Multinational company DANONE has decided to change its partner for IT support. A key aspect in the selection was the quality of the services offered, their cost, and the right approach to customer service. The cooperation between Talex and DANONE started in 2020 and was further expanded in 2022 and 2023.

Global, responsible business partner

The DANONE group of companies operates globally. It has a number of offices, production facilities and logistics centres around the world. Naturally, like any modern company, it bases much of its business on advanced IT solutions. IT infrastructure, systems and processes play a key role in the maintenance of the company’s production and operational capacities, as well as broadly understood security and business continuity.

The IT centre of DANONE in Poland, which manages, among others, plants and offices in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and, above all, Poland itself, decided to change the partner that provides them with crucial to their business end-user IT support. After a series of meetings with our engineers and a thorough market analysis, Talex was selected.

We are pleased with the cooperation with DANONE for many reasons – business benefits, interesting industry, experienced specialists on the customer side. It is worth mentioning here that DANONE acts in a socially responsible manner trying to improve the eating habits of its clients. The company is a global leader and operates in 3 areas relevant to proper nutrition: dairy and plant-based products (Danone), water and beverages (Zywiec Zdroj), and specialized nutrition, including food for infants and young children and food for special medical purposes (Nutricia). This means that DANONE has a real impact on the lives of many people and we are glad that, just like Talex, the company strives to make this impact as beneficial as possible. The brands of the group are created not only to satisfy clients, but also to improve their eating habits.

A meeting held at Talex headquarters

We started with an open meeting with DANONE team. We gave a clear presentation of our experience and capabilities, including exemplary implementations. We are aware that the service of IT support is largely based on building trust. Therefore, we invited a DANONE delegation to our headquarters in Poznan so that we could get to know each other better and, above all, demonstrate how we work on a daily basis and what our competitive advantages are.

This was an important element, as DANONE was looking for a new partner not only in terms of meeting measurable parameters (SLA) and accepted service costs. These parameters were certainly important, however, in an international, multicultural environment the area of proper communication is equally vital. DANONE expected a far-reaching interest to be shown even to individual users. Special attention since the first business talks, the opportunity to come to Talex and meet our team of specialists, care for the client’s communicative expectations – all these factors gave DANONE confidence in our quality of service and reassured that we care about each and every user.

During the visit, we presented our hardware facilities and invited the delegation for direct observation of the work of the support team. We demonstrated how the Helpdesk crew handles client requests. Moreover, we presented our wide range of services, with particular emphasis on the on-site support which came up during the informal discussions.

Offer

After a reference visit to Talex, we responded with a submission of an official offer for the RFP prepared by DANONE. A detailed presentation of the offer was the next stage, this time taking place in the DANONE headquarters in Warsaw. Marcin Ślosarczyk, Customer Service Director, who is one of the two directors responsible for IT Support Services, represented us at the meeting.

The discussion covered the requirements outlined in the RFP and a detailed presentation of the features of our offering, including but not limited to the following facts:

• We use our own proprietary call centre system and do not use external providers. Our independence makes it possible for us to have a high degree of flexibility in scaling the services we provide without the limitations in terms of investment in additional licences and their delivery and implementation. In this segment, we have also demonstrated the reliability of our systems, which results from their architecture based on redundant virtual machines and hosted from two independent Talex Data Center facilities ( Poznan / Wroclaw).
• TalDesk, our proprietary ITSM system, works seamlessly with similar ITSM systems on the client side.
• Our IT support service is always available and scalable, including non-standard periods such as holidays, time of increased traffic, during handling massive failures or implementation of major changes in the IT environment.
• We are experienced in working with non-standard groups of users (e.g. VIP users). We implement the service on the basis of special resources and rules, and our specialists are properly prepared.
• We are ready for any infrastructure and software changes made on the client’s side. Each time our customers undertake such actions, we offer a special post-implementation support line. A service of this kind allows our customers to track the number of problems that users have experienced after implementation, and thus improve their process for the next implementation.
• In order to ensure the best quality of service and to secure that our team is always available, we are constantly adjusting the composition of the client’s support team to guarantee that the user is always in contact with the person who provides the best possible assistance.

Making promises a reality

We signed the agreement in May 2020, and the period of preparation and implementation coincided with an extremely difficult time for everyone, i.e. the pandemic turmoil.  The entire preparatory period for the service consisted of a number of very complex elements. We carried it out in conditions of remote work and isolation, and yet there were no delays in the activation of our working relationship. Since then, the two companies have maintained close cooperation to ensure smooth IT operations at DANONE. We handle around 1,200 orders per month – all of which carried out remotely. We have supported DANONE in several deployments, including a very important implementation project for a new ITSM system. Further areas of cooperation, including support and maintenance activities – in offices and factories in Poland and Scandinavia – are proof of our good and growing cooperation.