Case for Analysis Century Medical83 Sam Nolan clicked the mouse for one more round of solitaire on the computer in his den. He’d been at it for more than an hour, and his wife had long ago given up trying to persuade him to join her for a movie or a rare Saturday night on the town. The mind-numbing game seemed to be all that calmed Sam enough to stop thinking about work and how his job seemed to get worse every day. Nolan was chief information officer at Century Medical, a large medical products company based in Connecticut. He had joined the company four years ago, and since that time Century had made great progress integrating technology into its systems and processes. Nolan had al-ready led projects to design and build two highly successful systems for Century. One was a benefits-administration system for the company’s HR department. The other was a complex web-based purchasing system that streamlined the process of purchasing supplies and capital goods. Although the system had been up and running for only a few months, modest projections were that it would save Century nearly $2 million annually. Previously, Century’s purchasing managers were bogged down with shuffling paper. The purchasing process would begin when an employee filled out a materials request form. Then the form would travel through various offices for approval and signatures before eventually being converted into a purchase order. The new web-based system allowed employees to fill out electronic request forms that were automatically e-mailed to everyone whose approval was needed. The time for processing request forms was cut from weeks to days or even hours. When authorization was complete, the system would automatically launch a purchase order to the appropriate supplier. In addition, because the new system had dramatically cut the time purchasing managers spent shuffling paper, they now had more time to work collaboratively with key stakeholders to identify and select the best suppliers and negotiate better deals. Nolan thought wearily of all the hours he had put in developing trust with people throughout the company and showing them how technology could not only save time and money but also support team-based work and give people more control over their own jobs. He smiled briefly as he recalled one long-term HR employee, 61 -year-old Ethel Moore. She had been terrified when Nolan first began showing her the company’s intranet, but she was now one of his biggest supporters. In fact, it had been Ethel who had first approached him with an idea about a web-based job posting system. The two had pulled together a team and developed an idea for linking Century managers, internal recruiters, and job applicants using artificial intelligence software on top of an integrated web-based system. When Nolan had presented the idea to his boss, Executive Vice President Sandra Ivey, she had enthusiastically endorsed it, and within a few weeks the team had authorization to proceed with t ...

1. Case for Analysis Century Medical83
Sam Nolan clicked the mouse for one more round of solitaire on
the computer in his den. He’d been at it for more than an hour,
and his wife had long ago given up trying to persuade him to
join her for a movie or a rare Saturday night on the town. The
mind-numbing game seemed to be all that calmed Sam enough
to stop thinking about work and how his job seemed to get
worse every day.
Nolan was chief information officer at Century Medical, a large
medical products company based in Connecticut. He had joined
the company four years ago, and since that time Century had
made great progress integrating technology into its systems and
processes. Nolan had al-ready led projects to design and build
two highly successful systems for Century. One was a benefits-
administration system for the company’s HR department. The
other was a complex web-based purchasing system that
streamlined the process of purchasing supplies and capital
goods. Although the system had been up and running for only a
few months, modest projections were that it would save Century
nearly $2 million annually.
Previously, Century’s purchasing managers were bogged down
with shuffling paper. The purchasing process would begin when
an employee filled out a materials request form. Then the form
would travel through various offices for approval and signatures
before eventually being converted into a purchase order. The
new web-based system allowed employees to fill out electronic
request forms that were automatically e-mailed to everyone
whose approval was needed. The time for processing request
forms was cut from weeks to days or even hours. When
authorization was complete, the system would automatically
launch a purchase order to the appropriate supplier. In addition,
because the new system had dramatically cut the time
purchasing managers spent shuffling paper, they now had more
time to work collaboratively with key stakeholders to identify

2. and select the best suppliers and negotiate better deals.
Nolan thought wearily of all the hours he had put in developing
trust with people throughout the company and showing them
how technology could not only save time and money but also
support team-based work and give people more control over
their own jobs. He smiled briefly as he recalled one long-term
HR employee, 61 -year-old Ethel Moore. She had been terrified
when Nolan first began showing her the company’s intranet, but
she was now one of his biggest supporters. In fact, it had been
Ethel who had first approached him with an idea about a web-
based job posting system. The two had pulled together a team
and developed an idea for linking Century managers, internal
recruiters, and job applicants using artificial intelligence
software on top of an integrated web-based system. When Nolan
had presented the idea to his boss, Executive Vice President
Sandra Ivey, she had enthusiastically endorsed it, and within a
few weeks the team had authorization to proceed with the
project.
But everything began to change when Ivey resigned her position
six months later to take a plum job in New York. Ivey’s
successor, Tom Carr, seemed to have little interest in the
project. During their first meeting, Carr had openly referred to
the project as a waste of time and money. He immediately
disapproved several new features suggested by the company’s
internal recruiters, even though the project team argued that the
features could double internal hiring and save millions in
training costs. “Just stick to the original plan and get it done.
All this stuff needs to be handled on a personal basis anyway,”
Carr countered. “You can’t learn more from a computer than
you can talk to real people—and as for internal recruiting, it
shouldn’t be so hard to talk to people if they’re already working
right here in the company.” Carr seemed to have no
understanding of how and why technology was being used. He
became irritated when Ethel Moore referred to the system as
“web-based.” He boasted that he had never visited Century’s
intranet site and suggested that “this Internet fad” would

3. eventually blow over anyway. Even Ethel’s enthusiasm couldn’t
get through to him. She tried to show him some of the HR
resources available on the intranet and explain how it had
benefited the department and the company, but he waved her
away. “Technology is for those people in the IT department. My
job is people, and yours should be too.” Ethel was crushed, and
Nolan realized it would be like beating his head against a brick
wall to try to persuade Carr to the team’s point of view. Near
the end of the meeting, Carr even jokingly suggested that the
project team should just buy a couple of filing cabinets and save
everyone some time and money.
Just when the team thought things couldn’t get any worse, Carr
dropped the other bomb. They would no longer be allowed to
gather input from users of the new system. Nolan feared that
without the input of potential users, the system wouldn’t meet
their needs, or even that users would boycott the system because
they hadn’t been allowed to participate. No doubt that would
put a great big “I told you so” smile right on Carr’s face.
Nolan sighed and leaned back in his chair. The project had
begun to feel like a joke. The vibrant and innovative HR
department his team had imagined now seemed like nothing
more than a pipe dream. But despite his frustration, a new
thought entered Nolan’s mind: “Is Carr just stubborn and
narrow-minded or does he have a point that HR is a people
business that doesn’t need a high-tech job-posting system?”