Cross-Cultural Implementation of Information System

Abstract

GHI, an international service conglomerate, recently acquired a new subsidiary in an Asian country. A new information system was planned to facilitate the re-branding of the subsidiary. The project was outsourced to an application service provider through a consultant. A functional manager from another subsidiary in the country was assigned to assist the development of specifications. The customized information passed numerous benchmarking tests, and was ready for implementation. At that point, it was discovered that the native users at the rural location of the new subsidiary could not comprehend any of the user interfaces programmed in the English language. A depressed local management team, with a depleted technology budget, must reinvent all operating procedures dependent on the new information system.