177CASE STUDY I-7
Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (B):
Cleaning Up an Information Systems
Debacle
As Sage Niele, the newly appointed Vice President of
Operations and Chief Financial Officer for the Midsouth
Chamber of Commerce (MSCC), walked over to the
microwave in her office, she recalled her excitement when
she first started in this position. Only a few weeks prior,
Sage was the owner/operator of a successful information
systems and financial consulting business that kept her in
the office or on the road an average of 80 hours per week.
With a family and dreams of a simpler life, Sage decided to
start working for someone else, where she thought her
schedule would be much less hectic. Today, it did not seem
like her life had changed much. She was still working 80
hours a week, and her life was just as hectic as before. Sage
thought that she could see hope on the horizon, however.
A few days after Sage began her position, Leon
Lassiter, MSCC President, gave her the daunting task of
managing the MSCC’s information systems. In most
organizations, this role would be challenging, but it was
especially so at the MSCC due to its history. Over the last
several months, the MSCC had been receiving what it con-
sidered erroneous charges from its software vendor and
consultant, Data Management Associates (DMA). DMA
had been charging the MSCC for work related to errors in
and/or the implementation of the relational database sys-
tem and customized report-writing software that the
MSCC had purchased nearly a year ago. Now it was clear
that this was another incident in a long history of poor
operational decisions for the MSCC’s information sys-
tems. And it was Sage’s job to correct the situation and
build a direction for the future.
As Sage looked down at the calendar, she realized that
she had just two more days until her 100-day action plan was
due to Lassiter, on December 24, 2010. Among her list of
things “to do” was to determine the deficiencies of the cur-
rent information systems, to ascertain the MSCC’s future
information systems needs, and to investigate the alternatives
that existed should the MSCC need to scrap the DMA sys-
tem. Beyond that, however, some items needed to be fixed
immediately—including the deteriorating relationship with
DMA and the implementation of the new software. While
she knew that she did not have all the answers now, her 100-
day plan had to lay out a process for getting the answers.
Given Sage’s consulting experience, she decided the
best way to start was to investigate the troubled history of
the MSCC’s information systems to help find the clues nec-
essary to avoid disaster in the future. “How ironic,” she
thought. “The situation at the MSCC has the same potential
to explode as the popcorn does when I hit the start button.”The Midsouth Chamber of Commerce
A more extensive description of the MSCC and its history
and computing systems can be found in Case Study 1,
Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (A).
The Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (MSCC) was
created in the early part of the twentieth century, but its
information systems history began in 1989 when personal
workstations and a suite of software were first introduced
into the organization by Ed Wilson, the Vice President of
Public Affairs. Many staff members were skeptical of the
automation effort and reluctant to accept this approach.
However, with the help of Jon Philips, a small business
consultant, Wilson acquired the equipment and hired a
programmer to write custom software for each functional
area—the marketing division, the operations division, and
the human resources division.
During the 1990s, the use of these systems grew
steadily. In 1998, Wilson selected another outside consult-
ant, Nolan Vassici, to review the organization’s informa-
tion systems needs and to select the hardware and software
solutions that the MSCC required. After a careful study,
Vassici recommended more personal workstations. And a
year later, Vassici revised and updated the custom software
used by each division.Copyright © 2010 by Daniel W. DeHayes and Stephen R. Nelson.
This case was prepared with the assistance of Daniel A. Pfaff from a
history provided by an organization that wishes to remain anonymous.
It is intended to be the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate
either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation.
Case Study I-6 • HH Gregg: Deciding on a New Information Technology Platform 177