Coca-Cola Amatil take Toughbooks to the road

Coca-Cola Amatil, the bottler of Coca-Cola in Australia, has rolled out 600 Panasonic CF-18 Toughbooks to business development representatives across the country, in a multi-million dollar deal. The Panasonic Toughbooks will be used daily by the representatives, for capturing market and outlet information, conceptual selling and taking customer orders.

Looking for a reliable notebook that could support its business development teams on the road for long periods of time, across all their typical selling environments, Coca-Cola Amatil took into consideration the recurring costs that accompany notebook failures, and chose the Panasonic Toughbook for its low total cost of ownership (TCO) delivered through rugged design features.

Michael Sumner, Vendor Relations Manager for Coca-Cola Amatil's Information Systems in Australasia, said the TCO of the Panasonic Toughbook was a significant consideration for Coca-Cola Amatil in making this decision, as the acquisition cost represents only a fraction of total cost to businesses in the long term.

When researching notebooks, Coca-Cola Amatil performed extensive field trials with various devices and manufacturers and obtained feedback from the users on those devices. The data collected during the trials formed the basis for an economic evaluation, which took Coca-Cola Amatil to its decision to engage with Panasonic.

Coca-Cola Amatil looked at the advantages of a notebook equipped with rugged features such as a waterproof keyboard and ruggedised hard drive. The research concluded that, in the long-run, it was more cost-effective to implement hardware that would stand up to the wear and tear placed on units by the business development teams.

According to Sumner, Panasonic Toughbooks not only met their rugged requirements, but had the long battery life needed for extended periods in the field. The bright touch screen capability was also important to the Coca-Cola Amatil team who spend their days in and out of stores, bottle shops, cool rooms, cellars and vaults - anywhere that Coca-Cola Amatil products are stored or sold.

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CCA Toughbook Case Study (314.27kb)