Royal Hotel Case Study

There were a number of issues the case talks about, starting with insufficent training to the overall social subsystem problem. The GM was in a hurry to solve the problem rather than understand the new process that would help solve the problem. He was sold on the fact that he had to solve the problem but not on the Rapid Response system. There was insufficent training imparted on the employees on how to use the system. The social aspect of the 4 components was not addressed properly. The analyst who created the entire solution was removed before he could effect change – which leads to the question, how good was the consulting firm? There was a massive breakdown of communication between the two analysts. The transfer of the documentation was not proper and all the facts of the case were not transferred over to Jack from Blake. The system was tested properly; therefore there was no user acceptance. The staff was not properly trained to use the system and was comfortable using the old manual system. The hotel staff could not determine the effectivness of the reporting system, the value of quality improvement and the effect it would have on improving customer satisfaction. The consulting firm went wrong at a number of steps during the entire process. Blake had already spoken to the GM and explained the solution. Blake understood that the GM was extremely anxious to get the process in place and solve the problem. He was in the process of acquiring the machine and negotiating with vendors when he was transferred to another project. This was the first point where the consulting firm went wrong. Blake was already involved with the intracies of the project, and to recall him at this point was a bad decision. Blake’s old classmate Jack had been given the project; Blake was not confident about Jack and even though he convinced himself that Jack could handle it, he did not believe that. The process of transformation from Blake to Jack was not effiecient at all; there was a massive lack of communication between the two. Blake did not transfer the information reagarding the case to Jack in an effective manner. With the given information we can say that once the case was transferred to Jack, he made a blunder with it. Jack implemented and installed the sytem but did not inculcate personnel training and also was not able to provide information to the staff regarding the effectiveness of the machine. Jack did not instruct the proper usage of the machine and therefore everyone lost the use of the machine. At the beginning, everyone was interested in the proper usage of the machine but after its roll-out they lost interest. This may be due to various reasons, like unclear teaching manuals and improper training sessions, lack of clarity in the usage of the product, ineffective training sessions that led to lack of interest. To sum it, the reasons for faliure were: 1. Removal of Blake from the project by the consulting firm. 2. Lack of communication between Blake and Jack. (Blake to blame)

3. Improper implementation of the solution by Jack. (lack of training, not being able to generate interest among employees) Blake should not have been moved to another project; he should have stayed on and implemented the entire solution. He knew the temprament of the GM; he knew that the GM wanted to implement the solution as quickly as possible with considering the pros and cons. He knew the entire team of emplyoees working at the hotel and therefore would not have a problem implementing the solution. He would have been able to conduct proper training sessions and have more communication with the emplyoees. He would have fostered better relationships with the users and would have encouraged them to use the machines. He should have provided them proper training of the machine and given incentives to people who used it. Blake should have created a focus group testing, where he should have asked for feedback from the employees. If Jack were to takeover and continue, Blake should have instilled more cofidence in Jack. Project documentation should have been handled well such that every aspect of implementing the solution should have been transferred. The entire process of tansformation was done at an extremely rapid rate; it should have been done in a way that everyone would have the time to understand all the processes and Jack understood the exact requirement of the GM. The management of the consulting firm is to be blamed for the debacle. The chapter focuses primarily on the definition of Information Systems and its four components namely, IT, people, processes and structure. The chapter talks about succesful information systems, the Royal Hotel case is a prime example of a failed effective information system. The case talks about the Information system but the GM focuses on the technology. According to the chapter, the focus should always be on the Informational System and not the technology. It is important while implementing an information system that all the four components, technology, people, processes and structure are taken into account. In this case, the focus was on implementing the technology rather than training the people how to use it, how effective it can be etc, therefore it was not a proper implementation of the information system. The chapter teaches us the various levels of change in the organization, this was an informative second order change where as it was treated as a first order automotive change.