Abstract
In continuance of the case of Midsouth Chamber of Commerce, the organization has appointed Sage Niele as a new Vice President of Operations and Chief Financial Official of the company. During her initial period, she looked back and contemplated about the decision she had made to accept the positions and her reasons behind it. Alongside with her internal investigation, the backstory of the significant players in the preceding case was told. The organization’s difficulties with finding a system to replace UNITRAK was described in the case.
Throughout their search, the company has found DMA’s software as an alternative to UNITRAK. When the new system was implemented, plenty of flaws and glitches were found that caused several difficulties for Midsouth Chamber of Commerce. With MSCC’s signed contract with DMA, they have allowed DMA to take over and handle the installation and support of the new system. The decision made it difficult for MSCC to recover the system by the end of the case. This left Sage Niele, the new Vice President, tried to find new ways to repair the damage done to an already defective system.
Unnoticed Mistakes in Midsouth Chamber of Commerce This review of Midsouth Chamber of Commerce’s history, exposed a number of problems and errors found with the organization’s information systems and as well as its management. First was with the implementation of UNITRAK system. When the UNITRAK’s president, Greg Ginder, was invited to give a short demonstration of the system’s capabilities, Ed Wilson Vice President of Public Affairs of MSCC have agreed with Leon Lassister Vice President of Marketing/Membership to purchase and implement the UNITRAK software without completing the demonstration and testing the UNITRAK system.
That quick decision later lead to discovering several problems with the UNITRAK system. The system could not fulfill requests for lists and labels for mailings. The word processing, payment and invoicing, data changes, and list management were very difficult during that time. With Kovecki’s frustration with UNITRAK software, he was not cooperative with Lassiter. He does not give him information regarding the conversion of the new system and he was not very helpful with the staff members because he always try to avoid them.
Issues with the system remained and later on the UNITRAK experienced financial problems and filed for bankruptcy. With no technical support for the system, MSCC decided to hire an outside consultant, Zen Consulting, to help assist in the maintenance and support of the software. After UNITRAK, came the implementation of Data Management Associate’s (DMA) software. Another decision was made quickly in implementing a new system. Dick Gramen, the new Systems Analyst, failed to read and fully understand the contract provided by DMA, which outlined what DMA were willing to provide and what MSCC must guaranteed.
The contract was signed by the president of the company, Jack Wallingford, without being reviewed by any other staff member or the corporate counsel. Troubles have raised with the implementation of DMA software. DMA encountered substantial problems converting the membership database from UNITRAK into the DMA custom software package. MSCC and DMA’s working relationship deteriorated due to many problems not being fixed and the lack of cooperation with DMA.
From this research, MSCC’s history was reviewed and specified questions were answered to analyze and gather facts that seems to cause problems to Midsouth Chamber of Commerce. Firstly, the organization’s poor operational decisions for their information systems. There was no opinion or guidance from an experienced information system professional. Secondly, the lack of proper evaluation of the research. Even if a research was performed for the new system, a research that was not reviewed, was not enough to quantify the decision to implement a system.
Lastly, the mistake of not checking the content of the business contract. In any organization, it is essential that a contract needs to be reviewed by all the staff members, corporate counsel, and officers before it could be signed and implemented. Based on all the facts gathered from the research, MSCC must work on having a good and effective communication with all the stakeholders. This would avoid poor decision, unevaluated research and contract that later lead to future pitfalls and mistakes. Method
The case was examined thoroughly to determine the cause of difficulties and errors with the organization’s information system. The history of Midsouth Chamber of Commerce was investigated and reviewed by the author to understand how well the organization manages their information systems. Several questions were gathered and carefully answered to strategically associate the findings and analyze the issues. Results The review of Midsouth Chamber of Commerce’s history and the answers for the specified questions helped gathered facts to analyze what were the real problems and what causes it.
The outcome of the study have identified the following problems: organization’s poor operational decisions for their information systems; lack of proper evaluation of the research; and the mistake of not checking the content of the business contract. Discussion As mentioned, having a good and effective communication is very essential in every organization. The purpose of this study was to show what the organization was lacking, that made them experience numbers of difficulties with their information systems. Also, to demonstrate what can be done to resolve it.
With the problems identified in this case, the main cause was found and it was the lack of good communication between the stakeholders. The decision to purchase an unreliable systems like UNITRAK and DMA, the research and contract not being reviewed prior to signing and implementation of the systems, all boils down to MSCC’s poor communication. Why “lack of good communication” was the important finding of this case? According to ManagementStudyGuide. com: Thus, we can say that “effective communication is a building block of successful organizations”.
In other words, communication acts as organizational blood. The importance of communication in an organization can be summarized as follows: 1. Communication promotes motivation by informing and clarifying the employees about the task to be done, the manner they are performing the task, and how to improve their performance if it is not up to the mark. 2. Communication is a source of information to the organizational members for decision-making process as it helps identifying and assessing alternative course of actions.
3. Communication also plays a crucial role in altering individual’s attitudes, i. e. , a well-informed individual will have better attitude than a less-informed individual. Organizational magazines, journals, meetings and various other forms of oral and written communication help in molding employee’s attitudes. 4. Communication also helps in socializing. In today’s life the only presence of another individual fosters communication. It is also said that one cannot survive without communication.
If Midsouth Chamber of Commerce would apply this finding to their organization, there would be a possibility to salvage their current and future information systems. References Brown, C. , Dehayes, D. , Hoeffer, J. , Martin, E. , & Perkins, W. (2010). Managing Information Technology Seventh Edition. Case Study 1-7 Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (B): Cleaning Up an Information Systems Debacle , 177–185. ManagementStudyGuide. com (2013). Importance of Communication in Organization. Retrieved from: http://managementstudyguide. com/importance-of-communication. htm
