Boldt – Brochure 2021

The shape of things to come Project partners

The shape of things to come Interface Magazine talks to Boldt Group CIO Miguel DeSantis regarding the massive digital transformation programme at the Argentinian technological services giant…

Written by

Andrew Woods

Produced by

Craig Daniels

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B

oldt Group is the leading Argentine company in the development and delivery of

technologies and systems, applied at scale, to its clients: a comprehensive portfolio of entertainment and tourism enterprises. Boldt provides communications and transactional technology to clients, including digital coverage, applications and tools, often in some very remote areas, as well as more traditional services such as printing and supply chain management.

As the 87-year-old Boldt Group strives to deliver more for its clients against a wider global backdrop of massive technological change and increased customer expectation, it has seen to reorganize and realign the six distinct business units that offer up its range of clientbased solutions and services as well as its internal infrastructure and support network.

In 2019, Boldt made a change to the

Transactional Services (Gaming Lottery

Group’s operating structure by making

and agency operations, casino adminis-

each business head responsible for over-

tration systems, online gaming and other

seeing all activities within their business

transactional platforms), Intelligent Traffic

units. The six business units comprise of

Systems & New Business (an operational

Communications (split into two compa-

service), Printing & Graphic Services

nies: SPTI (corporate internet for busi-

(legal printing and on-demand publishing)

ness) and Orbith (satellite-based internet

and The Software Factory & QA (techno-

service for rural areas), Entertainment

logical development and quality assur-

(platforms for hotels and casinos),

ance). Each business unit has a unique

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responsibility and operational focus

had governance of IT up to a certain kind

within the Boldt Group.

of level, which was not standardized,” he

We caught up with Miguel DeSantis,

reveals. DeSantis and his team are now

Group CIO at Boldt SA. “As part of that

deep into the process of a standardiza-

organizational change last year, they

tion and integration of all the business

defined a few service areas that were

units as part of a comprehensive four-

to give service to the entire group,”

year transformation.

he explains. “This included IT, Human

The changes occurring at Boldt

Resources, Finance and Legal. In the

are expansive and complex, the

particular case of IT, each business unit

Entertainment business unit alone has 5

12 different locations within its realm.

and networking, Applications, Software

DeSantis and his team are working hard

Factory and Quality assurance.”

to integrate these locations in order to

Such is the scale of the changes at

balance the cultural gaps in the way they

Boldt, DeSantis started to build a PMO

work while building out new processes

(Project Management Office) to deal with

too. “So, we are in the middle of that

it. “We have to integrate every line of busi-

change, which is a big and interesting

ness, currently with different infrastruc-

challenge,” he laughs. “It wasn’t that IT

tures and applications and so managing

wasn’t governed, or that there was no

the portfolio is a really complex thing. So,

governance, just that the governance was

I’m working on building a PMO so I can

perhaps not aligned at a corporate level.

see all the portfolio projects together in

As part of that reorganization, I became a

one place. Imagine all the projects and in

CIO responsible for all IT and information

addition to that, the IT guy has to stand-

services and product development such

ardize all the locations so we can use the

as IT support, infrastructure, security

security and the networking… this is four

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years of work, that’s the plan. So, it’s very

on the same certification,” he says. “The

complex trying to manage the portfolio

idea is to give a one-stop service of

and all the different requirements. For

support, centralized for everyone and

example, when they build the platform for

we’re working on defining how that should

on-demand book printing, IT has to be

be done. It’s a big challenge.” To those

involved.”

ends, Boldt has a steering committee

The Software Factory and QA report

every three months that presents to the

directly to DeSantis in order to main-

business units, so a focus can be placed

tain and align the quality of standards

upon needs and requirements.

and certification. The main objective is

Another major change at Boldt is the

to standardize the processes as each

introduction of an IT Business Partner

business unit has a different certifica-

into each business unit. “That person

tion, perhaps with a different vendor and

can review initiatives, right? For exam-

processes. “Perhaps they don’t know that

ple, what do you need in your business?

the other business units have expertise

What are you thinking you need? What

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“ As part of that organizational change last year, they defined a few service areas that were to give service to the entire group” — Mi g u e l D e S a nt i s G roup C I O, B oldt SA

do you need to solve? The Software

and work together in order to build the

Factory is following the same message

final requirement of the program. I think

as part of this one-stop shop model. The

that IT in most organizations is getting

Software Factory can put initiatives and

simpler every day, yet every day it gets

developments to the other committees

more complex too. The business units

to prioritize with the same business unit.

often don’t know what is behind the

Let’s suppose that Entertainment has

complexities and our role is to help them.

a requirement… the IT department can

Just tell me what you need, and we will

deploy a system to do that. They define

help you to build it, or we’re happy to let

their requirements together, and if it is

you know what exists. That process in the

in development, they go through the

previous organization was impossible.”

committee and help them to build the

One of the new tools deployed by Boldt

case. It could be that they’re in a posi-

is RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and

tion to buy software and so we can help

DeSantis’ team made a hard evaluation

them in order to make the comparison

and comparison of different tools before

between different solutions to get to the

deciding on Automation Anywhere, which

final decision. Or, if someone has an initi-

they are in the process of deploying.

ative that impacts in IT or in a corporate

“We are working with different business

system, The Software Factory can detect

units to gather all the things they have

that and involve the correct people. If it’s

to automate,” he explains. “Our idea is

an IT project, they send it to the person

to deploy the software and then hire a

responsible. If it’s a mixed project, they

vendor to train our team so I can then

take the responsibility of the follow-up

train internally thereafter. In addition to www.theinterface.net

9

that, they can support us in the process of deploying the different RPAs at the beginning, because there is going to be some delay until you catch up. We are working towards April, for the deployment of a lot of RPA initiatives.”

DeSantis is very concerned with the impacts of the cultural change at Boldt and from the beginning, explained to the team the role of the IT Business Partner and how they are going to work together.

“We build the trust and a way of working,” he explains. “They then start looking at IT as a problem solver rather than a problem generator. We can improve that process in an incremental process of improvement. Once we instill trust, we start putting in some metrics. We are going to improve and try to raise the bar every time as part of the efficiency of the process,” To those ends, Boldt are working to migrate to HANA, which is another huge project although not entirely company wide as The Software Factory works mostly in Java and .NET. “We work for different clients who have different requirements, but our main force is Java.” Another major partner to Boldt as they help to establish trust within the Group is the enterprise cyber security software company Trend Micro which provides that crucial layer of security to The Software Factory and its activities.

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“ We build the trust and a way of working.

They then start looking. They then start looking at IT as a problem solver rather than a problem generator” — M i g u e l D e S a nt i s G ro u p C I O, B oldt SA

A big Boldt initiative launched by HR

requirements and then establish how to

recently as part of this massive trans-

proceed. One collaborator might think

formational change is Impulso Boldt.

there could be an improvement on one

Impulso Boldt liberates and integrates

business unit, could be an IT need, could

the abilities of all the company’s collabo-

be a human resource request, could be, I

rators to the company’s 2-3,000 employ-

don’t know, a new coffee machine… what-

ees. “The idea is that each one of them,

ever they want, right? It has categories

if they have an initiative, can create that

like internal efficiency and improvement

initiative on a portal that we build. A team

of the quality of work, things like that.

of managers of the company, like second

You can ask anything, and depending on

level managers analyze each one of their

the initiative, that team takes care and

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proposes that they analyze the initiative.

Atlassian tool. “We have all our IT team

In some cases, they cancel it or in others

behind Jira, and whenever you receive

they proceed, build a case and present

a request, you create a ticket. You also

it to the management in order to deploy.

get an SLA (Service Level Agreement),

With HR, we also deployed a few years

providing a certain level of service, with

ago Success Factor that is a world class

all the solutions. We are starting to deploy

tool that belongs to SAP in order to align

that in the rest of the IT teams throughout

collaborators’ objectives, collaborative

the organization. In fact, a few business

work and interactions.”

units asked to deploy Jira, so they are

A major partner for Boldt is Jira who fulfil tracking requirements with its

able to create that internal request. I even made a dashboard for the IT team where 13

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you can see the SLA and the productivity among other things.”

Changes are a little more complex in the case of Communications, according to DeSantis, because if you disconnect a server, say, you have to reroute the traffic. “In Communications, we are starting to work and integrate everything together into an efficiency that is already saving us $25,000 a month. We keep on reusing because every time you disconnect a server you have to reroute or add something on the side and with COVID, that can be a little more complex. But $25,000 a month is a lot of money just for aligning things, right? Our biggest partner in that space is HPE. In fact, we have HPE servers in most cases. If we can, we buy HPE.” Everything that is digital or built for online at Boldt, is cloud native or hybrid from now on, although due to scale, some on-premise still remains. “We have on-premise, but if we can move it, we do,” DeSantis explains. “It’s easier when you start a project from a scratch, because you can do what you want. The key to the cloud is to find the features or applications that allow you to take advantage of cloud services. One option is the server-less solution, but again, that’s not for everything. Perhaps I take a whole platform and I say these two transactions could be server-less while the rest aren’t? However, every chance we get, we are going to go cloud native.

Again, sometimes it is possible; sometimes it isn’t, right?

For example, the Transactional team has lottery agencies that connect to our data center by radio because some of them are in rural zones.”

A lot of Boldt’s clients are casinos and one issue with regards to client management from an IT perspective is the fact that different casinos manage autonomously 15

and in some cases two casinos will have

aspects of entrepreneurial endeavor

completely different systems. Boldt is

and llast year saw the Boldt Group

not only centralizing within the group, but

announce an ambitious plan to tackle

also delivering infrastructure alignment

the unprecedented social and economic

and an integration of management, which

impact of Covid, from a socioeconomic

align all the clients’ solutions and appli-

standpoint. The First Report of Social

cations. “We have a different vendor in

Responsibility Actions, reflects the initi-

each business unit to provide services

atives and programmes developed by

to our firewall solutions, for example,”

the company throughout 2020, which

DeSantis explains. “We have some busi-

reaffirms its values, ethics and transpar-

ness units using Check Point and others

ency in all areas, bringing the agendas

using Fortinet; it depends on the size of

and points of view of the different units

the business unit. If it is big, we use Check

and geographies closer together, with

Point. If it is small, we use Fortinet, right?

the initiatives and commitments of Boldt’s

But each one of them has a different

business goals. “We invite you to join us

vendor and a different resource to give

in the search for improvement opportu-

support. but all of that is behind the same

nities that contribute and generate value

super vendor that is Novared. That is our

for society as a whole,” it says. “At Grupo

third level of support. So, one of the things

Boldt we assume the role of “entrepre-

we did at the beginning of this four-year

neurial social actor”, faithful to the tradi-

plan was to centralize the governance of

tion and trajectory in the market and to

that security firewall solution. I make an

the positioning achieved in the different

RFP with all the vendors that work for us

businesses. Being an ACTOR means

with the idea of having only one vendor to

being a protagonist and we do it through

provide the licenses and services. With

our CSR in each social action.”

that we made savings of $150,000 a year just for centralized services.”

2020 will forever be remembered

Boldt has developed an integral management focused on four main axes in each business unit. “In Health and

for the global crisis caused by COVID-

Nutrition: we promote care and preven-

19 and the reactions from business in

tion, and the quality of life in the commu-

dealing with the seismic shifts to oper-

nities where we operate. Education: we

ations. As with technological advance-

believe that education together with

ments, COVID has also accelerated many

technology is a transformative tool that

B o l dt SA

Miguel DeSantis Group CIO Boldt SA Experienced Executive in IT, Software and Operations of different services.

Management of Multidisplinary Teams, local and/or remote and multicultural at global companies or services. Expertise in global and regional platforms and IT solutions.

Business oriented with strong knowledge in finance and new business evaluation and valuation.

Other Interests: Jury at “Starting new ventures and company valuation”. It is last year subject of Economics and Business Administration at Di tella college.

Career Director at Degree in Programming Systems at UCES university Education: Master in Business Administration (MBA) Degree in Information Systems.

PMP - Certification number 2077842

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“ The key to the cloud is to find the features or applications that allow you to take advantage of cloud services” — M i g u e l D e S a nt i s G ro u p C I O, B oldt SA

allows equalizing opportunities. Work:

It’s a very challenging time for Boldt as

we contribute with the capacity to gener-

it looks to transform every aspect of its

ate quality employment in inclusive and

operations and its offerings and services.

diverse practices to promote employa-

The scale of the change is large, but the

bility. Environment: we are committed to

effects of this work will pave the way for

caring for the environment and human

a new Boldt, fully equipped to master the

life.” This RSE programme has seen the

challenges ahead. DeSantis is clearly

Group invest wealth as well as time and

proud of his team and relishes the chance

resources into a whole raft of initiatives

to sit at the center of such huge shifts at

designed to help its communities recover

the company. “It’s a very exciting time.

from the pandemic.

We have three and a half years in front

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of us with a lot of challenges,” DeSantis

of skills, and I am very clear in the commu-

explains.

nications and the prioritizations – I think

“It’s because of the challenges, that I

that helps a lot. But I have to say, my team

need this view of the entire portfolio and

is very professional, and they know their

the projects. That’s why I need to build

priorities. When they have a conflict, they

a PMO as quickly as possible and enjoy

know how to solve it. So, yes it really is a

some quick wins too because when

challenge, but it’s also great to be part of

everything starts up again, managing the

this change.”

projects is going to get very complex.

But we are working well. I have a whole team of professionals with a wide range 19