CUSTOMER CASE STUDY A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: HEIDELBERGCEMENT AG RELIES ON PERSONAL ADVICE FROM VMWARE Increasing digitalisation and the growing complexity this brings to IT are posing major challenges for companies. This is why CUSTOMER personal advice on a par will become increasingly important in HEIDELBERGCEMENT AG the future. WEBSITE HeidelbergCement AG brought in support from outside back in WWW.HEIDELBERGCEMENT.COM 2011. VMware’s Technical Account Manager has now been INDUSTRY involved with HeidelbergCement AG for fi ve years, advising and BUILDING MATERIALS supporting the group personally with upcoming decisions and LOCATION new IT projects. HEIDELBERG, GERMANY HeidelbergCement became one of the world’s largest building materials groups CHALLENGES when it acquired the Italian cement producer Italcementi. The group’s portfolio • Increasing the value of the group is made up of a large range of high-quality construction resources including while ensuring resource-orientated traditional building materials as well as special products for specifi c areas of and sustainable growth application. HeidelbergCement’s core activities include the production and • Pursuing the goal of cost leadership distribution of cement and aggregates, the two essential raw materials for • Increasing complexity in IT concrete. The company, which is headquartered in Heidelberg, today employs around 62,000 people at more than 3,000 production sites in around 60 countries. The group pursues a goal of sustainable growth focused on earnings. SOLUTION Owing to the ever growing complexity of IT, di culties in The challenge collaboration with other vendors and, HeidelbergCement’s IT activities are divided into two areas: Group IT is at the same time, strict international responsible for global IT standards and services for the group, while so-called targets, HeidelbergCement decided Country IT is responsible for and manages IT activities at each location and in to engage a Technical Account each country. “At Group IT, we take care of demand management, applications, Manager from VMware, who supports infrastructure for global services as well as general support. We also answer the company with a wide range of questions concerning operations, and create the basis for global standards and projects and decisions. for IT at the country level”, explains David Roberts, Application Hosting Lead Architect at HeidelbergCement AG in Heidelberg. Besides the task of meeting BENEFITS IT requirements, the department must also support the group’s overall goals: • Retention of a huge pool of increasing the value of the group while ensuring resource-orientated and resources and expertise sustainable growth. “Owing to these predefi ned goals, the IT department • Savings in resources always strives to obtain the greatest value from every cent spent, whether on IT • Overriding corporate goals can be or on the company as a whole”, says David. At the same time, the group’s plan pursued to maintain cost leadership must be kept in mind – internal costs must therefore be reduced to a minimum. David Roberts adds: “The infrastructure that we chose not only had to meet the various targets set, but at the same time also had to be secure, stable and scalable – this was a challenge for everyone involved.” HeidelbergCement chose VMware back in 2010 when it launched its policy of virtualisation. The company today deploys the server virtualisation software VMware vSphere and vCenter as well as VMware’s Site Recovery Manager and vRealize Operations Manager. All the solutions have been implemented at a HEIDELBERGCEMENT | 1 A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: HEIDELBERGCEMENT AG RELIES ON PERSONAL ADVICE FROM VMWARE “We know that we can rely global level. Group IT took the corresponding decisions in this connection and on Lars as our TAM, which is was responsible for infrastructure design. why we involve him in all our The solution decision-making processes. “The solutions from VMware that we used convinced us from the start. He is for us a trusted adviser Nevertheless, IT became ever more complex, especially in our collaboration and partner who always gives with other manufacturers. At the same time, we could not risk losing sight of our internal targets. After some refl ection, we therefore decided to engage a honest answers and excellent VMware Technical Account Manager to support us with advice and assistance advice about the products we for a range of projects on a regular basis”, David Roberts says. use.” The Technical Account Manager (TAM) at VMware, provides the connection DAVID ROBERTS between VMware and HeidelbergCement. The TAM is a fi xed and trusted APPLICATION HOSTING LEAD ARCHITECT member of the team who is involved in all discussions and decisions. The TAM'S HEIDELBERGCEMENT AG current area of responsibility at HeidelbergCement includes, for example, the virtualisation of traditional business-critical applications such as SAP. “Virtualising business-critical applications in particular is sometimes very VMWARE USED di cult and needs special expertise. Our TAM ensures that these applications are migrated correctly and to VMware standards. He works closely together • VMware Technical Account with our SAP applications team on the virtualisation of SAP”, David states. Manager Service • VMware vSphere The Technical Account Manager spends at least one day a month on site at HeidelbergCement in Heidelberg. In addition to this, there is not only day-to- • VMware vCenter day contact by e-mail but also weekly telephone and video conferences. Apart • VMware Site Recovery Manager from the contact in David Robert’s team, there are fi ve additional employees in • VMware vRealize Operations other teams who constitute a single point of contact and work with the TAM on Manager a regular basis. The TAM also maintains contacts with the company's strategic partners like the storage, network and server vendors, since HeidelbergCement works with complex solutions from several di erent suppliers. If problems arise, the TAM assumes responsibility for communication. “The benefi t for us is that the TAM can bring his entire knowledge into play in such situations and deal with contacts from other companies on a par. He always brings about a solution when problems arise with other vendors”, David explains. In these cases, our TAM acts on behalf of HeidelbergCement, sparing the resources of the company’s own employees. David Roberts continues, “We know that we can rely on Lars as our TAM, which is why we involve him in all our decision-making processes. He is for us a trusted adviser and partner who always gives honest answers and excellent advice about the products we use. Of course, he hasn’t got a ready solution for every product, but we have always received an answer from him by the next day at the latest. Thanks to this huge pool of resources, we not only have a great deal of expert knowledge available to us, but as a business, we are able to avoid a lot of common mistakes and to ambitiously pursue our long-term goals.” The result The TAM has now been working with HeidelbergCement for fi ve years. Enormous mutual trust has developed between him and the other employees in this time, which is something that benefi ts both sides. The group’s employees know that they can depend on the TAM, and that he will achieve the best for HeidelbergCement from existing – and new – systems and solutions. “Besides the products used, what helps us is the fact that we can collaborate closely with the Technical Account Manager as a partner. The TAM knows our company and its special requirements with regard to IT. He therefore supports us with advice and shows what the right solution is for a particular business case”, says David Roberts. CUSTOMER CASE STUDY | 2 A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: HEIDELBERGCEMENT AG RELIES ON PERSONAL ADVICE FROM VMWARE “The decision in favour of a Looking to the future TAM like Lars from VMware HeidelbergCement wishes to continue to benefi t from the VMware Technical has more than paid off for Account Manager in future, too. “The decision in favour of a TAM like Lars from VMware has more than paid o for itself, meaning that we will continue to rely itself, meaning that we will on this service. It allows our company to benefi t from a constant growth in continue to rely on this service. added value and business advantages”, David explains. Over the coming It allows our company to months, HeidelbergCement wishes to continue its integration plans, implement solutions in the areas of storage, computing and networks, and drive further benefit from a constant growth cost savings. in added value and business advantages.” DAVID ROBERTS APPLICATION HOSTING LEAD ARCHITECT HEIDELBERGCEMENT AG VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.com Copyright © 2017 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Item No: 17Q1 HeidelbergCement UK .