Whatever the merits of the system you've bought, personal agendas among the staff can cripple an installation. So says Valyn Erickson, Consultant/Hospitality & Leisure Information Technology Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, who recounts a cautionary tale from her past experience.

"Several years ago, when a hotel purchased a new Sales & Catering system, the Controller decided that the PC workstations in the sales department didn't really need to be upgraded (to 4MB 486s at that time). In his opinion, the vendor was being overly cautious and there was no reason to spend the extra money, especially when it meant that the sales people would have more powerful PCs than the accounting staff. When the vendor sent out the pre-install checklist, the controller told the IT manager - who reported to him -to sign off that all hardware was up to spec, which it patently wasn't."

"Two weeks before install (in late Fall) the controller fired the IT manager, and decided to wait until the next calendar year to hire a replacement, in order to save a few dollars on the budget."

"When vendor staff arrived to install and train, the user PCs couldn't even load the application, let alone run it. The controller argued loudly that the vendor didn't know what they were doing, that the program was a waste of money, and so on. When the vendor produced the signed pre-install checklist, the controller maintained he had never seen the thing and blamed it all on the fired IT manager."

"The ensuing power struggle lasted three weeks, but the interim IT manager finally prevailed on the General Manager and Director of Sales to purchase machines that would actually run the program. She earned the undying gratitude of the DOS and the undying enmity of the controller - and never again received an expense reimbursement on time."

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