The Workplace Resources group (WPR) manages all of Cisco's real estate and facilities, serving 42,000 employees in 12.5 million sf of space in 300 worldwide locations, the largest of which is in San Jose, Calif. Given the company's explosive growth--Cisco added 4.1 million sf to its real estate portfolio from 1999 to 2000--WPR looked to technology to restructure internal systems with the creation of Web-based "e-fficiencies." Recent changes in the economy have made these innovations even more significant for the Silicon Valley firm.

A driving force behind the plan was the company's desire to shift the paradigm of the traditional workplace, allowing employees the freedom to work in environments that make them most productive, with all the information they need at their fingertips.

"Our company's products are based on the premise of 'work any place, any time,'" says Kris Wafler, former manager of Partnering Strategies for WPR. "Adopting that as an internal practice means we must enable everyone--whether full-time, part-time, or telecommuter--to tap the services we provide all the time, no matter where they are. The Web is the way to do that."

Making the massive collection of facilities functions constantly available is a big job, but it also pays big dividends, Wafler points out, freeing up end users' time so they can concentrate on core tasks. In the long run this approach makes them more efficient and the company more profitable.

"We view the workplace as a tool, which is why our group is called Workplace Resources," she says. "Facilities processes should be transparent to employees. It may be a little harder for us to deliver solutions, but it makes people more productive, and that's our goal. It's all about the Cisco business, not the facilities business."

Web-Based Technology Pervades Workplace

During the past three years, WPR has applied its e-fficiencies to diverse sectors of the corporation, from the more traditional facilities functions of lease management to the corporate enterprise realm of strategic planning/enterprise management and finance/accounting.

The following functions are handled exclusively online:

• Office Automation Tools (creates a standardized environment for off-the-shelf software)
• Web-based Employee Self-Service Applications (includes purchasing, package tracking, catering, copying, and printing)
• Strategic Planning/Enterprise Management
• Finance/Accounting Applications (includes human resources)
• Transaction/Lease Management (includes market research; investment sales/auctions; project leasing; tenant rep.; and portfolio management)
• Project Management Applications (includes programming/conceptual and schematic design; design development; construction documents; bidding negotiations and procurement; and project management/construction management)
• Space Management and Occupancy Planning
• Facilities Management and Building Operations (includes workplace strategies and management; building operations, maintenance and repair; environmental, health, safety and security; telecommunications and cable management; and customer relations management)

Of these, the first two, Office Automation Tools and Web-based Employee Self-Service Applications, scored the highest marks in a recent Capability Maturity Study (see sidebar "Study Shows WPR Exceeds Industry Benchmarks").

New Technology Leads to Greater Efficiency

Wafler cites several examples to illustrate the efficiency of the new Web-enabled systems. For instance, resolving a temperature-related facilities problem has become a one-step automated process.

Formerly, employees had to track down the appropriate service person, or ask an administrator to handle the complaint. Now, they simply go to the Service Request Web page and type in the problem. That information is sent to the Facilities Response Center database, which is monitored by the Help Desk. The Help Desk routes the request to the appropriate service provider, whether in-house or outside vendor. Regular emails update requesters on the status of repairs, and jobs don't close out until they sign off on them. The system also generates a bingo card so employees can rate the level of service received.

The online system is not only more streamlined but can be operated with fewer personnel. Four people could barely handle the call volume of the manual process, Wafler says, but after a year of automation the task takes only one-third of the time of a single employee.

Cisco achieved similar efficiencies when move management went online. With an annual move churn rate of 170 percent, the San Jose planning staff arranges 18,000 internal moves annually. Three years ago, that required a staff of 25. Today, move management requires a planning staff of only 20, despite the fact that the company saw a 71 percent growth in employment, a 49 percent growth in facilities square footage, and 27 acquisitions between 1999 and 2000.

Efficiency also skyrocketed in the processing of purchase orders. Although this is a function that traditionally falls outside the FM umbrella, WPR's emphasis on overall employee productivity crossed organizational boundaries to make the online purchase order system one of several options included in the Web-based Employee Self-Service Applications.

Under the old system, administrators had to shepherd purchase orders through as many as seven layers of approval. If an authorizing person was in a remote location, it could take an entire day to obtain just one signature.

The paper process also invited certain abuses.

"With paper, you can try to get around the signatures," Wafler says.

The online system includes controls that will not allow the order to proceed without the proper approvals.

Wafler says replacing the system of paper purchase orders with an online system had slashed P.O. processing time by 30 to 40 percent within 18 months. Overall, the company's FY 2000 productivity rate (revenue divided by headcount) was $700,000 per employee. The average among other high-tech companies against which Cisco benchmarks is $400,000 to $500,000, she says.

Helping Vendors Get Online

Even more efficiency is gained by tying vendors into Cisco's Web-enabled systems. The problem is that not all providers are as far along on the technology path, particularly real estate and facilities contractors. Cisco uses a company's ability to operate electronically as a criterion in the bid process, going so far as to invest in a vendor's electronic infrastructure if Cisco management expects the relationship to be long term.

"Typically, we help them develop Internet strategies," Wafler says. "But when the city of San Jose was looking to go to online permitting, we even provided some equipment."

Wafler says it does not slow down a project to help a partner get up to speed, because in the end, the project will run more smoothly with Cisco's online systems in place.

"It's probably a year before you see any deliverables," she says, "but at the end of a year, they're committed to it."

Open Standards Permit Technology Flexibility

Cisco's policy of maintaining open standards for technology makes it easier to select best-in-class applications for each functional area. According to Wafler, with open standards, all the systems--whether developed in-house or purchased off the shelf--can communicate with each other, making it possible for such diverse departments as HR and facilities to share data.

"We don't have any technology religion," Wafler says.

The IT department does set standards for the platforms software can run on. If a program runs on a platform that does not meet these standards, IT will not support it internally. But that doesn't mean the company won't buy it; it just means the department acquiring the software has to provide its own support.

The worldwide badging system WPR implemented four years ago illustrates the benefits of this flexibility. A WPR team, including a representative from IT, selected Lenel Systems International, from the company of the same name, as the most suitable application. However, because Lenel's Microsoft SQL Server database software did not run on an IT-supported platform, WPR had to provide and maintain its own server. In companies with a more rigid approach, Wafler says, WPR would not have been able to select a computer system that fell outside IT's standards, even though it was deemed the best.

Now, because badging is such a major function at Cisco, IT is moving to support it in-house, Wafler says.

Embracing Change

Cisco's corporate culture is shaped by a philosophy of embracing change as a way to stay ahead of competitors. In fact, chief executive John Chambers frequently challenges the company to break the rules, whether it's in the way it configures the workplace or how it adapts to the hairpin turns in the dot-com market.

That philosophy is ubiquitous at Cisco, especially in the area of space management.

"The traditional way is to provide one cube per person," Wafler says. "But if you're telecommuting, you no longer need the space. We partnered with HR and IT to work this out."

Each building at Cisco has "drop-in" space that is handled differently in different locations. In London, where the employees hang onto formality, employees use an online system to reserve space. In New York, that idea didn't work and reservations were eliminated, Wafler says. Instead, people literally just drop in and work, and competing for the space is rarely a problem.

Cisco has gone so far as to set up what Wafler calls "collision spaces," which are data-connected hook-ups anywhere employees might gather and want to work on something at a moment's notice: in break rooms, copy rooms, cafeterias, and hallways, even outside restrooms.

Wafler says it takes a certain mind set for employees to adjust to this "New World" workplace where the computer is their only desktop.

"It's a territorial thing," she says. "People like to have mementoes such as pictures of their children on their desks. Instead, I put pictures of my kids on my computer screen."

Even Wafler has no permanent office, or even a desk to call her own: "I have a two-drawer filing cabinet at Cisco," she says. "It took me probably a year to learn this way of doing business. Now, if you give me paper, I'll lose it." Instead, she urges her associates in-house and outside Cisco to communicate with her electronically.

The mandate to embrace change was taken to heart in January 2001, when the company as a whole had to rethink its Internet business strategy in light of the crashing dot-com market.

"We were going to push a lot of systems to Application Service Providers, but a lot of people we were going to partner with were going out of business," Wafler recalls. "We decided to keep the business in-house and see how it all pans out."

By Lisa Wesel

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