Learning from a Strategic Failure

Some years ago Lyytinen and Hirschheim (1987) explored information systems (IS) failure, characterising four different types or modes of failure. This paper re-examines these types of failures in the context of an enterprise system (ES) implementation in an Asia Pacific business that was newly acquired by a global manufacturing company. Following many successful ES implementations in other newly acquired businesses, this implementation encountered many difficulties. Some months after a difficult cut over, the acquiring company commissioned an independent review of the system and subsequently accepted a recommendation to withdraw the ES and allow the business to return to its legacy system. The acquiring company then embarked on a broad based strategy to address the concerns and perceptions upon which the opposition to the system had been based. Subsequently a second implementation was initiated, led by staff of the acquired business themselves. The analysis of this case leads to a new type of failure, namely strategic failure, being added to the set of failure types. The theoretical orientation of the study was social constructionism. To capture, analyse and understand the multiple perspectives explored as a result of using this orientation, a narrative approach was utilised.