Managing Information Technology

telecom providers to implement the necessary communica-
tions backbone for MaxFli. As a result, BATCA now has
one of the best communications infrastructures in Central
America. Gracia argued:

What I can tell you right now is that we have the best

communications infrastructure in Central America in

terms of a company. We have received people from

telecoms who say, “Look, the network capacity you

have, no one else in Central America has.” That

sounds great, though we need to make a more effec-

tive use with additional services into it. But that is

one of the challenges of implementing in different

countries for one market.

As of the summer of 2001, the Central America
implementation of MaxFli had been the most difficult
implementation to date. However, it may also have been the
most important. Neil Coupland of Ciberion summarized:

[Central America] was critical frankly. Central

America proved an awful lot of things. That

MaxFli could work for example. Not just in

another market outside of Chile. But that it could

[work]. Really [work]. In six markets simultane-

ously. Frankly, I don’t know that anyone had

thought through how difficult that would be. But it

worked, and is working still.

On the other hand, Morales summarized his con-

cerns this way:

Our business is very, very simple.... In my opinion,

until today we have a very, very simple business and

a very complicated tool. I don’t think it ought to be.

We need to balance our tool with our business.

For the Globe House, the questions to be answered

were: Is the MaxFli approach the best way to build cus-

tom-developed IT systems that can be shared by multiple

end markets? Is this the systems development approach to

replicate for future multinational systems that embody a

business change initiative? Or are the needs of end markets

unique enough to demand a more locally tailored solution?

Case Study IV-6 • The Challenges of Local System Design for Multinationals 659