Kamonthip Wongwiboonsat ID: 1155014671

SEEM3490---FINAL REPORT
3. THE CASE Background In the early 1990s, the Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (MSCC) was formed by a group of powerful businesspeople in order to deal with issues affecting business community, including state banking laws, transportation, industrial development, and business taxes. *For more information on the organization structure see Appendix A In 1989, the IS history of MSCC began when personal workstations and a suite of software were first introduced by Ed Wilson, the Vice President of Public Affairs at the time. Wilson acquired the equipment and hired a programmer to write custom software for each functional area---the marketing division, the operations division, and the human resource division. In 2003, Simon Kovecki was hired as a system analyst to manage, assess and upgrade the systems. Even though, the systems were reliable and stable, Leon Lassiter, as Vice President of Marketing and Membership at the time, felt that the IS area needed more attention and integration. In August 2005, Lassiter discovered UNITRAK. Base on Lassiters (and Koveckis) 2004 assessment of MSCCs current and anticipated divisional needs, Lassiter had a strong feeling that a software system developed by UNITRAK would allow MSCC to be more efficient. UNITRAK softwares features Quicker access to account information Centralize information database Increased quantitative analysis of activities

In 2005, MSCCs Executive Committee approved the purchase of the UNITRAK system; the system was purchased along with a small IBM server and the UNITRAK software. Issues However, the implementation of new system took much longer than was planned. Although, the training went well, there were several problems occurred; Unable to migrate data from the current workstation systems to the new system Inoperable workstations Impaired office applications in many areas such as mailing, word processing, payment and invoice posting, data changes and list management

Besides, UNITRAK had a severe limitation which is the lack of a relational database management system. In February 2008, UNITRAK was filed bankruptcy which left MSCC no technical supports.

Kamonthip Wongwiboonsat ID: 1155014671 Proposed Solution In October 2008, Dick Gramen joined the organization as a systems analyst in place of Koveckis resign. Gramen was from a Hewlett-Packard (HP) computing environment and had no experience working with IBM servers. In order to avoid the learning curve on the IBM system, he proposed to the Executive Committee that the company needs to replace an old hardware system which is undersized with a new HP technology. The Executive Committee agreed with only one limitation--that Wilson and Gramen use due diligence in developing the entire information system solution. Gramen contacted local value-added reseller (VAR), where his friend worked for, to install HP hardware and search for software solutions (for a fee) that matched the MSCCs needs to the proposed hardware platform. Without proper assessment and visiting to the MSCC, the VAR hired Data Management Associates (DMA) to be in charge of software systems management on behalf of MSCC. After the several conflicts, proposals, reviews, visiting and interviews, in August 2009, the Executive Committee permitted the purchase of the HP hardware and DMA software. A month later, the design specification and cost estimates for the new system configuration (see Appendix B), HP hardware and three softwares i.e. Progress, Association Plus and Results, were approved by the Executive Committee. Justification to Adopt the Solution Upon the visit to DMA headquarters, Lassiter and Garmen were treated to a demonstration of a fully operational version of DMCs software. However, the representative screens and sample reports were based on the data and reports of MSCC given by Lassiter to DMA. The reason behinds this was that DMA wanted to penetrate the trade association market with a big customer like MSCC. On the top of that, DMA guaranteed that the MSCC would receive the source code if it purchased the software. 4. ANALYSIS Does the organizations proposed solution resolve the issues? N/A Are there any better alternatives? If there is, why is it not adopted by the organization? There are two possible alternatives that could have been adopted by MSCC. The first alternative is that MSCC could insist on performing with its existing IBM server and UNITRAK. However, the organization must be careful when recruiting new stuff member. One of the crucial failures of MSCC was the recruiting of Dick Gramen. Dick Gramen had no experience with IBM operating environment, this was the major that made him persuade Executive Committee on the purchase of HP hardware system. The second alternative is that MSCC could stay tune with its current IBM system and search and/or custom software solutions that run on IBM effectively and allow MSCC to be more efficient. By doing this, MSCC can omit extra cost of implementing new hardware system; meanwhile, the organization

Kamonthip Wongwiboonsat ID: 1155014671 can reduce the training time as stuffs are already familiar with the existing system. MSCC must also identify/do proper assessment of what each individual function needs in proposed software solutions, this will lead to an implementation and/or development of software systems that serve all MSCCs functions. Will the proposed solution lead to other potential issues? According to the case study, before the purchase of software from DMC, Lassiter provided DMA with many MSCCs materials including ones that should be kept confidential--- reports and documents that the existing system (IBM server and UNITRAK) could produce and an operations manual of all divisions. If these information leaked, MSCCs competitors may have a chance to develop/implement a more effective software system that outperform MSCCs existing system. Moreover, MSCC had been receiving erroneous charges from DMA for work related to errors in the implementation of Progress, Association Plus and Results that MSCC had purchased. This was due to lack of improper contract reviewed by MSCC. The signed contract for the acquisition of DMA packaged softwares was extremely one-sided and contained none of the assurances that Lassiter and Gramen were given during their visit to DMC headquarters, includes receiving of source code after MSCC purchased the software. The contract also gave DMA the upper-hand; DMA can increase the price of services and products provided at its discretion. Proper justifications should be provided. N/A

Kamonthip Wongwiboonsat ID: 1155014671

APPENDIX A: MSCC Organization Structure (2010)

Board of Directors

President (Lassiter)

Executive Director (Wilson)

VP Economic Development

VP Human Resources

VP Public Affairs

VP Mktg./Membership

VP Public Finance (Niele)

International Trade

Personnel

Environment & Energy

Sales

Library Services

Conferences

Legislative Services

Mktg.

Systems Analyst (Gramen)

Office Mgmt.

Communications

Controller

Reception

Print Operations

Kamonthip Wongwiboonsat ID: 1155014671

APPENDIX B: DMAs System Configuration for Midsouth Chamber of Commerce

ASSOCIATION PLUS DMA Developed Custom Software PROGRESS Relational Database Management Software RESULTS User-Friendly Reporting Tool

HP SERVER