How the COVID-19 Crisis is Fast-Tracking Digital Transformation
Critical code merge of the Order to Cash and CRM cloud platforms across the globe performed to accelerate Puma Energy’s digital transformation
At TCS, we don’t just help businesses transform. We help them become perpetually adaptive enterprises, built to evolve continuously and confidently in a world of constant change.
We deliver excellence and create value for customers and communities - everyday. With the best talent and the latest technology we help customers turn complexity into opportunities and create meaningful change.
We are a digital transformation and technology partner of choice for industry-leading organizations worldwide.
At TCS, we believe exceptional work begins with hiring, celebrating and nurturing the best people — from all walks of life.
SUCCESS STORY
Critical code merge of the Order to Cash and CRM cloud platforms across the globe performed to accelerate Puma Energy’s digital transformation
You have these already downloaded
We have sent you a copy of the report to your email again.
In the wake of the pandemic, whether and how an organization has embarked on a digital transformation journey has become a key differentiator. Companies with advanced digital operations – on the cloud, agile, automated, and intelligent – can pivot to rapidly-conceived business continuity plans, as long as their digital solutions can be rolled out and adapted rapidly.
Global energy major, Puma Energy, had already embarked on an ambitious transformation program – christened ‘ePuma’ – that digitalized business processes across finance, sales and supply chain functions, as well as Customer Relationship Management.
But over time, the number of platform branches became high. The emergence of a global pandemic gave even greater strategic significance to the need to unify the different platforms already rolled out in the different countries and business segments. It was critical for Puma Energy to be able to keep its pace of roll-out and evolutions, and even accelerate them, to be in a position to deliver a seamless experience to its customers and employees during such turbulent times.
Leveraging the partnership it has had with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) over the past few years, Puma Energy was able to deliver this critical, so-called ‘Single Landscape Optimization’ remotely, and at impressive speed.
A marathon at sprint pace
Puma Energy, a global energy major, grew and consolidated over the years, largely through mergers and acquisitions. As it grew, there was a pressing need for a thorough digital transformation to unify and standardize the IT landscape and improve efficiencies.
The result was ePuma and CRM, an end-to-end digital platform, which automates customer management, customer acquisition, order to cash, procurement, scheduling and finance processes. ePuma and CRM are flexible solutions that can adapt and scale. They are built from best of breed products from Salesforce, integrated together to form a global template, underpinned by global standards to increase efficiencies across the fuel supply chain.
Since 2018, ePuma and CRM have been deployed in many countries, delivering a substantial impact to business strategy, operational efficiencies, and market expansion. This resulted in five different branches of the platforms, with multiple customization adding to the complexity.
“In the wake of the virus, keeping a high-speed of roll-out of both the CRM solution and ePuma was clearly the most pressing concern for Puma Energy,” explains Seema Mehra, Vice President, Unit Head - Energy & Resources Unit for Europe, UK and Australia, TCS.
This was quite an undertaking. As a leading global energy business, which supplies, stores and distributes petroleum products, Puma Energy operates in 45 countries across six continents and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The company employs over 9,000 people across the globe. With its network of over 100 storage terminals, 2,900 retail sites, and a presence at more than 80 airports, deploying a swift and secure cloud solution for the entire business is both challenging and vital.
After a multi-country, marathon sprint of 45 hours round-the-clock production deployment, the task was finally completed, and all the regions, as well as all the business segments were sharing the exact same code for ePuma and for CRM.
The transition was aided in no small part by the Secure Borderless Workspaces™ (SBWS) program – a TCS-wide response to the COVID-19 crisis that allows employees to work securely and safely from home.
The rapid deployment meant that upcoming software releases now had a single code base, in addition, 50 obsolete components were deleted from the code base line making the ePuma solution package ready for reuse at any time. Most crucially, not a single delivery was missed.
“This was one of the finest pieces of teamwork, achieved while much of the world was operating under strict business continuity mode conditions. This was not only a test of teamwork, but a solution that gives us the necessary confidence during such unprecedented times,” Sumantra Som, Head of Global Delivery, Puma Energy, explained.
Building resilience
“Achieving this ‘Single Landscape Optimisation’ for our two platforms and for all our regions and business segments was a critical task and a major milestone, which now allows us to accelerate our speed of deployment while increasing the quality of the service and the level of functionality which we deliver to our business,” said Pierre Costa, CIO Puma Energy. “The company can now progress with new developments and deployments with speed and agility.”
The sprint to a single code will have a long-lasting and positive impact. Given its geography, Puma has its Salesforce instances in multiple regions. Having a single code base avoids multiple deployments across various instances, as well as providing a uniform user experience across regions for Puma employees and customers. Moreover, any new enhancements or hotfixes can now be implemented in all regions in a single go, thereby improving efficiency and saving time.