Problems when enterprise SW selection is driven by non-IT department?

Question

I have been reading that IT is increasingly being left out of the decision of which Energy & Sustainability Mgt (ESM) system to buy.  Same is said to be true for Corp Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting software. 
From my experience this could create a lot of problems, such as lack of platform integration with back-end data streams; database integrity; feeds to front end dashboards, etc., with implications for data quality, security and transparency.
So I am collecting stories (anonymously of course), about any such hassles/mishaps that you or your colleagues might have experienced as result of having the enterprise system selection process dominated by non-IT interests.  My hope is that by compiling them and publishing them (first to those that contributed them) that there could be fewer such suboptimal experiences in the future.  
My email is [email protected] if you'd rather not post them here, or would prefer to arrange to talk on the phone.
Thanks so much for any stories you can share or point me to!
- Stephanie

Answer 1

Thanks Daniel
The code above drops any non US ascii characters which is fine in some situations but doesn't work for me as that would result in (amongst other issues) unacceptable email addresses.
Example: The user "Jörgen Åhs" gets the email [email protected] (using drop strategy), what is needed is [email protected]
The solution to this problem is to write a transform function and as we have about 80 non US ascii characters in character set we are using this mapping can quite easily be externalized to a configuration file.
Good point about the preferred name. I have not seen this specific problem in my current system but it is very common in certain parts of the world i.e. people with Chinese heritage in south east Asia often have a Chinese legal name and a western name that they actually use in day to day interactions. If you base the email address of their name in HR much screaming ensures. The same thing should actually happen in the US as you are supposed to enter the name on your social security card into the HR system but that seems largely to be ignored.