed supply-demand balance. Our model connected all the stakeholders—sales, business units, and manufacturing—and allow them to coordinate forecasting. Implementing our model and solution, we chose Demantra for demand planning, integrated with supply planning solutions, including Kinaxis and ASCP. Our scalable and manageable system is now able to integrate more than 16 MM records in a few hours and reduce the year-end close by three days. Cisco can also validate more than 20,000 sales hierarchies in less than three hours. Besides solving the coordination problem, our solution frees managers to focus on strategic issues such as spending more time with customers and developing the new products and solutions they need.