Mobile Computing and the Internet

by Noriko Takezaki

Oh no! Me, use a computer? Connect to the Internet? I don't think I can handle this."

That was the general reaction when Amway Japan announced that it would institute a new high-tech Sales Force Automation (SFA) system, one that utilizes a PDA (personal digital assistant) and the Internet to help its sales team work more effectively. Initially, most of Amway Japan's salespeople (internally called distributors) were wary of the proposed SFA system, doubtful of its benefits, and reluctant to give it a try.

But after finishing a two-hour training course, the attitude of most of the participants had changed. The distributors were eager, eyes filled with curiosity and confidence - and expectation.

Getting sales online
Amway Japan started trials of its new SFA system in April of this year, and has been preparing for a full-fledged launching of the PDA- and Internet-based sales system in October. The Amway SFA system - which uses Mitsubishi Electric's AMiTY VP PDA as a mobile terminal, and Sybase's SQL Anywhere for the client database - is intended to provide Amway Japan distributors with the latest company information, product data (including photos), and on-the-spot order entry capability. The system will also simplify sales management of the distributor groups.

In the first stage of implementation, the system will be utilized by 20,000 distributor groups in Japan, at a monthly leasing fee of ¥4,500. Eventually, Amway Japan plans to expand the system to cover its entire network of nearly 1.1 million distributor groups in Japan.

"We had been looking for a way to effectively connect our distributors, who are located in various places around Japan, to our online operation/transaction system," says Akira Kinoshita, manager of the technical infrastructure department at Amway Japan. "Last year, we finally found a solution in the use of the Internet, since it is now widely disseminated throughout the country."

"The first phase of our cyberspace project," Kinoshita continues, "was one-way use of the Internet to create our homepage on the Web, for the introduction of information about our company and our products to the general public. In the second phase - which we are now in - we have decided to use the Internet more effectively as a business tool, making good use of its bi-directional nature."

Under Amway Japan's SFA system, the company's sales data is stored on an IBM AS/400 system located in IBM Japan's outsourcing center in Osaka. Amway's distributors send their order processing information to this AS/400 via the Internet, and it, in turn, transmits updated order information every two minutes to the company's primary database, Sybase SQL Server (a relational database management system), also located in the Osaka outsourcing center.

The updated data is replicated in secondary Sybase SQL Server databases, which are located onsite at a Tokyo-based Internet service provider, Media Bank. (Media Bank is a joint venture of SoftBank and NTT Data.) To complete the circle, Amway distributors across the country can access the secondary servers in Media Bank for data search and retrieval. Asked why Amway Japan decided to use Media Bank, Kinoshita says that its discounted service charge and the number of nationwide access points (about 50) make it very attractive.

There are two reasons for mirroring the central database in Tokyo and Osaka, according to Amway Japan. Not only does the redundancy provide protection in the case of a natural disaster, such as earthquake or fire, but it allows the underlying infrastructure to be scaleable up to whatever size is needed. The Kanto and Kansai database servers are connected via frame relay.

On-the-job input
As the portable terminal for its SFA system, Amway Japan has chosen Mitsubishi Electric's AMiTY VP. This PDA was selected because it supports Windows 95 as well as Sybase SQL Anywhere, which is designed for mobile-use corporate network applications. Sybase SQL Anywhere features enterprise scaleability, suitable for everything from a single-user configuration to mass deployment in multi-platform and multi-user environments. Sybase SQL Anywhere also offers full integration with Sybase SQL Server and provides easy-to-use graphical tools for managing data replication and creating tables and indexes.

The AMiTY is a pen-input PDA that measures 17 x 25 x 3.5 cm (height, width, and depth) and weighs about 1 kg, including battery. It features a color STN (super twisted nematic) LCD display and incorporates a 75-MHz Pentium CPU (or equivalent), 24MB of memory, and 810MB hard disk. There is a slot for a fax/data modem card.

Running on Windows 95, the AMiTY unit that Mitsubishi specially designed for Amway Japan also offers scheduling and e-mail programs. It accepts such optional peripherals as a thin keyboard, 3.5-inch floppy disk drive, and CD-ROM drive.

"We studied several PDAs and notebook computers, and found the AMiTY to be the best one for our current network application," said Kinoshita. "In addition to support for Windows 95, the factors we judged most important from our distributors' point of view were easy-to-use operation, even for a person who has never touched a computer, and a high-quality color display, so that the distributors can work virtually anywhere. Mitsubishi's AMiTY satisfies both of these points."

To ensure security when uploading customer orders, Amway Japan uses RSA's cryptography toolkit, BSAFE. This portable C programmer's toolkit integrates privacy and authentication features into applications on both the network and terminal sides. BSAFE includes such cryptographic algorithms as the RSA public key cryptosystem and a digital signature.

Sybase support
To fully support Amway Japan's SFA initiative and provide assistance for application development, Sybase KK (Sybase Japan) dispatched its principal sales engineer to Amway's Tokyo headquarters from the outset of the project. Such a long-term dispatch of an engineer is not a normal step for Sybase Japan, but considering the potential growth of the SFA system, the company decided to make this unusual commitment. "We expect that this Amway Japan project will become a model case for the successful deployment of our products in the SFA field in the Japanese market," reports Yosuke Ichikawa, Sybase Japan's principal sales engineer stationed in Amway Japan.

Sybase shipped 170,000 licenses for its Sybase SQL Anywhere throughout the Japanese market in 1996. To further develop its Sybase SQL Anywhere application business, Sybase has been focusing on the SFA field. In addition to Amway Japan, Sybase Japan has successfully introduced Sybase SQL Anywhere to Komatsu, a major machinery company, for its SFA system.

The Komatsu system, called ASKA (Advanced System for Komatsu Sales Activity), started just recently (at the end of June). It uses notebook computers running Windows 95 as the system terminals, and Sybase SQL Anywhere as client database. Komatsu aims at deploying the system for about 1,000 salespeople in its 43 distributors nationwide. The type of notebook PC to be used is decided by each individual distributor, although Komatsu has a recommended list of notebook PCs that includes IBM's ThinkPad.

In addition to the SFA field, Sybase Japan has also been targeting the life and nonlife insurance business sector as well as the POS (point of sales) terminal market. For the POS market, Sybase Japan announced in August that the company has succeeded in introducing Sybase SQL Anywhere to Royal Ltd., a major automobile component retailer with 410 shops nationwide. Royal will use Sybase SQL Anywhere for its customer data management. At each shop, the POS terminals are connected to a PC running Sybase SQL Anywhere.

The key to success
Will Amway Japan's new SFA system prove successful? The key to the project's success will be how many Amway distributors cooperate with the company to lease the required PDA and software. On this point, Amway Japan's Kinoshita is optimistic. The distributors who had hesitated to touch the PDA terminal at the beginning of the training course, he observes, were similarly reluctant to give it up when the training was over.

"You see?" Kinoshita smiles. "There are many distributors who now enjoy the tool. This is something that shouldn't miss."

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