Managing Information Technology

Case Study IV-6 • The Challenges of Local System Design for Multinationals 649

Date Event

1983 Chile’s first handheld is developed

1986 Major upgrade to handheld in Chile

1993 BAT Colombia is started

1995 Six independent end markets of Central America form a single clustermarket, BAT Central America

March – May 1998 2-month feasibility study of MaxFli case

May 1998 BAT Tobacco Management Board approves MaxFli concept

May 1998 BAT has commitment from Siebel Systems to build a handheldsolution

May 1999 Siebel backs out of building handheld solution

Summer 1999 BAT replaces Andersen Consulting with Ernst & Young

Sept. 1999 Ciberion is started as a joint venture with E&Y and BAT

Nov. 1999 MaxFli 1.0 goes live in Chile

May 2000 MaxFli 1.0 goes live in Colombia

Nov. 2000 MaxFli 1.1 goes live in Central America

EXHIBIT 1 A History of Handheld Sales Force Automation Systems in Latin America

BAT faced a variety of options to attain these priori-
ties. Should BAT use an existing product or develop their
own? Should they develop a product independently or in
partnership with a supplier? What platform provided max-
imum scalability, reusability, and stability? What were the
implications of MaxFli for the Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) applications being installed throughout
BAT? What handheld device allowed for international sup-
port and maintenance? What implications did the variance
in technical expertise throughout Latin America present?
After carefully reviewing the options, BAT negoti-
ated with Siebel Systems to build a handheld solution for
direct distribution markets within BAT. However, one
month before development was to begin, Siebel withdrew
to focus on other corporate priorities of its own.

Design Choices

In May 1998, BAT began developing MaxFli with the help
of Andersen Consulting. The primary design work and
project leadership were in Santiago de Chile and consisted
of a team of BAT staff from Brazil, Chile, Colombia,

Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela. The development effort

took place in London, performed by Andersen Consulting

and managed by BAT personnel. The system was to be

finished and first implemented in Chile in May 1999.

MaxFli was designed to deliver a globally transferable,

leadingedge direct distribution system for BAT. In its final

form MaxFli consisted of several interdependent systems to

track sales, inventory, credit accounts, competitor informa-

tion, merchandising, and outlet classification. (See Exhibit 2.)

The front end of MaxFli was a Visual Basic® appli-

cation running on a handheld Hewlett-Packard Jornada

680™ using Windows® CE 2.1. This handheld was used

by the sales representatives each day to place orders, issue

credit, print invoices, track inventory, and monitor mer-

chandising and competitor activity. At the end of each day,

the sales reps synchronized their handhelds with the back-

office system. Synchronization could occur through the

office network, a dial-up connection from a land-based

telephone, or from a mobile phone. The back-office system

was a Siebel Systems customer relationship management

system (CRM) and an Oracle 8i data warehouse running