494 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems
implementation: the government- designed invoicing sys-
tem (GUI) and the Chinese language module. These addi-
tional requirements increased the technical complexity of
the initial implementation, as well as the need for training
on additional business processes. APN management
therefore initiated a formal review before the end of
October to reassess the risks and to determine whether
the project was under-resourced.
The APN review team consisted of the IT head at
APN and two finance managers from Hong Kong. The
team leads walked through the project, and discussions
were held in Taiwan with the business sponsor. As a result
of this review, BAT Taiwan made plans to hire additional
temporary staff prior to the user acceptance testing phase to
help relieve the business team members who would be
involved. In addition, Hong Kong-based APN staff (mostly
from finance, but also logistics and IT) would receive
training prior to implementation in case they were needed
for emergency backup support. Further, APSS staff would
stay longer than originally anticipated following the rollout.
There were a lot of concerns. It was a short timeframe
and for the first time it was managed by APSS—not
jointly managed with Andersen Consulting. A lot of
‘teething problems’ had been experienced in other
project rollouts, so APSS consultants were requested
to stay longer to provide onsite support.
— APSS Project Integration Lead
The functionality required for the GUI system^5 was
originally expected to be part of the version 4.6 upgrade of
SAP R/3 proposed for the Phase 2 project. At the end of
November it was learned that SAP could not deliver a ver-
sion of the GUI for the 3.1H system prior to January 1.
Another vendor’s GUI system would therefore need to be
purchased and interfaced to the R/3 system (as a bolt-on).
With advice from BAT’s auditors (PricewaterhouseCoopers),
a system from a local supplier that had been implemented by
a number of other companies in Taiwan was identified and a
contract was signed in mid-December.
The Chinese language module was needed to print
reports. SAP Malaysia offered to help, but would not
have the resources to do it before mid-March. Some other
companies that were developing the software as a bolt-on
were asked to make presentations, and a system was pur-
chased from E-Com. The APSS Basis team member was
scheduled to come to Taiwan a week before Go Live to
ensure that the system would print correctly.User Acceptance Testing and
Change Management
Because of the change in Taiwan’s business model, the
change management activities associated with the SAP
implementation involved defining new staff roles and
communicating with all personnel, as well as providing
training for those involved in the new system. The Project
Co-lead at BAT Taiwan, Mr. Lee, was largely responsible
for change management as the business lead on the project
team, although all the training was done by APSS.
Temporary personnel were brought in before user ac-
ceptance testing (UAT) to perform functions usually done by
project team members. Three temporary accountants were
trained for two weeks on the general ledger, issuing checks,
and paying employees. Similarly, two extra people were
brought on to help in the MM/SD areas. One of these people
had previously worked for the distributor and knew the exist-
ing system very well; she later became a permanent BAT
employee. The other person, who used to work for a con-
sumer products company, had considerable experience in
order processing.
The UAT phase involved all of the users on the project
team. Most of the other finance personnel had received
exposure to the new processes during earlier phases of the
project. Other Taiwan personnel were trained in early
November as part of the UAT phase of the project. Few
changes were required as a result of the testing. However,
the integrated nature of the system did cause some problems.
There were some hiccups here and there. During the
user test phase, there were some apprehensions, partly
due to the lack of understanding of the system, and the
process adjustments that need to be made. With moti-
vation and support from each other within the team,
they managed to pull it through with great success.
— Mr. Ma, BAT Taiwan Country Manager
Following the UAT, an additional 20 people—mostly
in marketing functions—received overview training from
the APSS consultants. A key challenge here was how to
convey the integrated nature of the system when most peo-
ple were used to focusing on a single function.Quality Reviews
Globe House provided funding for two quality reviews.
The first one was to be a quality review after the user
acceptance test, prior to implementation. The second one(^5) The GUI is an official invoice that must be prepared using
invoice numbers issued by the government. When a business uses up its
assigned range of numbers, it must reapply for a further set of numbers,
and so on. Six to eight such reports must be submitted to the government
for tax purposes every four to eight weeks.