HL Display IT support costs reduced by 60 percent

Client

HL Display is a leading international supplier of products and solutions for in-store communication and merchandising to the food and non-food retail sectors. The company is also a leading supplier of products and solutions to brand manufacturers for merchandising on the shelf and in other parts of the store. HL Display operates in 44 markets in Western and Eastern Europe, South America, the Middle East and Asia. In 24 of these markets it has its own subsidiaries, while the other 20 are served by selected distributors. HL Display was founded in 1954. It has a turnover of approximately SEK 1,6bn (2012) and employs around 1,100 staff. The company was first listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1993. Following the takeover of the principal owner Ratos its stock was delisted on 17 September 2010.

Initial situation

In 2012 HL Display’s IT department wanted to deliver solutions to the business faster and more cost-effectively. It meant that the IT department had to introduce changes to its internal IT processes and to select a new provider of development resources in the area of its ERP and managed services regarding Product Information Management, corporate websites, e-commerce, data warehouse and Business Intelligence. At the beginning HL Display needed an additional specialist for its Jeeves ERP-related project whose task was to improve the project management using the agile SCRUM methodology. This was also seen as a trial, representing an opportunity for HL Display to assess the quality of services supplied by an IT outsourcing provider.

Challenge

HL Display’s IT Department was looking for a large and stable IT provider with extensive experience in nearshoring projects. HL Display also expected from its future partner a wide range of competencies and the ability to create dedicated project teams that understand business and technology and are able to learn new systems if required. All of those to bring the first Jeeves ERP project to a quick end and to produce IT savings in the longer term.

Solution

Euvic provided HL Display with the SCRUM Master within days from the initial request. The entire project involving Euvic’s consultant lasted about a month. In that time HL Display managed to complete rapidly the planning of its IT development project. In view of the positive experience with the implementation of the first project the company decided to entrust Euvic with the support, maintenance and development of other IT systems.

We wanted to take advantage of managed services in the area of our Jeeves ERP, inRiver PIM and corporate webpages throughout the world, running on the EPiServer. For those reasons we decided to hire cost-effective and highly skilled Euvic developers and that became an important part of our plan to bring IT outsourcing benefits to HL Display.

- Fredrik Olund, CIO at HL Display

In 2013, 2014 and 2015 the plan was carried out and Euvic took over the support, maintenance and development of those IT systems at HL Display, together with a few other minor systems.

The level of IT services provided by Euvic is described in an SLA agreement. It defines such IT support parameters as maximum response time for a new system failure notification, maximum problem resolution time and reporting rules for each stage of the IT support in the case management system Remedy.

Business benefits

Cost-effective and flexible IT support and maintenance services

One of the key gains achieved by HL Display thanks to its IT Department’s plan to bring IT outsourcing benefits to the company by taking advantage of Euvic’s services, has been a reduction in its IT support, maintenance and development costs by about 60 percent. The savings were possible as previously various HL Display’s IT systems used to be supported by three different IT partners from Sweden. The concentration of IT support in one company, on a cost-effective multishoring basis and its flexibility (pay only for working hours you used), has enabled the Client to optimise its IT spending.

Higher standard of IT support services

Cooperation with Euvic not only has provided HL Display with savings but also with technical support services of a higher quality. This is mainly due to enhanced communication, better process definition and cooperation principles, which led to an overall improvement in the quality of IT support. It was also reflected in many metrics, such as, according to estimates:

the improved performance of supported systems (up by about 35 percent),

a decline in the number of reported incidents (down by about 25 percent),

longer Mean Time Between Failure (up by about 45 percent).

Previously – because of the multitude of partners – this was impossible to achieve.

Faster adjustment of Jeeves ERP to current needs

Another essential advantage gained by HL Display thanks to its IT Department and its cooperation with Euvic has been the ability to adjust its main IT system – Jeeves ERP – faster and more accurately to the company’s current needs. Euvic helped to coordinate the efficient take-over of the IT support and development of Jeeves ERP from external suppliers and subsequently provided qualified staff making up half of the team responsible at present for the technical support of the system and its development. The development work is currently performed about 35 percent faster for comparable tasks.

More control over IT environment

The concentration of IT support in the hands of one partner means that HL Display has now more control over its own IT environment. The execution of the tasks associated with the provision of technical support, maintenance and development has also become easier and more predictable with the new procedures and tools that have been implemented in HL Display in cooperation with Euvic.

Credentials

I wanted to find a partner that would be flexible and listening and that could offer us lower rates for IT support and development services at the same time, and thus bring IT outsourcing benefits to our company. I have found such a partner in Euvic. My team working with them managed to reduce our IT spending by 60%, keeping the same competency level. We also got to know Euvic as a loyal and easy-to-work with partner.

- Fredrik Olund, IT Director at HL Display, Europe’s leading merchandising company.