How would you assess the Organizational Feasibility of this system?

Question

Jay Martin, the director of Marketing at Pier Systems, Inc., requested a new system be developed to assist his sales staff in more effectively managing their customer contacts. As a side benefit of this system, Jay will receive detailed information about each salesperson’s daily productivity, including number of customer contacts, time spent per contact, orders placed per contact, and revenues generated per contact. This detailed information about sales staff productivity has not been previously available to Jay.

Jay has been a strong and vocal advocate of this new system, although he has heard some grumbling in the sales staff ranks about it. The sales staff has enjoyed considerable autonomy in the way they conduct their work day, and this system will provide a much clearer picture of how each salesperson spends his/her time. Other top managers have expressed interest in the system, although much managerial attention has been focused recently on the implementation of a major new computer-based manufacturing and production system, which has been far behind schedule and plagued with problems. Based on his discussions with his IS contact, Jay feels certain this system is technically and economically viable.

Answer 1

It is a viable system, although his sales staff may feel as though they no longer have the autonomy to conduct their days as they see fit and become restless, possibly even leave the company in favor of a company who has less stringent scrutiny.

The fact that the other managers are interested in his system speaks to the obvious benefits afforded them in knowing what their sales staff are doing and how long it takes them, as well as telling them whether or not that sales person is wasting company time on their contacts.

Finally, the computer-based manufacturing and production system, while a good idea in theory, because of the problems with it and the failure of the IS department to get it ready on schedule, there is no evidence that it actually is a better system

I would go with the system that allows Jay to follow the relative movements of his sales staff and just try to appease their fears that they are being "spied on."