phallerNeoris started as a true Latin American outsourcing company, as a spin-off company of Cemex, one of the biggest businesses from Mexico’s infrastructure industry. Although that beginning occurred very far away from Brazil, a little over a decade after the company started its operation in Brazil, it increasingly focuses its global strategy in the country as one of their biggest opportunities for growth in the world – especially when considering SAP services.
Such attention helps to explain the recent visit of Claudio Muruzabal, global CEO of Neoris, to the SAP Forum recently hosted in São Paulo. In an exclusive interview, he reaffirmed how important the event and the Brazilian market itself is for the company. Neoris is a certified SAP Global Partner, and 80% of the operations in Brazilian are SAP-related somehow – such as SAP ERP, Portal Business Intelligence, CRM, and manufacturing integration and intelligence, or MII.
Global Growth Expected
His expectations regarding growth for the country are clear, “In the past few years, the domestic IT market has grown considerably, and more and more the companies are seeking automization. Many of them have grown at a very fast pace, but their management process have not developed the same way.”
Even though 90% of the operations hosted within Brazil today deliver services to domestic clients, Murazabal reinforces that the goal is to grow abroad and expand services also to Brazilian clients that are aggressively internationalizing their operations – such as Vale, one of the biggest iron ore producers in the world; and Votorantim, from the infrastructure sector. “The growth of the country has paved the way for the growth of such companies,” he says.
Network of Global Centers
One segment outlined by him as especially interesting when it comes to IT services in Brazil is agribusiness – “the development of it here is impressive. Companies related to meat production, fruits, sugar, cocoa, ethanol, and many others, all require different attention and services,” he says. Among other areas cited by Muruzabal as interesting are manufacturing (an area in which Neoris already has massive presence, especially through its services provided to Usiminas), healthcare and oil & gas.
At the end of 2011 Neoris inaugurated a new global center in Barueri, located a few miles from São Paulo. The new facility employs about 150 people, but has capacity for about 250 (in Brazil, the company has about 600 workers overall), and will deliver services to local and foreign clients. From Barueri, the local Neoris team will work in constant contact with the company’s four other global centers in Rosario (Argentina), Monterrey (Mexico), Madrid (Spain), and Budapest (Hungary). Clients of Neoris Brazil include McDonald’s, Nestlé, Santander, Bradesco, Lanxes, Claro, and Souza Cruz, among others. The president of the local operations of the company in the country is Frederico Vilar.
Bilingualism Still an Issue
When it comes to difficulties of the Brazilian market, Neoris’ CEO repeats what most executives from outside the country know very well: the lack of qualified bilingual workforce. He considers it one of the main problems of companies that are arriving here from abroad, and for those who intend to provide services for clients abroad. He compares the internal situation to that in Mexico, where, according to him, it is easier to recognize the public efforts done to fight that problem.
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