180 Part I • Information Technology
immediately—with or without Lassiter’s support.
Subsequently, even though they knew doing so would
alienate Lassiter, Wilson and Gramen took their proposal
to the Executive Committee. Wilson began,
Ladies and gentleman, this decision is one that must
be made expeditiously. The high cost of paying a
consultant to support and maintain the UNITRAK
software on hardware that is undersized is becoming
a drain on our increasingly scarce resources. And
with needs in the legislative services arena on the
horizon, we must act quickly before we can no
longer serve our members well. Our proposal is the
perfect solution to this crisis situation. From a tech-
nology standpoint, the HP technology is state-of-the
art with impeccable stability and reliability. As
important, however, is that we have received assur-
ances from HP that it will recommend a software
vendor to meet our needs once a purchase is made.
This proposal gives us the best of all worlds.Uncharacteristically, Lassiter sat in the back of
the room, listening in complete silence. He felt confident that
even without his input the Executive Committee—comprised
of CEOs from twenty of the top companies in the state—
would never accept this proposal. Because of the economic
downturn in 2008 and, in Lassiter’s opinion, the limitations
of the UNITRAK software system, the MSCC’s revenue
growth had slowed considerably while its expenditures con-
tinued to increase. This had quickly sliced the MSCC’s
financial reserves in half to just over $1 million which would
make an off-budget purchase difficult to justify.
Lassiter, however, had miscalculated the power of
the crisis argument, as the Executive Committee instructed
Wilson and Gramen to inquire into the acquisition cost of
the HP equipment with only one limitation—that they use
“due diligence” in developing the entire information
systems solution.
Realizing that the MSCC was starting down a dan-
gerous path, Lassiter drafted a memo to Wallingford and
Wilson in which he wrote,
The MSCC must hire an outside consultant to con-
duct a thorough needs analysis and establish a long-
range vision and IS goals before any decisions are
made. Furthermore, we must recognize and learn
from the mistakes we made with our first system.
Hardware and software decisions cannot be made
in isolation.Neither Wallingford nor Wilson responded to his
memo.
Enter Data Management Associates (DMA)
Immediately after the meeting of the Executive Committee,
Gramen contacted the HP representative for a recommen-
dation on an appropriate vendor. Without hesitation the HP
representative suggested a local value-added reseller (VAR)
that not only sold and installed HP hardware, but that also,
for a fee, would search for software solutions that matched
the MSCC’s needs to the proposed hardware platform. With
Gramen’s shaky understanding of these matters, this
seemed like the ideal solution. Because his friend, John
Harter, worked for the local VAR, Gramen thought that this
approach was the right way to go.
This arrangement, however, turned out to be far from
ideal. Without ever visiting the MSCC—and based only on
Gramen’s view of the MSCC’s operations and information
systems needs—the VAR (for a $5,000 fee) contacted Data
Management Associates (DMA) on behalf of the MSCC.
DMA was a 54-employee operation located 61 miles from
the MSCC’s offices and was headed by Dittier Rankin, a
Stanford University alumnus and computer science Ph.D.
DMA had recently undergone a shift in its focus and had
begun developing custom software for small trade associa-
tions and local chambers of commerce throughout the
country. Nonetheless, even with DMA’s lack of significant
experience, the VAR was confident in DMA’s abilities.
After several phone conversations between Gramen and
DMA, arrangements were made for DMA to demonstrate
its capabilities at the DMA office in May of 2009.
While the meeting lasted only 45 minutes, Wilson and
Gramen left it very impressed. With screen shots, report
samples, and specification sheets in hand, Gramen was pre-
pared to present this proposal to the Executive Committee.
In the interim, however, a new situation had developed. John
Hilborn, one of Lassiter’s most trusted friends—and a
member of the MSCC Executive Committee—approached
Lassiter inquiring about his silence at the prior meeting.
Hilborn was not pleased with what he heard. As a result, at
the next Executive Committee meeting, Hilborn asked
Lassiter—during Gramen’s presentation—for his input on
the proposal. With that cue, Lassiter only made one com-
ment: “Guys, if the proposed solution turns out to be ideal
for the MSCC it would be pure luck, as the software selec-
tion process has not been comprehensive.” And then
Lassiter sat down.
Those few words unnerved Gramen and made
several members of the Executive Committee very
uncomfortable. Immediately, a motion passed to table the
proposal for a month while more information was gathered
from and about DMA.
With his proposal—and potentially his job—on the
line, Gramen arranged for DMA’s President and two other