Question

ABC Tour Limited is a medium-size travel agency. The staff are using the Microsoft Office, including Excel, Word and Power-point, to conduct most of their daily operations and record keeping. John, the general manager of ABC Tour, would like to increase the operation efficiency by replacing the Microsoft Office with a new customer relationship management (CRM) software. However, the labor union is opposing on the change due to some concerns.

(a)In order to tailor-made the CRM system, the IT vendor would like to have a field study. What could be achieved by having field study in the ABC Tour’s office?

(b)John would like to hold a meeting with the labor union to address their concern. List TWO potential concerns that the labor union may have.

Answer 1

a) Field study would be a very useful exercise in the process of implementing the new CRM system. This is because-

1. Gather information- Field visit would help to identify how the various processes of the company work across departments and so will help in customising the product to suit the business needs and avoid any mistakes at the start before implementing the software.
2. Understand the needs of the employees- Help in getiing real-time user information about the business and how the CRM can be cutomised to the needs of the employees by addressing the specific concerns with the exisitng system.
3. Test the CRM under real time situations to identify problems that John or the team did not anticipate.

b) Two potential concerns that the Labour Union may have with the implementation of the CRM are-

1. Fear of being made redundant- In the case of implemntation of any new technology, the fear of automation leading to displacement of the staff exists. Hence, the Trade union may fear that a lot of employees might lose their jobs since the CRM will reduce the amount of work that is done by traditional Office packages
2. Upskilling- Since the employees are not used to using the advanced softwares and depend on the traditional Office suite, they fear upskilling themselves to equip themselves to handle the CRM.