Case Study British American Tobacco Bangladesh Ltd
Order collection system through Mobile
Mobilizing its Supply Chain Management
The End Customer
The business was formed in 1902 British American Tobacco was established to trade outside both the UK and the USA, and grew from its roots in dozens of countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and continental Europe British American Tobacco Bangladesh is one of the largest multinational companies in the country and has been operating for over 100 years. Bat has over 1,000 employees and we take pride in being one of the preferred employers in Bangladesh. Responsibility - to their shareholders, employees, business partners, customers and any other stakeholders - is at the core of their business and that is why they believe success and responsibility go together. Bat Bangladesh is the part of the British American Tobacco Group, the world's most international tobacco group with brands sold in more than 180 markets.
The Business Challenge
Being the largest tobacco manufacturer of the country, the company has to maintain nationwide distribution channel with a large number of its own sales forces and distributors. The scenario from the initial stage of receiving nationwide sales information and stock status on daily basis was done completely on manual process through phone calls and faxes apart from sending data through postal services, which were also eventually not that easy from all locations for unavailability of PSTN or STD connections. And on as usual the concerning employees had to post those figures in their database after receiving it from various locations though the mentioned medias, which were hardly accomplished on daily basis The company was on the plan for a solution that could bring their entire sales channel in a uniformity shape to receive nationwide sales data reporting centrally to the Head Office before the day end. The challenges were: Collection of data nationwide without adding major new infrastructure setup Literacy among the sales force in term of data entry
Case Study
The number of transaction per sales force are relatively higher Automatic updates in their central database
The company was on the look out for a solution that could mobilize their entire distribution channel in a more organized and easier methodology, minimizing the occurring objections and ultimately creating efficiency and saving time. A comprehensive system was required to meet their constraints of receiving daily sales and stock data from all locations and with automatic updates in their central database, where human interventions will be very lower.
The Solution
Business X-Press Solution is a GPRS (Global Packet Radio System) based flexible management tool especially designed to help enterprises in enhancing their field-based business operations while integrating it directly with Organizations back-office applications Like - confirming, collecting or requesting orders of products and services that can be done easily now from anywhere via your mobile phone or handhelds just by scrolling, selecting & sending it to the Organizations Central Server, since the entire Business Process Application or Order Management System will be installed in the respective mobile phones of the Organizations concerning persons. Considering the challenges and objectives, Business Automation Ltd. proposed a solution based on Business Express framework to BAT, where all data transaction would be done through GPRS platform from all Cellular networks. Business Express is a framework based on open environment Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). System comprises of two parts Server part and client part. Server side uses any industry standard backend data base as per the organization and convenience. Synchronization between client and server was happened using mobile network by HTTP based synchronization using XML format. Strong data encryption and decryption techniques have been used to avoid any mishap. Application at Mobile/PDA Phone: J2ME has been used as platform as it is open standard and most of the mobile phone OS are compatible this platform. The application sends data to the server using HTTP protocol in XML format (i.e. WML). It also use confirmation signal to ensure that data is correctly sent or received. Application has four layer one is gateway the other is encryption decryption layer and the other is authentication layer then the last part is execution layer. Gateway send and receive data then pass this data to the encrypt/decrypt layer, this layer done the necessary job and send the confirmation to the user. Server side: Server side is divided in two parts, one is application server part another is database server part. Application server receives data through a gateway
Case Study
to avoid any untoward access. Application gateway pass data to the data manipulation layer for necessary encryption and decryption and to check data authenticity, if the data is authentic it send a confirmation to the remote device telling that it has received the proper data. There are reporting options with multiple searching parameters.
System Architecture (Diagram):
The Value Propositions
The solution from Business Automation has resulted positive impact in BAT entire Supply Chain Management and overall sales activities. The major impacts are: Receiving nationwide orders by the Distributors on daily basis on the central location on much faster and accurate process. This has improved BATs management in their supply chain planning. Real time order by distributors is saving maximum time to process orders or carry forward requests; and in business Time = Money
Case Study
Least investment in infrastructure and training as mobile phones are familiar to the field forces Sales managers can see the route movement of sales representatives on todays operation, making their field force much active in their sales calls in retail market. Least operation cost per month as the data transaction cost over GPRS is minimum and server processes data automatically, requires less HR time for system management. Confirm data sending by the users or field forces without any errors for instant automatic alerts and reminders. So no chance of data missing or users irresponsibility or mistakes. Sending and receiving data is very easier for the field- forces or DIC from their handsets. Secured Password protection. Restricted administrative access View report on web.
On a total the system deserves to be very compact for BAT in overcoming their occurring problems, where creating efficiency, analyzing instant updates and saving time are now acclaimed to be the major issues of the scenario.
For further query, please contact with:
Business Automation Ltd
BDBL Bhaban, (9th Floor), 12, Kawran Bazar, Dhaka-1215, Bangladesh Phone: 9134510-1, Fax: 9143656 E-mail: sales@batworld.com, URL: www.batworld
