On the outskirts of San Jose, California, is a collection of 35 virtually identical brown office blocks that can be told apart only by the letters on the doorways.
Inside each building, the floors are divided into cubicles and offices. The cubicles come in two sizes. The offices are all 10ft x 12ft. None has one windows. The floor plans displayed on the walls look more like computer circuits than maps of where to find people.
These are the offices of Cisco Systems, one of the world's fastest growing companies.
Only 14 years old, Cisco is responsible for building most of the computers that drive the Internet, and is now one of the 10 largest corporations in the US by market value. It provides the infrastructure of the Internet: the routers and switches that direct traffic around the network.
The company has outperformed the competition and won new business with relentless efficiency. Mr Larry Carter, chief financial officer, is its head mechanic.
Mr Carter, who spent 30 of his 55 years in the semiconductor industry before joining Cisco in 1995, takes personal pride in the company's Spartan surroundings. Every chair at Cisco, he says with satisfaction, is the same.
Mr Carter has dedicated himself to building a system of computerised accounting and management controls that cuts out every dollar of unnecessary cost. But he insists he is not a bean-counting control freak. His main aim, he says, has been to create a system that operates with the minimum of bureaucracy and allows the greatest flexibility to employees.
Take expenses. At Cisco, any employee can travel anywhere without prior approval. The employee enters the travel request into the system and as long as it meets company policy - coach class air tickets only - he or she will automatically be reimbursed within 48 hours. The point, Mr Carter says, is to ensure that employees are free to do whatever is necessary for the customer rather than wasting time on bureaucracy. "There will always be some who abuse it," Mr Carter says, "but we do not slow down the whole company because of that 1 or 2 per cent. I will catch those who abuse it."
The result is a company that claims the highest level of revenues per employee in the industry and spends only 1 per cent of those revenues on its finance department.
The cost control system has contributed, in large part, to Cisco's success. From his desk each morning Mr Carter can track exactly how much money his company is making, how each division is doing around the world, and even how each salesperson is performing against his or her target.
He calls up a page showing sales and margins for every region of the world: the information is no more than 24 hours old. He can review the figures by region, by product line, or by customer. He clicks on the US to get sales by state; then on Arizona for the figures for each individual salesperson. If anything looks amiss he can instantly fire off an e-mail to the individual concerned.
Working under such close scrutiny is not to everyone's liking. Those who are uncomfortable with the system generally do not last long at the company. "We aim to take out the bottom 5 per cent constantly," Mr Carter says.
Cisco's modus operandi is unforgiving of people who are less than 100 per cent committed to their work and the company. But for those who are committed, the rewards are bountiful. Employees get paid in part with options on Cisco stock, which has risen 10-fold in the past four years, making many of them extremely wealthy.
Mr Carter's system may be impersonal, but it is undoubtedly efficient. Purchasing, sales, marketing and even the hiring of staff is managed through a co-ordinated network. About 70 per cent of Cisco's $11 billion (€10.5 billion) sales arise from direct orders over the Internet, making it one of the largest e-commerce operations in the world.
This information enters the company's accounts automatically, and in many cases is then passed on to third-party manufacturing contractors that deliver the goods. In some cases, no one at Cisco need ever look at the order. The company just clocks up the sale and books the profit.
Mr Carter believes his system gives him an almost complete view of how the company is trading at the end of every day.
He says he can close group accounts within three days of the end of the quarter. Before the end of this year, he aims to have that down to one day. Such achievements are not just a matter of professional pride; Mr Carter believes they give Cisco an edge.
Most chief financial officers, he says, receive financial reports two weeks or more after the quarter has closed.
By contrast, Cisco executives see updated figures every morning. "When things slowed down, as in Japan, we saw it nine months before our competitors," he says. Similarly, Cisco was able to respond quickly to the recent pick-up in demand in Europe.
Having an up-to-date picture of trading also helps with investor relations. It cuts down the likelihood of nasty surprises when company results are published. In the past 12 years, Cisco has never once missed Wall Street's expectations. That is as much to do with keeping Wall Street accurately informed as with running the business well. This has been an impressive feat, especially considering how rapidly Cisco has grown.
When Mr Carter joined the company four years ago, it had 4,500 employees. Today it has 17,000. He was hired by Mr John Chambers, chief executive, to manage that transition, because of his experience with small and large companies: he has worked for Motorola, the phones-to-semiconductor giant, and the much smaller VLSI Logic, among others.
"Managing growth has been the issue of most concern," he says. "From a management and fiduciary role, I do not want to lose control. But we also want to continue to move at a rapid pace. The traditional answer to growth is more controls but the bureaucracy then slows you down. How do you stay at the pace of a start up?"
In theory, if systems like Cisco's were implemented universally, it would make the traditional methods of quarterly or half-yearly financial reporting redundant. Mr Carter says he will soon be able to do a virtual close of the company's books at the end of every day. If everyone could do it, why not get companies to report their results daily over the Internet?
Mr Carter is uncomfortable with the idea. "When you release information to shareholders you release it to competitors as well," he says.
Even though his system is almost complete, Mr Carter has no plans to move on. He says he likes being a chief financial officer and has no ambition to start up his own operation.
But even if Mr Carter is staying put, his management practices are being adopted far and wide. He says he has had calls from his peers at Dell and Texas Instruments who want to copy the Cisco system.
The company has established a division that provides free advice on using the Internet to improve management systems. Mr Carter believes that one day, all companies will be run his way.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)