A U.S. design firm is collaborating with two other international design firms to update the office decor for a multinational company. Members from all three firms are working together virtually from various locations around the globe. The team uses teleconferencing and e-mail to collaborate. Recently, however, the team encountered a costly situation where a custom fabric design order was placed by a team member in Hong Kong and then again the next day by a team member in San Diego.
What should the team do to avoid similar mistakes in the future?
A. Keep better track of information by using a shared database.
B. Use a different fabric company that won't duplicate orders.
C. Replace the team member who placed the duplicate order.

If this was a multinational corporation they would probably be using SAP or some other ERP system which prevents things like this from happening. The three companies will not be willing to merge their activities into one single ERP system but they can benefit from one of its main characteristics which is a common database. This way they will be able to avoid the duplication tasks or vendor orders.