Brazilian dairy producer overhauls ESM with ease

For several years, Piracanjuba, a dairy producer in Brazil, relied on ServiceNow to deliver IT efficiency. But when the company made plans to roll out those productivity enhancements to other business functions, it found that ServiceNow’s solution was too costly and too difficult to customize.

With an eye toward flexible, affordable enterprise service management (ESM), Piracanjuba turned to Freshworks for a solution that both IT and non-IT business units could tailor to their specific workflows. Ease of implementation was top of mind: The corporate mandate was to transition from the long-standing legacy ITSM solution to a new ESM solution within just five months, while ensuring no disruption to daily operations.

With Freshservice, Piracanjuba has simplified the delivery of employee services for 17 critical business functions, including HR, finance, facilities, IT, legal, and operations. In the first three months, 90% of employees had begun using Freshservice’s unified self-service portal. The platform’s rapid uptake is a testament to its ease of use and ability to improve service quality across the entire organization.

The company

Piracanjuba is one of Brazil’s main dairy producers, churning out 6 million liters of milk daily for products found in nearly 80% of Brazilian homes. Founded in 1955 and owned by Laticínios Bela Vista, Piracanjuba employs over 3,800 people. The company offers a diverse portfolio of over 200 products, including popular brands like Piracanjuba, Pirakids, LeitBom, ChocoBom, and MeuBom.

The challenge

Piracanjuba had multiple goals, all centered on a strong IT delivery platform: Improve efficiency, simplify business operations, empower non-IT business units to tailor their own service delivery workflows, and consolidate on a single platform to drive cost savings.

But its legacy IT vendor since 2018, ServiceNow, couldn’t meet the company’s needs because of its cost and complexity for non-IT teams. Nor would it be easy to replace the old software: Migrating over five years of data from ServiceNow—including more than 400 catalog items, 65 robotic process automations, and 35 integrations with internal technology systems—posed a major challenge.

Piracanjuba required a partner equipped not only with a robust ESM platform but also with extensive technical expertise to ensure a smooth migration and avoid any operational disruptions.

The solution

After considering both Zendesk and Freshservice, Piracanjuba chose Freshservice, powered by AWS, for its ease of use, affordability, and no-code development capabilities. The implementation of this ESM solution began with Piracanjuba’s logistics department—a strategic move, considering the department's complexity.

“Our choice to start the Freshservice rollout with our logistics department was very intentional,” explains Wanessa Borba, Piracanjuba’s IT governance coordinator. “We wanted to put Freshservice to the test in our most challenging area, and it exceeded our expectations. Despite the demanding nature of Piracanjuba’s operations, the migration process was easy and our day-to-day activities remained unaffected.”

Today, 17 business units—including HR, finance, facilities, IT, legal, and operations—rely on Freshservice to deliver employee services. Employees now have access to a centralized self-service portal for all their business needs, whether they need to request new equipment or submit a benefits question. Once a request is submitted, it is automatically routed to the right department. Throughout the process, Freshservice’s strict role-based permissions protect the confidentiality of sensitive employee data. “Each team is able to ensure the security of information and only see the data relevant to their operation,” says Borba.

Impact

Piracanjuba’s 17 departments say the migration was painless, taking less than five months without any operational hiccups. Employees submitted more than 70,000 tickets with Freshservice in the first three months. According to Borba, the platform’s high adoption and satisfaction rates are due to its intuitive design and the comprehensive administrator training provided by Freshworks during the rollout.

By unifying IT and non-IT service delivery on a single platform, Piracanjuba achieves significant time savings. The centralized self-service portal is a boon to employee productivity, helping the organization achieve continuous efficiency improvements.

“We had high expectations when we brought Freshworks on board, and we’re on track to meet or surpass all of them,” adds Borba. “Piracanjuba has an incredibly demanding operation, and only Freshworks is able to keep up.”