Information Systems

Case Study Questions

1. In the case, both airlines upgraded to the same application, but, approached the upgrade process differently. What were those differences, and how much impact did they have on the outcome of the project?

The WestJet Company launched first with less precautions than JetBlue, not to say they weren’t as wise but they were the first of the two and JetBlue was able to learn from it. The major differences are that WestJet kept it secret up until the day of to prevent a competitor running a big sale during their lowered operations, and JetBlue backed-up their website and hired temporary callers. The outcomes have been hugely different, WestJet had to hire call center help for the months following the upgrade and endured a 3 to 6 month recovery from the upgrade while JetBlue carried on with longer wait times but no major hits to service.

2. What precautions did the organizations in the case take to prevent software upgrade problems? To what extent do you believe those precautions helped?

JetBlue was fortunate in that it got to watch the failure of WestJet and learn from it. To prevent making the same mistakes as WestJet, JetBlue extensively planned the date of change to be on one of low traffic as well as they reduced their sales for the time period. To safeguard against their website crashing they created a back-up to be available and to protect customer relations they temporarily hired 500 call center workers. As far as effectiveness, hiring the call center workers was considered one of their wisest decisions according to the vice president of JetBlue. Their precautions were definitely worth the investment considering they had no major hiccups while WestJet had a 3 to 6 month recovery.

3. SAP customers have the choice between upgrading to the most recent version of the application suite or integrating third party products into their existing infrastructure. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative?

While...