Short Case Study

Gerhard walked into his office and closed the door. He was starting to wonder why he had ever thought that moving to a new customer relationship management system would be easy. The project had to succeed though. After all, how could they credibly sell a product that they couldnt even use? Gerhard Popalovich was the owner of a small systems integrator named Alpha One Systems that serviced mid-sized companies. The company had originally been a hardware reseller for IBM, meaning they sold mainframes and database products in their local market in Southwestern Ontario. More recently they had expanded into software as well, most notably enterprise resource planning systems and customer relationship management. These systems allowed companies to track day to day activities such as inventory, accounting transactions, and customer contacts. Adding the new product lines allowed Alpha One Systems to become a full-service shop, selling complete software and hardware solutions to their customers instead of just hardware.

The change meant that some sales representatives needed retraining to sell the new products. Their customers needs would also be much more complex. Currently the five sales reps working for Gerhard kept track of their customers using eccentric, individual systems. At the extreme ends of the continuum, Susan kept paper files and another employee, Jack, had built his own database using Microsoft Access. The remaining three sales people (Rick, Sandra and Ted) fell somewhere in the middle, using a combination of spreadsheets and booklets to keep track of customer-related activities. Gerhard, as full owner of the company, was used to making all strategic decision independently. He decided that the entire company should start using one of the customer relationship management systems that they were selling. He selected the Diamond Technologies system since they were a new partner for Alpha One Systems. They had just signed on to be Diamond Technologys exclusive Canadian distributor and Gerhard wanted to signal that Alpha One Systems took the partnership seriously and was committed to representing their product line. The Diamond Technologies software was installed over a weekend and on Monday Gerhard informed his staff of the change and conducted a half day training session about how to use the software. Members of the sale team were given the number for a help desk at the Diamond Technology head office. They were told to call it if they had problems or questions and they were given a different number to call to arrange demos if they had customers interested in buying the Diamond Technologies product. Gerhard believed the training provided all the necessary information needed, and left the implementation of the new customer relationship management system to each of the sales reps to determine how they would use it.

Now, three months later, they had yet to generate a single valid sales lead and Diamond Technologies was starting to ask questions about their ability to effectively distribute their products. Worse, only one of the sales reps, Jack, was consistently using the system internallya relatively junior sales person who had a software background before coming to Alpha One Systems. The sales rep, Susan, whom had previously relied on paper records just kept using his paper records as she felt there was no incentive to switch over. The remaining three sales people used the new system sporadically but the data inputted was incomplete and unreliable. They still kept separate records in Excel files and notebooks. One rep, Rick, complained about the time involved to input the data in the new system. One woman, Sandra, was afraid that her client list would be poached by the other sales reps and this would lead to a drop in her sales. She had experienced conflicts over sales territory and client ownership in the past so she didnt want to share any of her data until deals were closed. The fifth person, Ted, who happened to be Gerhards son, simply refused to use the system without offering any explanation. Even worse, he was secretly trying to tell other employees not to use it and instilling doubt and fear that it would impact their sales outcomes. Jack avoided Ted and was making an effort to try to show his colleagues how helpful the new software system had been for increasing options to sell to his customers. Jack even offered to help build Microsoft Access databases for the other sales reps, a gesture which Gerhard said he appreciated.

Ted didnt care that the new system would benefit the organization as a whole; he felt disrespected that his father would not move him into a more senior executive role after 8 years at the company and he was acting in his own self interest. The willful disobedience that his son displayed by refusing to use the new customer relationship management software enraged Gerhard and the conflict between father and son was creating tension in the workplace. Gerhard knew the situation couldnt continue as it had.

Prepare 5 Multiple Choice Question Based on the Short Case Study Above.