Votorantim Cimentos chooses Devoteam to implement ServiceNow

About the client

Votorantim Cimentos, founded in 1933, is a building materials and sustainable solutions company. Its portfolio of construction materials includes cement, concrete, mortars and aggregates. It also has businesses in the areas of agricultural products, waste management and co-processing. It has approximately 12,000 employees and net revenues of EUR 2.8 billion (2020). Its operations are strategically located close to the most important growth markets in eleven countries: Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Luxembourg, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Spain, the United States and Uruguay.

The presence in Europe, Africa and Asia is carried out through Votorantim Cimentos Europa Asia y África, based in Madrid. Within its expansion plan is the digital transformation of the company and the improvement of the capacity to obtain data on day-to-day operations that will improve the decision-making process.

The challenge

The Votorantim Cimentos group centralises IT architecture in several countries (Spain, Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco) in Madrid, with local IT teams in each country. As the Group’s growth in the region has been based on mergers and acquisitions, not all countries use the same technological architecture or have the same maturity. Therefore, the process of identifying all the configuration elements involved in the global architecture and their correct maintenance has been a constant challenge.

On the other hand, internal and external service provider management was at a point where most of the channelling of requests, incident notifications, etc. were done outside the established system (through emails). Their system was bespoke, lacking maintenance and had become obsolete.

Additionally, the approach to the solution was challenging as it had to accommodate both IT operations & business operations, coordinate with the different local IT teams in each country and centralise the solution based on ITIL best practices to get everyone “on board”. The change management process involved a simultaneous launch in several languages – all countries had to start using the system at the same time.

The solution

Devoteam, as a provider of SW development services in Microsoft technologies, shared with Votorantim Cimentos Europe Asia and Africa the ITSM and Configuration Management solutions offered by ServiceNow.

Thanks to this, Devoteam was involved in a project that lasted several months, while competing against other suppliers offering the same or different technologies. In addition to presenting and defending its proposal, Devoteam worked hard with the client to obtain all the comparative information that was necessary to identify ServiceNow as the ideal solution. 

The sales process was complex given the idiosyncrasies of Votorantim Cimentos Europe Asia and Africa where it was necessary to get all those involved in the different areas to reach a consensus on the solution provided, Devoteam’s capabilities in this regard, etc. Moreover, the budget was tight and the project was very ambitious.

Devoteam proposed to undertake the product implementation in two phases. Firstly, the ITSM module and then the ITOM module. To get there, an initial phase of ITIL process consultancy was carried out, where processes, procedures, roles, etc. were aligned with all those involved. 

After the consultancy, reaching a consensus and implementing the ITSM and ITOM modules, the last challenge was change management in various departments and countries. Devoteam carried out training at different levels (administrators, end users, reporting…), in different languages and in different sessions so that all those involved could be properly trained (we are talking about around 200 technicians and more than 2,800 end-users).

To ensure the change management process, a series of “how to” videos were recorded so that the most important or repetitive actions with the tool were always accessible, both through the self-service portal and the corporate intranet of Votorantim Cimentos Europe Asia and Africa. In addition, a hyper-care service was provided for one month after the implementation, which initially was supposed to last for two months, but given that the implementation was simple, with no incidents or problems, it was set at one month.