The lonely comate: the adoption-failure of an intranet-based consumer and market intelligence system

Abstract

The case study concerns the disappointing reception of an intranet application at TopTech, a prominent player in the field of electronics. The application in question, called Comate, which stands for "Consumer and Market Intelligence Technology Environment," was conceived and built by the central staff department for Consumer and Marketing Intelligence (CMI) of the company. When this application was introduced some years ago, its purpose was to smooth information flows between CMI departments worldwide and to enhance networking between these departments. The organization decided to form a project team to investigate the reasons for the lacking acceptance of the system by intended users and to establish what would be the most appropriate reaction on the part of Central CMI: change the system, initiate new, supportive initiatives, or abandon the Comate project altogether. The case study examines how this project team tackled the problem. The team decided to address the evaluation, diagnosis, and redesign of the system and its possible contribution to CMI from the perspective of the system's acceptability. Key component in its methodology was the integrated use of the Technology Acceptance model (TAM) and Task-Technology Fit model (TTF).