It In Business

The story concerned an attempt to provide laptop computers to insurance salespeople, thereby enabling more effective ways to gather client information and present alternatives to their clients. Unfortunately the firm's CIO had taken on the project three years earlier and the implementation was proceeding slowly. In the interim, other firms had started similar initiatives, and the desired market advantage had not materialized. The case said little about the computerized aspects of the new sales support system, and focused on issues related to responsibility for various aspects of the strategy, the project, and delayed implementation in the organization.

Whether intentionally or not, the title of the case what happens when the IT artifact is not viewed in its rightful place from a business perspective. The case was called "The IT System that Couldn't Deliver," but the real issue was that three years of work had not yet changed the way the company's sales force sold insurance. In this realistic situation, a large company's CEO and CFO seemed not to grasp the nature of the system that was being built even though they had some idea about the type of computer functionality that was being produced. They acted as though they had commissioned an IT system, a stance that had not generated the necessary urgency and involvement by the sales force. The case did not fully explain details of the design and development efforts, but the real issues were not so much about building an IT system as about creating and implementing a new way to sell insurance. Saying that this case was about an IT system that had not delivered makes no more sense than saying that a mistake by an order entry clerk is a computer error or that the failure of dot.coms with illogical business models is a failure of the Internet.

The title of the case used the term "IT system," but "The Information System that Couldn't Deliver"