Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

No matter what we're doing in our businesses, when we offer special incentives, discounts or serve unique circumstances, we must have plans in place to handle higher than expected surges in customers and buying.

Paciolan and Major League Baseball failed miserably in that with their fans, as the servers of the online ticker provider crashed when 8.5 million people accessed the system in an hour-and-a-half. Fans, to say the least, were outraged.

What is unexplainable here, is how they could be caught off guard in such an obvious situation. As Drew Curtis, founder of news aggregating site, Fark.com said when he tried to get tickets for his dad: "These idiots always have these consultants that tell them, 'Sure, the server can handle the traffic. In reality, that only works over the course of a day. If a zillion people hit the damn thing all at once, it goes boom. Think CNN on 9/11."

One thing we need to do as managers is have enough knowledge about technology we use to make intelligent decisions based on input from consultants or our people. Another thing we can to do in important cases like these is get a second opinion from a completely different source. If we're still not satisfied, get a third and fourth if necessary.

What we can't do is have just enough backup in place and hope it works. Whatever it takes to make something work, the steps should be taken to implement it. If we need double the resources to make sure something as important as this works, then we need to spend the time and money to do it.

This is a big hit Paciolan is especially taking. It's possible they could lose a lot of business as companies will take a second look on whether they can trust them with big projects. It wasn't worth skimping and not double checking everything to ensure success.

With so much at stake, it's hard to fathom what leaders were thinking in this situation. This isn't just about making a quick buck, these types of high profile situations demand everything goes off well; as they're more related to branding and long-term trust. This is going to be hard to overcome by Paciolan, and the entire online ticket sales industry may take a hit as a result.

The bottom line is with high profile events, we must make double or triple sure everything is ready to work as planned. Many companies won't be given a second chance if they fail.