488 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems
(^3) Taiwan uses the traditional Chinese language, rather than sim-
plified Chinese, as its official language. Chinese is the written form of
the language; Mandarin is the spoken form of the language.
It does not matter where the support group sits. What
is crucial is the skill competencies, at the right price,
in a politically stable region. Since we’re using stan-
dard BAT operations, the quality aspect is assured. So
cost and support capability become the most critical.
— Mr. Ma, BAT Taiwan Country Manager
Because Taiwan was in the same time zone as the
APSS organization, its people would be able to communi-
cate more easily about their support needs with the shared
services group in APSS than with the shared services
group located 7 hours away in Europe.
There were also some “natural synergies” with
APSS that would help with communications: Taiwan,
unlike the rest of the Mandarin-speaking world, uses
only the Chinese language for business transactions.^3
The APSS staff in Kuala Lumpur, like other Malaysian
businesses, includes many people of Chinese heritage,
including some who speak Mandarin.
The significant time difference between Taiwan
and Europe was problematic, as was the lack of
knowledge of the Chinese language. Taiwanese are
not all fluent in English, and the local system
requirements would include preparing invoices and
printing reports in Chinese.
— Major Project Management Manager, APN IT
Taiwan’s R/3 Project
The APSS project plan for Taiwan outlined a fixed-cost im-
plementation budget of U.S.$100,000 for Phase 1 and an
estimated budget of U.S.$50,000 for Phase 2. Phase 1
would involve 250 APSS man-days and consulting fees of
U.S.$77,700. The other costs would include technology
upgrades and direct expenses for travel and living expenses
for the APSS consultants. The Phase 2 costs would include
an estimated U.S.$30,000 for software development costs
for unique local requirements.
The Taiwan office named this project Confucius
because the project kickoff took place during the week of
Confucius’ birthday, and it was hoped that the intellectual
capability pooled from a number of areas within BAT
would be as good as that of the renowned Chinese philoso-
pher, if not better.
The project cost was based on several assumptions.
(See Exhibit 2.) One key assumption of the plan related to
the use of the Symphony template developed by APSS and
used in Singapore (BATS). By using this template, Taiwan
could leverage BAT’s best practices for the new business
processes, as well as take advantage of a template that was
recently reported to be 95 percent compliant with the cor-
porate data standards set by Globe House.^4
The Symphony template initially included configu-
ration for the financial and controlling modules, with other
modules added later.
The four primary business processes would be order-
to-cash (accounts receivable), requisition-to-payment
(accounts payable), inventory management, and plan-and-
manage-enterprise, which includes profitability analysis.
However, because many of the business processes would
be new to the Taiwan office and few staff members had
prior in-depth experience with integrated systems in gener-
al, few changes to the template itself were anticipated.
Customization would only be done for legal or statutory
reporting purposes. Further, BAT Taiwan was very mindful
of the dangers of customizing standard systems.
One of the things I learned from my previous com-
pany and in BAT was that when we modified the
system to suit our local operational needs, normally
in the name of enhancement, we changed the sys-
tem to a point beyond recognition. That’s where the
problems start. Later, we found that it was difficult
to fit in vendors’ enhancements, modules, and
whatever. To me, it’s the resistance to take on
processes that have been established and tested as a
more efficient way of doing things; we tend to hold
onto old habits. It’s a mind-set challenge.
— Mr. Ma, BAT Taiwan Country Manager
For Phase 1, a three-stage implementation approach,
developed by APSS with reference to the ASAP meth-
odology, was to be used. (See Exhibit 3.) The business
users would participate in the detailed requirements study,
in cleaning up data to be converted, verifying the data con-
version, and participating in system testing and system
rollout. The system would be configured by APSS person-
nel to reflect Taiwan’s business environment, with such
details as the number of warehouses and the accounts to be
debited or credited in specific circumstances. The develop-
ment environment would consist of a three-instance devel-
opment landscape with DEV (development), QAS (quality
assurance), and PRD (production) servers, all housed in
Kuala Lumpur. R/3 version 3.1H would be implemented
for Phase 1.
(^4) A recent review of BAT templates across the regions sponsored
by Globe House concluded that the Symphony template had the highest
compliance with the corporate data template among all the current
templates.