Background
Perfetti Van Melle India Private Limited (PVMI) is a fully owned subsidiary of the global conglomerate Perfetti Van Melle, headquartered in Lainate, Italy and Breda, Netherlands. PVMI has a diverse portfolio of brands across segments (i.e. sweets and confectionery, fruit jellies, fruit bars, and proprietary ayurvedic medicine) which it sells through various sales channels across the country. Globally Perfetti Van Melle sells to over 150 countries worldwide and has a workforce of over 17,000 employees in 38 operating companies throughout the world.
Challenges
With over 45 locations across India and eight major locations, PVMI operates out of factories and branch offices. Users are typically working across locations and moving assets from place to place in the field, and with over 1,500 assets moving about, the IT team was challenged with answering questions like: what is happening? which asset is it happening to? And, what location is the asset currently at?
“It is not an easy task to control such a huge inventory,” said Basant Kr Chaturvedi, associate director at Perfetti Van Melle India Private Limited. “We wouldn’t see the assets after the first day of the new procurement. Then we don’t see it again until the support period. We needed to determine do we have to actually sell it off or do we have to dispose it? So, we were continuously challenged on how to control inventory.”
Then there was incident management for the agents within the IT team. Often there were four or five guys working a single incident. Each of them were looking into who received the call, what was the issue, or going back to the customer for more information. So, a customer who has already explained the problem one, two, or even three times, was not having a good experience with IT and by the time the customer reached the right person IT support, they were already unhappy with their experience.
“We are a sales organization, and these guys operate under pressure,” said Basant. “One retailer is making 100 invoices in a day, which is a big task, and every invoice has multiple line items. So, if he’s stuck due to a technical issue and the call isn’t addressed promptly, it is going to impact not only his business, but our bottom line.”
Solution
The team found that legacy systems were too costly and unmanageable, so they began to explore whether they needed to move out of legacy system and go for another system. Perfetti Van Melle India Private Limited chose to work with SymphonyAI Summit.
“As far as engagement is concerned, they were very supportive,” said Basant. “SymphonyAI Summit heard our challenges and they worked on those challenges. They delivered it. They did customizations. They didn’t ask questions like, ‘Why do you need this?’ Their approach has been to understand the pain and help us deliver a solution.”
They modified some existing legacy environments and integrated them with their SymphonyAI Summit environment. With SymphonyAI Summit, all of their solutions are integrated with active directory, so they were able to create a seamless experience for users.
“This is not something which is done and live and we don’t need to do anything,” said Basant. “We keep on improving. The way we have taken baby steps to mature the process, same way we have started working on evaluating the system and evolving the system, so that it gives the desired results. So, I think the chemistry with SymphonyAI Summit is really good.”
Users don’t want to go through multiple systems with separate logins and then have to submit all of the information for requests. The PVMI team saw that users simply wanted to have a single platform, single window to do everything.
“Our focus always remained, before we deployed anything, to ensure that the user experience is seamless,” said Basant. “That focus remains from the beginning. Even before we roll out anything, or my team is working on anything. Their first focus is to see that the integration is in place and the user experience is seamless.”
Benefits
As the IT team began to implement SymphonyAI Summit as their IT service management solution, they began with inventory management, which also supported their asset management challenges. The second area they focused on was their call logging system and the support model they wanted to establish. Then they quickly moved into growing their change management processes.
“Our change management process got completely documented through the SymphonyAI Summit system,” said Basant. “Now, any change has to be properly logged in, reviewed, and approved, and all the documentation are maintained in SymphonyAI Summit.”
SymphonyAI Summit also met their requirements in terms of tracking the asset lifecycle from procurement to disposal, from hiring until the person is leaving. The PVMI team mapped the existing solution and automated the asset lifecycle tracking process.
“So, right when the person is coming in, movement is happening, issuance is happening, the return is happening, disposal of assets is happening… everything got automated,” said Basant. “Similarly for procurement of items and until the disposal, that entire process was captured in SymphonyAI Summit. We did some customizations in the system to suit and meet our requirements, and now it is working absolutely fine.”
After implementing SymphonyAI Summit, Basant and his team at PVMI felt that things were starting to work for them. They could analyze the calls and utilize the knowledge base, which was built into the system to address these calls faster.
“Satisfaction from our customers has increased substantially because they know they are heard, and their problems are addressed,” said Basant. “They don’t need to follow up with multiple people to get their problem solved.”
“Satisfaction from our customers has increased substantially because they know they are heard, and their problems are addressed.”
Mr. Basant Kr Chaturvedi, Associate Director – ICT, Perfetti Van Melle
“SymphonyAI Summit heard our challenges and they worked on those challenges. They delivered it.”
Mr. Basant Kr Chaturvedi, Associate Director – ICT, Perfetti Van Melle
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