One company’s innovation reduces carbon footprint – while expanding digital impression

The slogan for Mexican information technology (IT) services specialist Global HITSS is “developing a digital society.”

The company, a subsidiary of the leading telecommunications provider in Latin America, lists its goals as integrating IT technologies with other digital amenities and general communications. 

Its mission: creating a culture of energy conservation. But before this could occur, the company needed an accurate reading of consumption. Unfortunately, numerous technical and practical challenges blocked the path forward.

Obsolete, error-prone, no scalability

In the last decade, there was no technological product for organizations that offered measurements of the different energy inputs (electricity, water, and gas) in an automatic way, with a high storage volume, and in real time.

All billing information – current and historical consumption – was captured manually and with excessive processing time by the employee. This led to possible human error, hindering the analysis to identify areas of failure or reduction.  

So, Global HITSS embarked on an automation journey, leading to the development of an energy efficiency solution that would target ineffective spots; identify openings for new opportunities; and control, measure, and analyze the way energy was being consumed – reducing the company’s carbon footprint in the process.

A single vantage point

Global HITSS is one of several companies associated with América Móvil, a conglomerate based in Mexico City whose presence extends to 24 countries in Latin America, along with Central and Eastern Europe. Its subsidiaries boast a total of more than 309 million wireless subscribers.

After overseeing a large share of the corporation’s technological and financial infrastructure, and dealing with a wide network of business partners, Global HITSS has gained a reputation as one of Latin America’s premier consulting services.

To maintain that position, the manual systems would have to be discarded, and the company’s diverse data streams integrated into a single software platform that would keep an accurate record of emissions, energy, and cost reduction strategies.

The real-time energy, gas, and water consumption management system would help close the longtime void that existed between Global HITSS’ operational and financial divisions.

Multinational enterprise resource planning (ERP) software leader SAP was brought in to help the project come to fruition.  The strategy called for multiple internal applications of SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP) to ingest, process, and analyze large flows of data, including monthly energy invoices and sensor information.

The company’s other internal systems would be integrated into the process in ways that were both reliable and secure.

Utilizing real-time analytics, the energy efficiency solution would enable the company to improve its billing processes and predictive maintenance, while distilling a range of information for workers at every level of the organization.

Meeting a global need

Starting with the platform’s deployment in May 2022, small but meaningful energy efficiency measures have been taken based on the up-to-the-minute consumption data the company receives.

The results are striking: 14% savings in energy consumption, along with 9% in water and 5% in natural gas.

Since the information available on the platform is more dependable than ever before, employees can make precise decisions.

After realizing the objective of enhancing communication between the operational and financial ends of the company, Global HITSS finally has the capacity to instantly respond to situations that could not have been telegraphed in the past.

What once took days now takes minutes; the period required to upload invoice information and develop consolidated reports has been reduced more than ten times.

With data collection and other clerical tasks fully automated, users have the luxury to devote more time to problem-solving and similar high-priority activities.

Likewise, the predictive maintenance formula has saved the company both time and money, since servicing, repairing, and replacing items only occurs when warranted.

The ease with which challenges can be addressed has allowed Global HITSS to focus on taking steps to reduce the carbon footprint, while setting standards for improving the quality of life and safety, conceptualizing new technologies, and fostering innovation.

For developing this transformative platform, Global HITSS was honored as a finalist at the 2023 SAP Innovation Awards, a yearly ceremony highlighting organizations using SAP solutions to effect change – both in business and society. You can read about what they did to earn this coveted position in their comprehensive pitch deck.