Case study
Unilever Brazil
BT provides an IP-based
infrastructure to serve consumer
products giant at its new South
American home
“BT was fantastic in fulfilling our
deadlines, which were extremely
aggressive. The team quickly
understood the importance
and urgency of the project, and
they had a wonderful sense of
partnership. They aligned all of
the external providers, achieving
a high level of efficiency making
sure the project was a success.”
Alfred Gunter
Infrastructure Account Manager
Unilever Brazil
Unilever selects BT to develop and implement a fully
converged network solution for its new offices in
Brazil, providing a flexible platform to serve future
business needs
Marketplace
Unilever is an Anglo Dutch multinational and
one of the leading providers of consumer
goods worldwide. It operates in over 100
countries employing 223,000 people at
365 plants spread around the world. The
company was founded in 1929 through a
merger between the Lever Brothers soap
factory in England, and the Margarine Uniee
factory in the Netherlands. Today – among
400 brands in product categories such as
foodstuffs, personal hygiene, and domestic
products – the Unilever portfolio features
household names such as Knorr, Hellmann’s,
Persil, Domestos, Marmite, and Pot Noodle.
Business opportunity
Imagine the following scenario: a major
global company needs to move 2,500
employees including a customer service
team to a new office building, and it
needs an innovative data and voice
communications infrastructure up and
running within four months. The choices it
makes will affect operational efficiency and
company performance in two of its most
important Latin American markets. This was
the decision that Unilever had to take to
implement its ‘New Home’ project in Brazil.
The company needed to move its employees
to a new office complex in São Paulo, which
required a completely new network and
in-building infrastructure, developed from
the ground up and delivered in a very short
space of time.
The new infrastructure had to be capable
of providing users with the best technical
capabilities available in the market, delivered
within budget and to tight deadlines. To
protect existing investments, the solution
also needed to integrate with current
technology used within the corporation.
It further needed to align with Unilever’s
future vision of corporate development and
take advantage of advances in convergent
technology. To help face this challenge,
Unilever called on BT.
BT has worked in collaboration with Unilever
for many years, having been selected as
its global communications outsourcing
partner in 2002 through a seven-year
agreement valued at £670 million. In 2006
this agreement was extended for a further
three years and now runs to 2012. Unilever’s
relationship with BT in Latin America is
an essential part of the global agreement
between the two companies.
BT solution
The project was managed by BT Latin
America, and began with an in-depth study
of requirements to collect, analyse and
diagnose Unilever’s business issues and
needs. Unilever had initially considered
adopting technology other than IP-based
because of investment restrictions and
deployment schedules. However, the BT
team identified issues with this approach,
having taken into account the entire strategic
scenario, not just this project in isolation.
Case study
Unilever Brazil
“Despite the extremely tight
deadlines, the new offices
opened with the entire linking
network configured and the
new IP telephony system up and
running with 100 per cent user
satisfaction. It simply could not
have been better.”
Alfred Gunter
Infrastructure Account Manager
Unilever Brazil
The BT team undertook in-depth analysis
of the available technologies, investment
demands, specific deployment deadlines,
and alignment with the convergence
roadmap, developed jointly with Unilever.
From this BT designed its recommended
solution, ensuring that its proposal would
be the best alternative for Unilever in both
the long and the short term. The BT team
was flexible in its approach and fulfilled all
Unilever cost targets, as well as commercial
and technology requirements, continuously
focusing on taking Unilever to the next level
of technology convergence.
The first phase of the project took place in
São Paulo, where 1,720 users were to be
moved into a new 14-floor commercial
office building. BT installed a Cisco-based IP
telephony solution with Cisco IP telephones
and access points for fax and other
applications, such as an IP call management
solution – an essential element to help
reallocate network resources and control
communication costs using the BT-provided
MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) WAN.
Offices worldwide
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and may be modified from time to time. Services and equipment
are provided subject to British Telecommunications plc’s respective
standard conditions of contract. Nothing in this publication forms
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The project required substantial coordination of external partner organisations
involved in the different stages of the rollout,
with BT as prime contractor fully responsible
for the overall programme and schedule.
Alfred Guntner, Infrastructure Account
Manager at Unilever Brazil comments: “BT
was fantastic in fulfilling our deadlines,
which were extremely aggressive. The
team quickly understood the importance
and urgency of the project, and they had
a wonderful sense of partnership. They
aligned all of the external providers,
achieving a high level of efficiency making
sure the project was a success.”
Results
This innovative project was one of the
first in the region to install a converged
communication infrastructure in a complete
office complex. The BT solution combines
several technologies from the BT managed
services portfolio, with the latest generation
of convergence networks and a full IP
telephony system to provide Unilever
with one of the most advanced offices
communication systems on the continent.
One of the main benefits to Unilever
of converging its communications
infrastructure is future proof flexibility.
The solution enables Unilever to gradually
adapt and evolve its network to provide
support for future business requirements.
BT completed the whole project – including
solution design, deployment, and migration
of users to the new office – in around 90
days. BT also provided full training for
users on the new IP telephony system and
deployed several applications for Unilever.
Alfred Guntner concludes: “Despite the
extremely tight deadlines, the new offices
opened with the entire linking network
configured and the new IP telephony
system up and running with 100 per cent
user satisfaction. It simply could not have
been better."
The office is now one of 35 Unilever regional
sites that use IP telephony services. The
second stage of the project is to extend
services to around 700 users in Mexico. The
company is also considering the adoption of
Wi-Fi technology to give mobile access at its
new offices, deploying additional resources
for the call centres and extending the
converged solution to serve other locations
and countries in the region.
Main BT products and services
Today, Unilever benefits from being one of the first companies in Latin
America to use a fully convergent communications infrastructure.
BT began a major expansion of its Latin America strategy in 2002,
although it has been operating in the region for more than two decades.
Today, BT operates in 22 Latin American markets and has local teams in
10 countries, meeting global customers’ complex technology demands
throughout the region.
BT customers in Latin America include Unilever, InBev, Syngenta,
Fiat, and Reuters, offering a wide portfolio of solutions that include IT
Migration and Transformation, Communications Network Management,
Security, Mobility, IP Telephony and Voice Services, CRM, Applications,
Governance and Continuity, Integration and Convergence Solutions.
The Regional Centre for Customer Network and Services Operations
is located in São Paulo and offers specialised multi-lingual support
available 24*7 using convergence technologies to supply regional and
global clients in Latin America or any part of the world.