CEMEX announced material development in its Working Smarter digital transformation initiative, where the company uses a combination of digital technologies, operative models, and innovation from leading service suppliers to reshape its business management services. Working Smarter is a pillar in CEMEX’s digital strategy along with CEMEX Go, the industry’s first digital global platform.
Working Smarter will capture current and future opportunities to enhance business management services around the world. Services range from finance and accounting back office, information technology, and human resources to commercial back- and middle-office services. The initiative brings together all locations around the world into a unified CEMEX experience, supported by data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive technologies to enrich the employee experience.
“Our digital approach has already brought us a very close relationship with our customers, as evidenced by our record high Net Promoter Score index of 68 for 2021”, said Fernando A. González, CEO of CEMEX. “Working Smarter takes us a step further as the digital leader of the construction materials industry, not only in customer experience, but now also in our business management processes.”
As part of this initiative, CEMEX redesigned its shared services operation model, implementing virtual delivery centers that use a remote workforce, tapping into high-quality talent pools that are not dependent. at their location. Remote work has been made possible through CEMEX’s advanced collaboration and service management platforms protected by strong cybersecurity.
To accelerate the change, CEMEX has signed separate multi-year contracts ranging from 5 to 7 years totaling US $ 500 million with six leading service providers in the fields of finance and accounting, information technology, and human resources, replacing the current expenditures of new services suppliers with an optimized cost, which effectively goes on to reduce the company’s operating costs. CEMEX partners and their contributions are:
IBM brings increased agility and flexibility to CEMEX’s financial and accounting operations as well as to its back-office commercial services. IBM will combine the use of multiple global delivery centers with increased automation, advanced analytics, and applied cognitive technologies. It will also provide advanced IT security services and technologies to help secure CEMEX’s digital infrastructure and strengthen the company’s cyber resilience.
HCL Technologies together with NEORIS, a digital accelerator subsidiary of CEMEX, enables end-to-end innovation in Business and IT, utilizing a hybrid cloud platform and empowering CEMEX’s application landscape with innovative automation for at improved service levels.
Axians will enable CEMEX end-to-end network management and innovation services, including the global deployment of SD-WAN technology to add routing intelligence, resilience, and flexibility to support network-intensive environments of coherent real-time operations.
Tata Consultancy Services, with its advanced HR platforms, analytics, and automation services, provides digital workplace solutions and collaboration frameworks to enhance the employee and workforce experience.
ServiceNow’s digital transformation platform enables CEMEX to seamlessly streamline service delivery between both internal and external service delivery organizations, reducing processing times and providing employees with superior digital experience.
Avasant, a digital and sourcing strategy firm, assumes responsibility for the ongoing management of partner relationships with its January 2022 acquisition of CEMEX’s global vendor management operations in Monterrey, Mexico.
In planning and implementing the Working Smarter initiative, CEMEX also partnered with Avasant to select and establish relationships with strategic service providers.
CEMEX expects to announce additional strategic relationships in the coming months to expand current coverage and complete the deployment of its digital strategy. The company estimates that the combination of next-generation service contracts and its internal delivery changes should materially contribute towards the US $ 100 million annual savings goal set by the company when implementation is completed.
“Beyond the profound change impact on how we manage our business and the competitive advantage it has created for the Company, the Working Smarter initiative will be very fast, with an expected four times return on investment”, he said. Maher Al-Haffar, CFO of CEMEX.
The Working Smarter initiative and CEMEX’s digital strategy continue to expand. In the coming months, CEMEX will send out more details on its journey into digital transformation.
Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/09022022/cemex-shares-progress-in-working-smarter-digital-transformation-initiative/
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