Even as it faces declining revenues and a draining hostile takeover battle with rival Oracle Corp., PeopleSoft Inc. has signed the biggest deal in its history.
The software vendor announced a US$50 million deal to revamp the systems that support Mexico’s Tax Administration Service, which involves 30,000 employees in 1,100 offices and up to 15 million current taxpayers.
The applications the agency has licensed include PeopleSoft Enterprise Revenue Management, Enterprise Performance Management, Enterprise Customer Relationship Management and the Enterprise Portal. According to Enrique Perezyera Olvera, senior vice-president for PeopleSoft Latin America, the new system replaces a number of stand-alone homegrown software packages.
When complete, the revamped agency will provide taxpayers with multichannel connectivity, including a portal, a Web site and e-mail and telephone systems. Clients will be able to securely receive online account statements, see the status of service requests and access a payment calendar and message centre.
The system will not only help better serve existing taxpayers; it will also help register new ones and cut down on tax evasion, said Perezyera Olvera. The project is set to start within the month. The first milestone will be the creation of a central taxpayer database, a phase that should wrap in eight months.
Once the new platform is in place, the World Bank, which is financing the deal, estimates that the tax agency will be able to dramatically reduce tax evasion and boost tax revenues through improved collections, PeopleSoft said.
The agency considered competitive proposals from SAP AG and Oracle before opting for PeopleSoft’s applications, the company said.
