Work · ·mc2i
Relaunching a multi-country PoS project — mc2i
Adapting line-of-business software for the France, Germany, and Netherlands subsidiaries of a European optical group — specifying PoS/ERP interfaces, multi-country governance. Assignment via mc2i, 2021.
Context
A first joint project had already failed.
The end client is a European group in the optical sector, over 2,000 stores spanning retail and healthcare — anonymized here, but already present in the background of my exchanges with mc2i, the consulting firm I carried out this assignment for.
A first shared point-of-sale (PoS) project, run top-down from the group’s head office, had already failed: the countries weren’t aligned, and the business complexity had been underestimated — multiple CRMs, incompatible health-insurance systems from one country to another.
The trigger
France then builds its own PoS in-house, with no vendor dependency, designed for the real work of an optician. The group sees the result and decides to relaunch the project for the other subsidiaries starting from that local proof of value — rather than starting again from a top-down mandate from head office as the first time.
The real obstacle
The project had already failed once, run top-down from head office. It had to start over from a local proof of value — the France PoS — rather than a central mandate, and rebuild a governance model where France stays lead on the PoS while each country keeps its own IT teams as internal integrators, with no centrally imposed development.
My role, via mc2i: specify the PoS ↔ ERP/CRM interfaces per country — not build them in the countries’ place — and draw the line between what is common to every country and what stays local. Two concrete examples: forms of address, which differ in Germany (Dr., Prof., etc.), and health-insurance systems, which vary widely from one country to another — not every country has third-party payment coverage.
What it actually took
Adapting the software per subsidiary
Adapting the line-of-business software — the PoS built in France — for the German and Dutch subsidiaries, on top of France itself.
Local needs analysis & specifications
Analyzing the functional needs specific to each country and writing the technical specifications for the PoS ↔ ERP/CRM interfaces, country by country.
Multilingual project management
Multilingual project management, coordinating directly with the French, German, and Dutch development teams.
Legal and regulatory compliance
Ensuring legal and regulatory compliance specific to each country — particularly around customer data and the local specifics of health-insurance and forms-of-address systems.
Interfacing local business teams ↔ central technical teams
Acting as the interface between each subsidiary’s local business teams and the central technical teams, to surface real needs from the field without losing the consistency of the shared PoS.