The case is basically about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of West Africa implemented a program to computerize its internal services and communications, which failed. They had a limited budget and it seemed like there wasn’t much support. There wasn’t enough willingness to change I think.
a few reasons why they said the program failed:
- Vendor contracts were awarded not on the basis of competence, but rather on personal relations between Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and vendor personnel.
- The major application threatened the perquisites of diplomats. Travel is an important source of revenue for headquarters personnel; the compensate for their low salaries by travel compensation and by the opportunity to trade good.
- The computing infrastructure was limited; there were a maximum of two personal computers per department at headquarters and only 35 computers in a building housing more that 300 officials
Looks like they had the odds against them. switching from a non computer system to a computer system can be a tough change though, that takes a lot of support from the entire company
They used the term “to become a more dynamic, modern organization via the use of information technology.” This is dangerous because it sets the bar a little higher than it should be. it makes it seem complicated and hard-especially in the early 1990′s.
