Case Study – Royal Hotel 1. Briefly (2 paragraphs or less) describe the facts of the case. In order to improve the performance, Royal Hotel (RH) became one of the clients of Fancy Consultants& Company (FC). Blake Cantera was an intern and he was in charge of this case. According to the General Manager (GM), the level of the service in RH was unacceptable based on the discerning guests and RH’s self-positioning. Blake recommended RH to purchase and install M-tech’s Espresso after some short interview with some related people. Blake also gave four main advantages of the proposed information system as followed: Rapid response, Quaility control, Preventive maintenance, and Reporting. This system allow housekeepers to report problems as soon as possible without waiting so that it can reduce the chance of “slippage through the cracks” if the housekeeper forgot to communicate the problem. This system also can avoid the same problem occurred again and the manager can reward the employees according to their performance based on the data which showed by the system. While Blake got another account, so, his classmate Jack took over this case. After one month and a half, Blake was told that his solution was failed. It was useless and it just wasted money. When he came back to RH, he found that the Espresso was sitting in a corner, nobody cares about it, and every employee thought the older manual system was better than the new one. When Blake prepared to find a solution to make the new system work, a sentence gave him a tinge of hope: “Focus on the information system design, not the technology investment”.

2. Explain why they are in the current situation (mistakes and the people at fault) and what should have been done instead. The employee in RH was not familiar with the new information system Espresso, and due to Blake’s shift to other account, there was no training to show the employee how to manipulate it. Blake has no working experience before; he didn’t know to consider all the aspects that a new system needs to run. The GM was a no-nonsense, old school hotelier; it was difficult for him to accept the new information system without training. Jack continued to use Blake’s solution without his own survey about RH, so that he couldn’t to make a better plan to solve RH’s problem. 3 Specify what should be done now. First of all, Blake should consider more aspects and make sure this new information system could successfully solve RH’s problem. If it could work, he should start to make a presentation to show why RH should switch their information system and how does it work. Secondly, Blake should train the employees to manipulate the Espresso, and make them to get familiar with it. Make the employee to believe that the new one is much better than the old one. Finally, during the use of the new information system, the employee should ask the guests to give feedback about it, and they can adjust the system in time. 4. How does the case relate to the chapter? In the case, RH’s employee was resisting the change about the new information system. This case showed an example of a failure of an Information System. There are four components of an Information System: Information Technology, Process, People and Structure. Blake only focused on the information technology and process. Every thing about the system was settled down, and he can bring out four advantages about the new information system. But, he forgot to consider the people and the structure. It was difficult for GM to change and without any training, it was impossible for them to handle the new information system. The applying of a new information system is a second-order change, it provides more challenge for manager to implement it than the firs-order change does.“Focus on the information design, not the technology investment” said by the professor was the best tip for Blake. All of the four components of an information system should be considered thoughtfully. Mini case: Integration at BIGPHARMA, INC.

1. Even as the lowly executive assistant to the CEO, it was apparent to you that there was some groupthink going on here. Was buying an enterprise system the only option?

No. Buying an enterprise system was not the only option. Operation a new system should consider not only the technology aspect, but also other aspects, such the company’s structure and the level of acceptance for the company’s manager. The company can make its’ own information system after considering all of the problem that they need to solve.

2. You vaguely recall this idea of best-of-breed applications form your information systems class two years ago. Could that approach work here?

The best-of-breed can make the company to retain a high degree of flexibility, and to achieve tight integration. But, we are not sure the best method was suitable to every company, it has to consider the company structure and other aspect about it. So, best-of-breed may not work here.