Mapei migrates a century of HR into the cloud

Call for change

Unifying processes

The Mapei Group (Mapei), a world leader in the production of adhesives, sealants and construction chemicals, contributes its products and technical assistance to the realization of iconic construction projects all over the world. Beginning as a family-run company a century ago, Mapei now has a portfolio of 83 production locations and about 11,000 people distributed across five continents—a business built over six decades of international growth.

Having a dispersed geographic footprint resulted in the development of an HR ecosystem accompanied by different legacy business cultures, uneven working methods and a myriad of structures and platforms (developed at local level) that could not be standardized.

For some companies, this might have been an insurmountable challenge. For Mapei, however, this was a challenge it wanted to face head-on. The company knew that remaining an industry leader, even in the digital age, would mean innovating and equipping its business with an integrated platform that would allow not only the uniform management of all HR processes, but also the adoption of an engaged corporate culture capable of attracting future talent.

When tech meets human ingenuity

In a software selection at the end of 2018, the Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) platform emerged as the solution that best positioned Mapei for future success. Accenture was chosen as the partner that would help Mapei implement this solution, along with the necessary organizational and cultural change management.

Mapei and Accenture knew upfront the scope of their challenge. Along with the need to centralize HR processes and data across the company, there was an equally strong need to let local offices retain the autonomy and agility that had long brought value to the company. In addition, a company-wide digital transformation would be an opportunity for Mapei to increase productivity and employee satisfaction, as well as employee loyalty around shared values.

Accenture, drawing on its combination of skills in Oracle solutions, the digitization of HR processes for clients around the world and unique assets such as Accenture myConcerto® —Accenture’s proprietary intelligent platform—was able to collaborate closely with Mapei and devise an ambitious international project. Capitalizing on the best practices in the sector (thanks also to the adoption of SaaS), the Mapei and Accenture project team developed a group system that relies on a single source of HR data valid for all Mapei legal entities, equipping the customer with a global reporting system able to enhance the best of local customizations, while improving the management of the headcount. The new Oracle HCM platform was implemented first in the largest and most complex countries, and then as a core model in the other countries of the Group.

A valuable difference

Going global at record speed

The new Oracle HCM platform, implemented in compliance with a tight schedule, has equipped Mapei for the first time with a common HR database and an effective global and local reporting system, eliminating manual data collection activities.

A dedicated workshop, brought together in Milan, allowed all the Group's local HR to familiarize themselves with the new approach to HR management enabled by digital technology, and to review in their respective countries the new working methods and innovations introduced.

The new job architecture delivered by the project aligns the management of HR themes for all Group companies, while still leaving a margin of flexibility in the management of some relevant data. HR business partners are now able to manage HR information directly in the system and, thanks to integration with payroll's system, the numerous offline data collection and communication activities between HR and payroll functions have been eliminated.

The standardization of structured processes at the Group level for management objectives and performance management has been enabled, allowing their application to all countries. The use of an advanced recruiting system, fully integrated with staff and organizational data (Core HR), speeds up the management of the recruitment process, and compensation has moved from a process managed through Microsoft Excel to automated management using the workflows available in the Oracle HCM platform.

With this new platform in place, Mapei now has the glue that is able to make yesterday's disparate HR adhere to the company’s unique new HR vision of tomorrow.