Introduction
The name Homestyle Hotels refers to a merger of two hotels that include Lifestyle Resorts and Home Away Hotels. The two are operating in parallel despite the fact that they have been merged to become a single hotel. There is autonomous decision-making by each side without paying attention to the corporate union that should take precedence. It was in the mind of the information technology director to integrate the IT of the firm to have centralization of authority, but the senior management had to object due to the lack of the knowledge on how the integration could have helped the whole corporation (McKeen & Smith, 2011). The vast geographical platform, the parallel working, and the lack of effective integration between the two are making the two to face hardships in the achievement of their goals and objectives. That is witnessed from the failure to decide between the two vendors that were supposed to sell a software product to the firm.
The Key Business and IT Challenges
The firm is facing many issues due to the lack of integration and the parallel working of the merger. Even though the two has been merged and they ought to operate as one. The status quo still plays a major role regarding decision-making and deciding the projects to have implementation within the firm. The ERP introduced to the firm was intended to ensure there is a budgetary framework that benefits the whole firm, but the lack of organization buy-in resulted in its downfall. The parallel working hardens the process of data gathering entailed to implement new management systems within the company because they cannot mutually agree on the suitable framework (Smith & MCKeen, 2011). The firm does not leave the responsibility of implementing new technologies to the IT sector and the employees, nor does the management have the knowledge on how they should support the IT implementation in the firm.
Question 1
It makes good sense to integrate across the current business lines represented by the Lifestyle Resorts and Home-Away Hotels. Working together will make it possible to offer good services that meet the demands of the clients. The customers’ data will be merged so that each division will view the same data of the customers, hence serving the customers better and meeting their demands. The parallel working makes it hard to understand the customer spectrum better, thus provision of poor services. With the lack of integration, even the goals being formulated are only entailed at meeting the demands of each line of business and not the merger (Smith & MCKeen, 2011). The integration will help to have a single administration and management that will aid the decision-making process in the company to meet then corporate goals. Projects usually require corporate sponsorship, and the lack of integration at the level of administration will make it difficult to make a decision on a suitable software vendor.
Beyond the financial information, the other areas in which integrating should take place is in the area of data stewardship, human resources management, and customer relationship management. Integrating the data administration will make it possible to use the data effectively to achieve the business goals and to address the issues that may treat the data privacy integrity. It will mean that the firm is working together to decide on the applicable policies and procedures on how the data should be used to meet the business goals and objectives. On the other hand, human resources management integration will help to ensure better management of the human resources in the company so as to help in fully exploiting their potential and drive them towards meeting the corporate vision. The customer relationship management, on the other hand, will make it possible to understand the firm’s clients and to decide the best way possible to serve them with the aim of meeting their demands. It will also help to acquire new customers apart from retaining the current ones.
Question 2
The decision on deciding between the two vendors will require first of all bringing the two lines of business especially the management level and setting the corporate vision, mission, goals, and objectives. A meeting with the senior managers will be a good representation of the two business lines, and they are the ones that will encourage the workers to buy the new ideas concerning the integration. After the managers set the goals, objectives, the vision and the strategies of the business, the next things will be the decision on how the vendor selection process should be approached. That should be derived from the business goals and vision. Driven by the IT sector, the team should align the new software to the corporate company vision. At this point, the administration has been merged, and they will help to encourage the adoption of the new system in the company. The software selection process will also take into account the cost minimization and maximization of profit. It should be cheap but meet the goals of the company without any negative impacts to the firm’s operations. The software thus should be thoroughly tested before they are implemented to make sure that it works minus any defects or dysfunctional ties (Aryani & Irani, 2014).
Conclusion
The issue the Homestyle Hotels is facing pertains to the parallel working and administration. There is also a lack of understanding the way the IT department operates and the way the business section works. The IT implementation in the company is left to the IT department t and the staffs as well as the management do not understand the roles they should play to make the implementation support the corporate vision. Following the process outlined above will help the company to merge the two successfully and select the right software vendor.
References
Aryani, N., & Irani, F. N. (2014). Investigating in the Impact of Information Technology on Utilization Pervasive Quality Management. International Journal Of Academic Research, 6(2), 83-90.
McKeen, J & Smith, H. (2014). IT strategy: Issues and practices (3rd Ed.). Pearson Education.
Smith, H. A., & MCKeen, J.D. (2011). Information Management at Homestyles Hotels. IT Strategy: Issues and Practices (2nd Ed.) Pearson Education.
Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for Customized Research Papers.
