U.S. Department
of Justice
P3301: Lawson - Win/Loss/Deferral External Interview Notes: Hyatt International, Cindy Good, Director
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| Government Exhibit P3301 Interview Notes
Why did Lawson Win or Lose the Deal? Attempts 5 Hyatt International considered upgrading its Lawson applications in order to avoid customizing even further the Lawson systems it currently uses. In addition to considering Lawson's upgrade, it is considering purchasing PeopleSoft, SAP, as well as other unnamed vendors. Hyatt has had a troubled relationship with Lawson. The customer has been frustrated both with Lawson as a company as well as with its products. With respect to the products, in the customer's view, Lawson does not accommodate the international marketplace. As a result, Hyatt has had to customize its Lawson to add fields for its international operations. These customizations provided for use of international currency as well as the adding of fields to process the multitude of international moves made by Hyatt personnel, including passport fields and fields that capture where dependants are born. When Hyatt attended a recent users group, it noted that the discussions concerning international operations addressed Canadian issues. Hyatt's operations extend far beyond Canada. Hyatt does not consider Canada to mirror the complex international requirements other countries do. In tact, the customer has had to recustomize its Lawson system so much, that Lawson itself can no longer support it. Hyatt noted that moving to 8.0 would not provide any meaningful improvement over the applications they currently use. In contrast to Lawson, other vendors offer applications that are configurable, not merely customizable. With regard to its relationship with Lawson, Hyatt is also very disgruntled. In particular, it is frustrated over the turnover in its Lawson representatives. The customer has had 15 different representatives in the past five years. The reps changed so often, the customer does not even know who its current Lawson rep is. To make matters worse, even when they did talk with their reps, the rep did not treat their international requirements as significant. The call made by this interviewer was the first call Hyatt has received from Lawson in the past 6 months. The Center of Excellence has failed the Hyatt. Support was dropped completely for Hyatt since Oct. 1 of last year. Hyatt has determined that it is in their best interest to purchase all new software. It has begun this review process. It does not know when its review will be complete or when it will make its purchase. This should be viewed as a Loss. DOJ-SF-LAW-001510 Confidential | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
