According to a McKinsey survey published last year, 80% of respondents intended to continue or increase investments in automation. The Açotubo Group, in the area of distribution of steel products, is part of this statistic, with a commitment to digital transformation as a competitive differential.
The company has been investing in technology, especially since last year, and investments in this area in 2023 will reach BRL 3 million. The objective is to make the company completely immersed in digital processes, which, according to Bruno Bassi, CEO of Açotubo, is not common in the steel market.
“We realized that, despite not being new to the market as a whole, technology as a factor to boost business in our market is more in the discourse or is treated with slowness. In practice, how many organizations in this sector have undergone a digital transformation?”, he explains.
Technology on all fronts
To cite some recent examples, the Açotubo Group launched a chatbot, the virtual assistant called “Luizaço”, created to be a first line of assistance, facilitating access to online information and services, such as collecting payment slips and quality certificates, for example. In the foreign trade area, the novelty was the Global Narwal system, which simplified processes by automating routine tasks, leaving professionals focused on managing operations. In terms of logistics, modifications were made to the freight modules, collection scheduling and delivery routing by the fleet, bringing greater security and optimization to the process.
One of the last announcements was in the production sector, where the acquisition of a software sensorization (OEE) of equipment for measuring performance generated a 105% increase in productivity on the machines at three of the company’s units. With digital advances, it was necessary to think about increasing the IT structure, with a new 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® server and scalable processor, in addition to 20 new high-performance firewalls installed in the head office and branches to guarantee high connectivity, and protection network, with Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), to defend endpoints as gateways.
beyond the competition
Renato Vellani, IT Manager at Grupo Açotubo, explains that it is part of the Group’s market vision to be at the forefront of resources to optimize work and meet market demands. He also highlights the SIGA360 solutions, which centralize data and the history of each client, being a CRM that works strategically in line with the company’s objectives, and the BIGDATA com Data Lakewhich is a central location that allows employees to find, prepare and analyze large volumes of stored data.
“Apart from that, we have planned for 2023 the digitization of orders, which is a digital sales platform created so that customers have more autonomy in the supply of their stocks, making the journey more agile and independent, but with a consultative service model and with focus on generating business for the entire chain”, concludes the manager.
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