From 6 to 3 months behind: recovering a critical project for Primax Peru

I took over the management of an order-taking platform for Primax Peru that was six months behind schedule. The scope continued to grow as new requirements and changes were introduced in each client meeting. I stabilized the scope, reorganized execution and coordinated the development of a mobile and web solution with offline capabilities and distributor integrations, ultimately taking the product into production.

My role: IT Project Manager, Seratic LTDA · Primax Peru

The problem

Primax needed to centralize information generated by its distributor network to improve commercial traceability and provide data for sales, Pareto and market analysis. When I joined, the project was six months behind schedule and new requirements continued to be introduced without a clearly defined scope. Distributors also operated in very different environments: some partners in Lima already had their own systems that needed to integrate with the new platform, while distributors in other regions, particularly jungle areas, relied on paper and Excel because of limited connectivity. An online-only solution would not solve the actual operational problem.

Discovery

My first priority was to understand why the project continued accumulating delays before adding more functionality. I identified continuous scope growth as one of the main causes: each client meeting generated new requirements or modifications to previously agreed functionality. I worked on translating business needs into a manageable scope, separating critical requirements from additional requests and defining an executable product boundary. In parallel, we analyzed distributor operations across different regions, their existing systems, connectivity constraints and the information Primax needed to centralize for commercial analysis. This established a clear product direction and allowed us to reorganize priorities.

Decisions and trade-offs

Stabilize scope before adding more functionality
The priority shifted from responding to every new request to consolidating a scope that could reach production. I organized and prioritized critical requirements, keeping new requests outside the immediate scope when they threatened delivery.
Ruled out: Continuing to incorporate changes and new requirements during development. The trade-off was postponing additional functionality to protect scope, reduce accumulated delay and restore predictability.
Design an offline-first experience for areas without connectivity
The mobile application needed to allow distributors to capture orders without an internet connection. Information was stored locally and synchronized with the cloud when connectivity became available again, feeding Primax's central information flow.
Ruled out: An online-only architecture was simpler, but it was not viable for distributors operating in areas with limited connectivity who still relied on paper and Excel.
Integrate existing systems instead of replacing them
Some partners in Lima already had their own applications. We defined integrations so the information generated by those systems could feed Primax's platform and become part of the same analytical model.
Ruled out: Forcing every distributor to immediately migrate to a single application would have increased operational impact, implementation time and project risk.
Complement mobile order capture with a web platform
The solution included a web platform to centralize information, provide traceability over sales activity and support the analysis and adjustment of commercial routes. The information could be used for Pareto and market analysis, helping identify opportunities and guide B2C commercial actions.
Use a progressive regional rollout
Instead of deploying the solution across the entire operation at once, I coordinated progressive pilots in different regions. This allowed us to validate the application under real operating conditions, incorporate adjustments and reduce risk before expanding the rollout.
Ruled out: A large-scale rollout from the beginning would theoretically reduce deployment time, but significantly increase risk given the operational and connectivity differences across regions.

Results

The project moved from six months behind schedule to three, recovering 50% of the accumulated delay and reaching production. The solution combined a mobile application and web platform, offline operation, cloud synchronization and integrations with distributor systems. The progressive rollout expanded the solution across different regions of Peru and the work led to the start of a new development for Primax Ecuador. In parallel, I managed more than 20 technology projects; in several cases with contractual penalty risks, dependency tracking and documentation of delays attributable to clients or third parties helped substantiate schedule deviations and avoid penalties.

Key learnings

This project reinforced a practice I later carried into my Product work: before accelerating delivery, the problem and scope need to be stabilized. The delay could not be solved simply by increasing development speed; it required controlling scope creep, managing dependencies, prioritizing and defining what belonged in the first production release. It also confirmed the importance of designing for the user's real operating environment: an online-only solution would have been technically simpler, but it would not have solved the problem for distributors operating in areas without connectivity.