Introduction

Pinnacle Hotel’s AmeniTech Rapid Response Solution

interior of a hotel room The Pinnacle Hotel in New York City, New York is a luxury all-suite hotel primarily serving an executive clientele visiting Manhattan on business. These guests were busy and demanding as they used their suite not only as a place to sleep but also as a temporary office. The general manager stressed the importance of the high quality of service due to the high percentage of repeat guests. “Our guests are extremely discerning, it is completely unacceptable to have a light bulb out in the bathroom when the guest checks in, particularly if she is a returning guest,” the general manager said.

AmeniTech logo To ensure the extremely high quality of service, the general manager decided to purchase and install AmeniTech Rapid Response Solution. With this new technology, the housekeepers could report deficiencies directly to the computer, instead of verbally communicated to the maintenance department after they ended their shift. The housekeepers just needed to dial a special code from the phone in the guest room and an automated attendant would walk them through the reporting process step by step in the language of their choice. AmeniTech then automatically generated, prioritized and dispatched a work order to the maintenance team. Therefore, the new system should be able to reduce the response time as the housekeepers did not have to wait until the end of the shift to tell the maintenance department. It also helped to reduce forgotten reporting that often occurred due to the time between discovering a problem and reporting it.

AmeniTech also had a reporting function so that the management team could obtain information about most frequently occurring or recurring issues, top reporting and completing performers and so on. With this kind of information, the maintenance department could identify recurrent problems and stop them before they even occurred.

Upon installation, a week of on-site training was offered. The installation and the training session seemed to run smoothly. Employees appeared eager to learn about the new system. However, soon after roll-out the general manager discovered that the employees had reverted to the old manual system and had rapidly lost interest in AmeniTech.

Case Questions

What are the elements comprising the five components (hardware, software, data, people, process) of the new reporting system?
Why do you think the new reporting system failed? In other words, which of the five components of the information systems failed to support the goal of the system?
How would you describe the function of the new reporting system and its wider relationship to management and business?

Submission Expectations

Case studies must be formatted as such:

Introduction & brief summary of the case
Response to prompts and suggestion for action (using support from your readings/resources)
Conclusion
Reference page

Case studies should be 1.5 to 2 pages and must conform to APA standards and be double-spaced in 12-point, Times New Roman font. Citations must be included and formatted correctly, and a reference page must also be included. You do not need a title page.

Case studies will be graded using the Case Study Rubric.

Case study modified from Watson, R. (2007) Information Systems. Athens, GA: Global Text Project. Available via a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License