Santander MIS America

In February 2005, Jesús Cepeda, Director of Grupo Santander's Management Control Area, reviews a Chilean pilot test of a new management information system, MIS America. Grupo Santander, a global financial institution, had grown rapidly through acquisitions in recent years, giving rise to a great need for reliable, timely information to help Santander managers compare performance across globally distributed units and make better strategic and operational decisions. The pilot test in Chile had suffered numerous delays. Cepeda had to decide what to do next regarding MIS America. The original plan had specified that following the Chile pilot, the new system would be rolled out throughout Latin America, but Cepeda was not sure if he was ready to authorize the rollout. This case study highlights the information systems challenges associated with rapid growth via acquisition. Top executives had an urgent need for both consolidated and precisely disaggregated information. The case also examines questions of centralized versus decentralized control in a corporate MIS that addresses different needs in different Latin American countries, while responding to Grupo Santander's own needs at the corporate level. The challenges presented by this large and complex project are applicable to many IT projects in other industries and geographic settings.