The shape of things to come Project partners
The shape of things to come Interface Magazine talks to Boldt Group CIO Miguel DeSantis regarding the massive digital transformation programme at the Argentinian technological services giant…
Written by
Andrew Woods
Produced by
Craig Daniels
B o l dt SA
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B
oldt Group is the leading Argentine company in the development and delivery of
technologies and systems, applied at scale, to its clients: a comprehensive portfolio of entertainment and tourism enterprises. Boldt provides communications and transactional technology to clients, including digital coverage, applications and tools, often in some very remote areas, as well as more traditional services such as printing and supply chain management. As the 87-year-old Boldt Group strives to deliver more for its clients against a wider global backdrop of massive technological change and increased customer expectation, it has seen to reorganize and realign the six distinct business units that offer up its range of clientbased solutions and services as well as its internal infrastructure and support network. In 2019, Boldt made a change to the
Transactional Services (Gaming Lottery
Group’s operating structure by making
and agency operations, casino adminis-
each business head responsible for over-
tration systems, online gaming and other
seeing all activities within their business
transactional platforms), Intelligent Traffic
units. The six business units comprise of
Systems & New Business (an operational
Communications (split into two compa-
service), Printing & Graphic Services
nies: SPTI (corporate internet for busi-
(legal printing and on-demand publishing)
ness) and Orbith (satellite-based internet
and The Software Factory & QA (techno-
service for rural areas), Entertainment
logical development and quality assur-
(platforms for hotels and casinos),
ance). Each business unit has a unique
B o l dt SA
responsibility and operational focus
had governance of IT up to a certain kind
within the Boldt Group.
of level, which was not standardized,” he
We caught up with Miguel DeSantis,
reveals. DeSantis and his team are now
Group CIO at Boldt SA. “As part of that
deep into the process of a standardiza-
organizational change last year, they
tion and integration of all the business
defined a few service areas that were
units as part of a comprehensive four-
to give service to the entire group,”
year transformation.
he explains. “This included IT, Human
The changes occurring at Boldt
Resources, Finance and Legal. In the
are expansive and complex, the
particular case of IT, each business unit
Entertainment business unit alone has 5
12 different locations within its realm.
and networking, Applications, Software
DeSantis and his team are working hard
Factory and Quality assurance.”
to integrate these locations in order to
Such is the scale of the changes at
balance the cultural gaps in the way they
Boldt, DeSantis started to build a PMO
work while building out new processes
(Project Management Office) to deal with
too. “So, we are in the middle of that
it. “We have to integrate every line of busi-
change, which is a big and interesting
ness, currently with different infrastruc-
challenge,” he laughs. “It wasn’t that IT
tures and applications and so managing
wasn’t governed, or that there was no
the portfolio is a really complex thing. So,
governance, just that the governance was
I’m working on building a PMO so I can
perhaps not aligned at a corporate level.
see all the portfolio projects together in
As part of that reorganization, I became a
one place. Imagine all the projects and in
CIO responsible for all IT and information
addition to that, the IT guy has to stand-
services and product development such
ardize all the locations so we can use the
as IT support, infrastructure, security
security and the networking… this is four
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years of work, that’s the plan. So, it’s very
on the same certification,” he says. “The
complex trying to manage the portfolio
idea is to give a one-stop service of
and all the different requirements. For
support, centralized for everyone and
example, when they build the platform for
we’re working on defining how that should
on-demand book printing, IT has to be
be done. It’s a big challenge.” To those
involved.”
ends, Boldt has a steering committee
The Software Factory and QA report
every three months that presents to the
directly to DeSantis in order to main-
business units, so a focus can be placed
tain and align the quality of standards
upon needs and requirements.
and certification. The main objective is
Another major change at Boldt is the
to standardize the processes as each
introduction of an IT Business Partner
business unit has a different certifica-
into each business unit. “That person
tion, perhaps with a different vendor and
can review initiatives, right? For exam-
processes. “Perhaps they don’t know that
ple, what do you need in your business?
the other business units have expertise
What are you thinking you need? What
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“ As part of that organizational change last year, they defined a few service areas that were to give service to the entire group” — Mi g u e l D e S a nt i s G roup C I O, B oldt SA
do you need to solve? The Software
and work together in order to build the
Factory is following the same message
final requirement of the program. I think
as part of this one-stop shop model. The
that IT in most organizations is getting
Software Factory can put initiatives and
simpler every day, yet every day it gets
developments to the other committees
more complex too. The business units
to prioritize with the same business unit.
often don’t know what is behind the
Let’s suppose that Entertainment has
complexities and our role is to help them.
a requirement… the IT department can
Just tell me what you need, and we will
deploy a system to do that. They define
help you to build it, or we’re happy to let
their requirements together, and if it is
you know what exists. That process in the
in development, they go through the
previous organization was impossible.”
committee and help them to build the
One of the new tools deployed by Boldt
case. It could be that they’re in a posi-
is RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and
tion to buy software and so we can help
DeSantis’ team made a hard evaluation
them in order to make the comparison
and comparison of different tools before
between different solutions to get to the
deciding on Automation Anywhere, which
final decision. Or, if someone has an initi-
they are in the process of deploying.
ative that impacts in IT or in a corporate
“We are working with different business
system, The Software Factory can detect
units to gather all the things they have
that and involve the correct people. If it’s
to automate,” he explains. “Our idea is
an IT project, they send it to the person
to deploy the software and then hire a
responsible. If it’s a mixed project, they
vendor to train our team so I can then
take the responsibility of the follow-up
train internally thereafter. In addition to www.theinterface.net
9
that, they can support us in the process of deploying the different RPAs at the beginning, because there is going to be some delay until you catch up. We are working towards April, for the deployment of a lot of RPA initiatives.” DeSantis is very concerned with the impacts of the cultural change at Boldt and from the beginning, explained to the team the role of the IT Business Partner and how they are going to work together. “We build the trust and a way of working,” he explains. “They then start looking at IT as a problem solver rather than a problem generator. We can improve that process in an incremental process of improvement. Once we instill trust, we start putting in some metrics. We are going to improve and try to raise the bar every time as part of the efficiency of the process,” To those ends, Boldt are working to migrate to HANA, which is another huge project although not entirely company wide as The Software Factory works mostly in Java and .NET. “We work for different clients who have different requirements, but our main force is Java.” Another major partner to Boldt as they help to establish trust within the Group is the enterprise cyber security software company Trend Micro which provides that crucial layer of security to The Software Factory and its activities. B o l dt SA
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“ We build the trust and a way of working. They then start looking. They then start looking at IT as a problem solver rather than a problem generator” — M i g u e l D e S a nt i s G ro u p C I O, B oldt SA
A big Boldt initiative launched by HR
requirements and then establish how to
recently as part of this massive trans-
proceed. One collaborator might think
formational change is Impulso Boldt.
there could be an improvement on one
Impulso Boldt liberates and integrates
business unit, could be an IT need, could
the abilities of all the company’s collabo-
be a human resource request, could be, I
rators to the company’s 2-3,000 employ-
don’t know, a new coffee machine… what-
ees. “The idea is that each one of them,
ever they want, right? It has categories
if they have an initiative, can create that
like internal efficiency and improvement
initiative on a portal that we build. A team
of the quality of work, things like that.
of managers of the company, like second
You can ask anything, and depending on
level managers analyze each one of their
the initiative, that team takes care and
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proposes that they analyze the initiative.
Atlassian tool. “We have all our IT team
In some cases, they cancel it or in others
behind Jira, and whenever you receive
they proceed, build a case and present
a request, you create a ticket. You also
it to the management in order to deploy.
get an SLA (Service Level Agreement),
With HR, we also deployed a few years
providing a certain level of service, with
ago Success Factor that is a world class
all the solutions. We are starting to deploy
tool that belongs to SAP in order to align
that in the rest of the IT teams throughout
collaborators’ objectives, collaborative
the organization. In fact, a few business
work and interactions.”
units asked to deploy Jira, so they are
A major partner for Boldt is Jira who fulfil tracking requirements with its
able to create that internal request. I even made a dashboard for the IT team where 13
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you can see the SLA and the productivity among other things.” Changes are a little more complex in the case of Communications, according to DeSantis, because if you disconnect a server, say, you have to reroute the traffic. “In Communications, we are starting to work and integrate everything together into an efficiency that is already saving us $25,000 a month. We keep on reusing because every time you disconnect a server you have to reroute or add something on the side and with COVID, that can be a little more complex. But $25,000 a month is a lot of money just for aligning things, right? Our biggest partner in that space is HPE. In fact, we have HPE servers in most cases. If we can, we buy HPE.” Everything that is digital or built for online at Boldt, is cloud native or hybrid from now on, although due to scale, some on-premise still remains. “We have on-premise, but if we can move it, we do,” DeSantis explains. “It’s easier when you start a project from a scratch, because you can do what you want. The key to the cloud is to find the features or applications that allow you to take advantage of cloud services. One option is the server-less solution, but again, that’s not for everything. Perhaps I take a whole platform and I say these two transactions could be server-less while the rest aren’t? However, every chance we get, we are going to go cloud native. Again, sometimes it is possible; sometimes it isn’t, right? For example, the Transactional team has lottery agencies that connect to our data center by radio because some of them are in rural zones.” A lot of Boldt’s clients are casinos and one issue with regards to client management from an IT perspective is the fact that different casinos manage autonomously 15
and in some cases two casinos will have
aspects of entrepreneurial endeavor
completely different systems. Boldt is
and llast year saw the Boldt Group
not only centralizing within the group, but
announce an ambitious plan to tackle
also delivering infrastructure alignment
the unprecedented social and economic
and an integration of management, which
impact of Covid, from a socioeconomic
align all the clients’ solutions and appli-
standpoint. The First Report of Social
cations. “We have a different vendor in
Responsibility Actions, reflects the initi-
each business unit to provide services
atives and programmes developed by
to our firewall solutions, for example,”
the company throughout 2020, which
DeSantis explains. “We have some busi-
reaffirms its values, ethics and transpar-
ness units using Check Point and others
ency in all areas, bringing the agendas
using Fortinet; it depends on the size of
and points of view of the different units
the business unit. If it is big, we use Check
and geographies closer together, with
Point. If it is small, we use Fortinet, right?
the initiatives and commitments of Boldt’s
But each one of them has a different
business goals. “We invite you to join us
vendor and a different resource to give
in the search for improvement opportu-
support. but all of that is behind the same
nities that contribute and generate value
super vendor that is Novared. That is our
for society as a whole,” it says. “At Grupo
third level of support. So, one of the things
Boldt we assume the role of “entrepre-
we did at the beginning of this four-year
neurial social actor”, faithful to the tradi-
plan was to centralize the governance of
tion and trajectory in the market and to
that security firewall solution. I make an
the positioning achieved in the different
RFP with all the vendors that work for us
businesses. Being an ACTOR means
with the idea of having only one vendor to
being a protagonist and we do it through
provide the licenses and services. With
our CSR in each social action.”
that we made savings of $150,000 a year just for centralized services.” 2020 will forever be remembered
Boldt has developed an integral management focused on four main axes in each business unit. “In Health and
for the global crisis caused by COVID-
Nutrition: we promote care and preven-
19 and the reactions from business in
tion, and the quality of life in the commu-
dealing with the seismic shifts to oper-
nities where we operate. Education: we
ations. As with technological advance-
believe that education together with
ments, COVID has also accelerated many
technology is a transformative tool that
B o l dt SA
Miguel DeSantis Group CIO Boldt SA Experienced Executive in IT, Software and Operations of different services. Management of Multidisplinary Teams, local and/or remote and multicultural at global companies or services. Expertise in global and regional platforms and IT solutions. Business oriented with strong knowledge in finance and new business evaluation and valuation. Other Interests: Jury at “Starting new ventures and company valuation”. It is last year subject of Economics and Business Administration at Di tella college. Career Director at Degree in Programming Systems at UCES university Education: Master in Business Administration (MBA) Degree in Information Systems. PMP - Certification number 2077842
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“ The key to the cloud is to find the features or applications that allow you to take advantage of cloud services” — M i g u e l D e S a nt i s G ro u p C I O, B oldt SA
allows equalizing opportunities. Work:
It’s a very challenging time for Boldt as
we contribute with the capacity to gener-
it looks to transform every aspect of its
ate quality employment in inclusive and
operations and its offerings and services.
diverse practices to promote employa-
The scale of the change is large, but the
bility. Environment: we are committed to
effects of this work will pave the way for
caring for the environment and human
a new Boldt, fully equipped to master the
life.” This RSE programme has seen the
challenges ahead. DeSantis is clearly
Group invest wealth as well as time and
proud of his team and relishes the chance
resources into a whole raft of initiatives
to sit at the center of such huge shifts at
designed to help its communities recover
the company. “It’s a very exciting time.
from the pandemic.
We have three and a half years in front
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of us with a lot of challenges,” DeSantis
of skills, and I am very clear in the commu-
explains.
nications and the prioritizations – I think
“It’s because of the challenges, that I
that helps a lot. But I have to say, my team
need this view of the entire portfolio and
is very professional, and they know their
the projects. That’s why I need to build
priorities. When they have a conflict, they
a PMO as quickly as possible and enjoy
know how to solve it. So, yes it really is a
some quick wins too because when
challenge, but it’s also great to be part of
everything starts up again, managing the
this change.”
projects is going to get very complex. But we are working well. I have a whole team of professionals with a wide range 19