650 Part IV • The Information Management System
MaxFli TechnologyBack Office
System/Data
Warehouse
(managed by
IT staff)Handheld
(used by
field sales
reps)Business
Objects
Reports
(used by
mgmt.)EXHIBIT 2 Main Technological Concepts in MaxFlion HP servers. The reporting engine was BusinessObjects
2.0 integrated into a Lotus Notes workspace. MaxFli
reported sales and competitor information, outlet classifi-
cation, and promotional material effectiveness. It was
designed to be used by management at all levels from
junior sales manager to senior executive.
Implementing MaxFli in Chile
Chile is a long, narrow country of 15 million people sur-
rounded by the Andes Mountains to the east and the Pacific
Ocean to the west and south. It covers about 50 percent of
the western edge of South America and has been receptive
to BAT products over the years. Chiletabacos held command
over a large percentage of the cigarette market in Chile.
The IT function at Chiletabacos was a mature function
with a strong presence in the business. Despite a history of
difficult IT implementations, General Manager Roberto
Friere expressed great confidence in the team of IT profes-
sionals in his organization. One senior executive argued that
“[implementing MaxFli] was an important move for us,
because our track record with large IT system implementa-
tions was poor.”
MaxFli was the largest IT project in the history of
Chiletabacos. Chiletabacos shouldered $8.9 million of
the development costs, which cumulatively totaled nearly
$15 million. Before taking on the project Friere asserted
two conditions to Globe House: it had to be first and fore-
most a Chilean solution (as opposed to a global solution
that required Chilean adoption); and he had to have final
control over project development.
Palacios was selected as the project manager on the
basis of his track record of managing large projects
throughout his 20 years in finance at Chiletabacos. It did
not take long for Palacios to develop a clear vision about
the implementation of MaxFli. From the beginning he saw
MaxFli as a business change project, not just an IT project:
The IT tool is just one of the key components of the
business change program. The tool by its own willnot change anything. So people, processes, and IT
systems need to be aligned. MaxFli is a business
change program that requires huge organizational
effort with four major work-streams: management,
communication, process/people, and technology.Management
Friere and Palacios shared a belief that decisively
addressing project challenges as they arose would be crit-
ical for success in the MaxFli implementation. Palacios
demonstrated this by creating a well-defined plan for pre-
implementation, implementation readiness, and post-
implementation acceptance. Still, at one point in the
development process, Friere believed that he needed to
exercise his project control explicitly. When a series of
events led him to question who was in charge of the proj-
ect, he froze the development effort for two weeks until
he was convinced that his two primary objectives, creat-
ing a Chilean solution and maintaining control, would be
met. This helped the development team remain focused
on the task at hand and ensured that they did the “right
things, the right way, using the right tools.”
Palacios also emphasized managing expectations:
An implementation of this size represents a serious
challenge; thus the organization needs to be aware
that there will be problems. Delays and problems...
should be communicated and explained to the whole
organization. The business and technical learning
curve is unavoidable. So level of service expectations
need to be managed.
Palacios demonstrated a pattern of underselling the
benefits of MaxFli while over-delivering on their realiza-
tion in order to manage expectations.Communication
Palacios crafted his communications about MaxFli very
carefully. MaxFli was under very close scrutiny from man-
agement because of its cost. Consequently, Palacios spent