Back in the day I managed a number of IT transformation projects, mostly where a new system was being implemented or a current one was in the process of being replaced. I always found the work interesting but the major excitement which came from the work was predicting and then managing the risks and issues associated with the implementation.
To this end, I recall many late nights and intense evaluation of scenarios as the new approach was carefully and deliberately phased in and the old system phased out. A good number of the clients involved had highly valuable information and, most importantly, interfaces with customers that often numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
Because, when it comes to information systems, when it does go wrong it can be catastrophic. Even those of us who have very little to do with IT systems will remember famous examples of much heralded system improvements which turned septic - Novopay is a good case study.
Change of ownership can also herald system and function change, and oftentimes these situations are no less risky and, particularly where the new owners want to do things differently, the same rigour which accompanies a major system overhaul must be applied carefully.
So it was with some amusement to me that, while on holiday, an ownership change at a resort coupled with the implementation of a new booking system almost caused disaster for plans Mrs Bell had set in motion back in December. The basic facts are that an island resort in Fiji had a new owner and over the last few months a new booking system was implemented, however, from what I could glean historical bookings did not migrate to the new system.