United Airline
PepsiCo Xccelerate
PepsiCo is developing and implementing new mobile technologies to improve business interactions with current and new customers, and aim to use their technology developments to see more profits in the future. The application PepsiCo Xccelerate App is an internal application for PepsiCo field agents across the country and across the globe. Whenever new retail stores, restaurants, and hotel shops open, a PepsiCo field agent is assigned to a case and route, and using highways and roadways, will meet with the shop-owner to discuss pricing and product promotions. Through the mobile application, field agents create proposals with help of the customer, which document all requirements of the customer and merchant location, including pricing, distribution, needed vending machines, shelfs, products, etc., and share said proposal wirelessly to the head office. The Xccelerate Application is comprised of 2000+ screens for the iPad platform only, and is distributed to over 25,000 field agents. Three iOS Developers work under our Senior iOS Developer remotely from India, to develop the enhancements of the project.
The Challenge
The PepsiCo Xccelerate App is in the initial stages of development, and the development team has started to develop the enhancement features of the application. Our Senior iOS Developer has been working through the source code of the project, and is delegating responsibilities to the local and remote teams. Customers are always requesting equipment and product changes, so the application monitors customer information, account updates, and a list of equipment supplements based on the business segment filter rather than the region. The enhancement feature is being developed from scratch, with new UI and APIs to be developed. The PepsiCo field agents are also working with the development teams and directly with our Senior iOS Developer to provide input on how the front-end UI and business tools should function. There is also a team of back-end developers working on Web Services. Both teams have detailed documentation provided with requirements for this project. One of many challenges is that the enhancements project should not affect the food service, even though the retail and food services are on the same application, and at any time the field agents can switch between food service and retail. The current application is in Objective C and our developer has many years of experience in Objective C, but eventually there will be efforts directed into converting the project to the latest Swift version, which will be a laborsome task and will take at least six months.
The Solution
Like mentioned before, this project is just in the early stages of development. Design documentation is collected and daily meetings take place to organize the development of this project. Azure and DevOps members are also working with the development team to provide pipelines for Automation Testing. Pepsi will also be acquiring testers for after development stages, to critique and approve the capabilities of the application.
The Benefits
PepsiCo benefits internally and externally from developing this application, via the digitization of the retail processes. Because of the PepsiCo Xccelerate App, PepsiCo will see many internal business and communication efficiencies. PepsiCo is updating the technology platform and business practices that have been used for the last seven to eight years. The focus of an exclusive iPad application will also provide a more concrete application, because more focus is directed towards one platform, rather than multiple mobile platforms that could in fact be developed. And most importantly, the PepsiCo customer experience is more efficient and enjoyable.
