UDL Distribution (A)

The Sales Director of a nationwide, family owned, PKR 4.6 billion pharmaceuticals distributor, UDL Distribution, is faced with the decision of replacing the sales forces’ manual order-booking with one using handheld devices. Being amongst the Big Five in the Pakistani market, the prime motivation is to catch up with the rest of the players and not lose credibility with their principals, the pharmaceutical companies. While some of the major players had done this more than a decade ago, the recent project survey report submitted by the Operations and IT Director reveals that even smaller local distributors have adopted the technology and the nationwide top player has already done so. The report presents the protagonist with choices to make about the set of software features, the software vendor and the handheld device. However, in justifying the project expense (between PKR 3.7 and PKR 6.4 million, depending on the choices made) to the Executive Director (also his elder brother) the issue of precisely how much productivity improvement is expected becomes a bone of contention. The IT hardware budget has traditionally been PKR 0.5 million annually. Competitive pressures on margins and cash flows also feature greatly. Ultimately, it is the Executive Director’s style of managing the business by thrift and tight efficiency targets that wields the greatest pressure on the Sales Director. This case is the first part of a series; Cases B and C may be obtained from the author.