Desktop: How culture in an international multi-locational travel organisation affects technology decisions in business process re-engineering

Abstract

This paper is focused on an organisation (Company X) which is currently moving from traditional hierarchical functional departments (“silos”) to an empowered, delayered enterprise business culture. This has been precipitated by the desire to add value, implement cultural change in tandem with the acquisition of a new computer system at the cost of forty two million pounds. Given the increasing costs, both in terms of money and time to design and implement new information systems in large organisations, it is crucial to attain high acceptability and internal customer satisfaction, particularly within a company with significant powerful stakeholders. It is a difficult task to align the differing views of these groups to enable sound communication, interaction and collaboration, particularly in a “push scenario”. This work looks at a case study of the recent implementation of DESKTOP, an EDS/ORACLE based management information system within an organisation where a platform has been developed for their legacy system. Ideally a seamless transformation is required with high levels of user satisfaction. This paper seeks to focus on the internal cultural diversities of management, at all levels and examines the steps required to reach a consensus on the purchase of the new technology. The identification of key stages in the purchase/decision making process for this organisation will be considered. Various methodologies are used to gather the required data including a literature review and in depth interviews with a sample of key decision makers within the company and on the steering committee, set up to facilitate the change. This research concludes that internal and external culture directly affects the chosen technology solution. This technology solution was perceived by key personnel as an intermediate step while the organisation developed towards a “shadow pyramid” culture. There are research suggestions made to improve/enhance the acceptability to existing internal customers and future project implementation.