Logicalis

Scenario

In late 2009, technology was the ugly duckling at Racional Engenharia, one of Brazil’s leading companies in the engineering & construction sector to the private market, acting in the industrial, mission-critical buildings, shopping centres and retail, healthcare, hotels and resorts, logistics, and education and corporate culture sectors. Viewed primarily as a cost centre, IT was reactive and did not meet users’ needs, making the daily lives of the professionals even harder.

"IT was holding back the company," recalls Paula Simodo, director of administration and finance core at Racional, the area where the IT department is housed. According to her, the technology has not kept pace with the heating of the construction industry and the consequent growth of the company. "We quadrupled the number of employees and tripled the revenue, but IT did not follow the same rhythm, creating a conflict," she explains.

Solution

Facing this problem, the company decided to seek the support of a specialised ICT company that also knew the engineering and construction industry. Thus, PromonLogicalis consulting area was hired to prepare an Information and Communication Technology Master Plan. "The client needed to upgrade its infrastructure to coordinate and efficiently perform new work. For that we needed to identify the real situation, analyse it and learn about trends and technologies that would maximise their business, "explains Pedro Pedini, consulting manager at PromonLogicalis and responsible for the first phase of the project.

PromonLogicalis developed a comprehensive ICT Mater Plan, involving microcomputers, networks, data centre, management and collaboration systems, IP telephony, productivity and security applications solutions and organisational structure. "The project started in mid 2010 following an implementation schedule spread over the next three years," explains Rodrigo Suzuki, consulting manager at PromonLogicalis and responsible for monitoring the implementation of the ICT Master Plan. "The plan is aligned with the customer’s priorities, rationalising and consolidating investments," he added.

Benefit

Although the first phase is expected to be completed in June 2011, Paula says that the improvement brought by IT services is already being perceived internally. "The most important is that technology has become a strategic issue for the company," says the director, who expects the main benefits of the project to be greater ability for construction and more flexibility and mobility for professionals. "Our goal is to be ahead of the market also in terms of technology", she concludes.