Midsouth Chamber of Commerce

MidSouth Chamber of

Commerce Case Study #1

MidSouth Chamber of Commerce (MSCC) was created to be an advocate for the business community and, under the leadership of Jack Wallingford became one of the most powerful advocacy organizations in the area. With business membership growing and staff increasing, the computer technology that was in place was no longer able to keep up with the demands of the organization. This study outlines what MSCC went through to procure and implement a new Information Technology System and the issues MSCC encountered during the implementation process.

As MSCC was growing, the realization of a more advanced computer system was in dire need. As large as MSCC was, with in the organization, technology was lacking and antiquated. There was no integration with computers and many of the job duties were done manually causing delays in information routing. All IT functions were in turn outsourced by Nolan Vassici. He provided no documentation of his work, rather only provided the basic IT needs of the organization. Later on Simon Kovecki, a Computer Science graduate student, was brought into MSCC to learn and understand the software without any direction or assistance from Vassici, who was no longer in business. With Ed Wilson, the operations division manager, and with the assistance of Kovecki, they started the search for a new computer system.

Lassiter, who was not technically in charge of the project, took over the duties to search for firms who were able to meet the needs of MSCC. He consulted a few firms and decided on the firm of UNITRAK. Lassiter seemed to be 'all in’ for UNITRAK, however did not get sense of urgency from upper management and any objective or goal was missing. A concern from the employees was that their input and ideas were not considered when it came time to make a decision for the computer system this caused further strife within the organization.

Lassiter was a very strong proponent of the new computer system and moved very quickly with the proposal to Wallingford and to the Board. Wilson made a premature decision as well, supporting the new system only 30 minutes into a 3-hour long demonstration. Lassiter created an impressive proposal including flow charts that showed the negative time frame simple tasks took and how much quicker these task would take with the new system along with the proposed money savings over the long run from implementing the new system. Needless to say, the board approved and the new system was purchased. Despite delays with the purchase of the software and project running behind schedule, the system was finally purchased however with no clear project manager.

The implementation of the new system proposed a whole new set of issues. Data conversion was a major issue as data from the old system was not compatible with the new. Data