Madrid, 17 May 2021 - ILUNION today announced that it is migrating all of its technological infrastructure, operating processes and business management software to the cloud. The digitisation project, involving SAP and Google Cloud as technological partners, has been developed in a record time of just a few months, in the midst of a pandemic and with the three companies’ teams working remotely.
ILUNION has six divisions (Services, Tourism, Health and Social Care, Commercialisation, Consultancy and Circular Economy), more than 50 lines of business, and upwards of 35,000 employees. This scale, combined with the technological scope of the project, makes it one of the biggest cloud rollouts ever implemented in Spain. The company expects it to bring greater flexibility, scalability, cost reduction, process efficiency, and speed of adaptation to change.
ILUNION’s business model is unique on the world stage, and its objective is to generate quality employment for people with disabilities (40% of its workforce) and other marginalized groups, in business projects that are economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. The group’s lines of business, some of them leaders in the sector in which they operate, provide specialised, high-value services for its customers.
First step in the strategic digital transformation plan
This is the first step in ILUNION’s five-year strategic digital transformation plan, designed as a launch pad to becoming a smart company. The company was clear right from the outset that it would embark on this journey with SAP, a strategic partner of many years, along with Google Cloud as the cloud infrastructure provider.
SAP’s business management solutions bring together a total of 17 production environments across ILUNION, covering transactions (financial management and controlling), analytics, budgeting and consolidation, risk mapping, integration platform, lifecycle management of applications, and document management—which provide support for all its businesses’ daily operations (facility services, laundries, hotels, contact centre BPO, retail, health and social care, etc.).
Now it all has been transferred to SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC), for the first time in Spain on Google Cloud, using an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach. By opting for this powerful duo, ILUNION combines the analytical, processing and artificial intelligence capabilities offered by both SAP and Google Cloud, and benefits from the advantages of the cloud in terms of processing capacity, scalability and security. In short, real time analytics of performance indicators will be incorporated to optimise decision-making. ILUNION will be responsible for managing the rolled out environments.
The project is a strategic collaboration between Google Cloud and SAP for ILUNION. Google Cloud recently opened an exclusive data centre for SAP in Frankfurt, which guarantees use by SAP and its lines of business, including the business software applications executed in this infrastructure.
Rollout during the biggest challenge in recent decades
The digitisation plan was approved in January 2020, but the kick-off coincided with the height of the State of Emergency declaration. At that time, ILUNION weighed up the risks and the benefits, both technological and business-related, and decided to go ahead with the rollout.
The involvement of ILUNION’s management was key to the project’s success, but it was primarily users who were involved in the decision-making and in the different phases of the process. Moreover, from the technical standpoint, having a perfectly defined roadmap of systems and integrations as well as strengthened security, have also contributed to the success of this first phase, allowing the cloud environments to connect correctly with the corporate network.
Ultimate objective: to become a smart company
This is the beginning of a process through which ILUNION is seeking to become a smart company, a company that can manage integrated processes across all its business areas to take informed decisions, automate processes and provide the experiences that customers and employees expect. And to do this it will have SAP’s business management solutions at its disposal.
SAP Services, in close cooperation with ILUNION’s Systems and Technology Department, has been the area responsible for migrating all the environments from its data centre to Google Cloud, thereby strengthening even further its alliance with ILUNION.
About Google Cloud
Google Cloud accelerates organizations’ ability to digitally transform their business with the best infrastructure, platform, industry solutions and expertise. We deliver enterprise-grade cloud solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology to help companies operate more efficiently and adapt to changing needs, giving customers a foundation for the future. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to solve their most critical business problems.
About ILUNION
ILUNION www.ilunion.com is the brand of the companies in the ONCE Social Group and a benchmark in the creation of quality employment for persons with disabilities around the world. Its activity adheres to criteria of economic, social and environmental profitability. It has a workforce of more than 35,000 workers, of whom 40% are persons with disability. The ILUNION companies have embarked on a process of transformation of their management model, which has focussed the spotlight on people and customers with the aim of achieving excellent, environmentally friendly services and products.
About SAP
SAP’s strategy is to help each company to manage itself as a smart company. As a market leader in business applications software, it helps companies of all sizes and in all sectors to manage themselves in the best way possible: 77% of income from transactions around the world involve an SAP system. Our machine learning technologies, Internet of things (IoT) and advanced analytics technologies help to convert customers’ businesses into smart companies. SAP helps to provide people and organisations with in-depth knowledge of the business and promotes the collaboration that gives them a head start on the competition. We simplify the technology so that companies can seamlessly use our software however they wish. Our comprehensive set of applications and services allows customers of more than 25 public and private sector industries, all over the world, to become profitable, adapt continuously and set themselves apart. With its global network of customers, partners, employees and opinion leaders, SAP helps the world to work better and improves people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.