An investment of RS 3,2 million in the inauguration of an operations center (NOC) last year, reinforces CIMCORP’s strategy of intensifying the business model based on the offer of infrastructure as a service (laaS) to mid-sized and large companies.

Headquartered in São Paulo, where the company’s central offices are located, the center is equipped to meet client demand with a highly complex technological environment, as well as those who have less sophisticated facilities. Its operations tend to maintain the leadership in the area of services in the composition of CIMCORP’s revenue, which is approximately 60%.

Conceived during the first half of last year, the IaaS model has similarities with another one of the same type applied in the area of software, the SaaS, which consists of the provision of software as a service. The principle is the same: the client hires the service and pays a monthly fee corresponding to its use. The difference resides in the dimension of the service. Besides software, the laaS applies the entire IT infrastructure, in other words, hardware, maintenance, security, management, monitoring and support. All of these resources are “packaged” as an IT service and transformed into an investment with monthly payments.

Whoever purchases the package is offered access to complete and updated IT environments without the need for heavy initial investments. By means of this new center of operations, CIMCORP provides three types of services. One is the complete monitoring of the infrastructure involving the availability of the networks, control of all applications and traffic services, besides their local and remote capacity.

The second type is called capacity planning, which requires the constant monitoring of resource consumption and the performance of the applications, in order to guarantee the optimization of the technological park. In order to do so, CIMCORP performs simulations to assist the clients in the construction of a plan to support the data processing by using the existing infrastructure. CIMCORP’s know-how in the consolidation and virtualization of servers and storage of data is an asset in the implementation of this type of service.

Finally, the operations center provides a service based on the CMDB (Configuration Management Database) concept, directed towards the organization of the information on IT infrastructure involving plans, layouts, systems configurations, the process of business and users, among other factors. It is a type of management that consolidates the data originating from various sources and transforms them into reliable information within the IT environment, which will serve to support clients’ daily activities.

With 20 years in operation, CIMCORP has 30% of its sales represented by its permanent service contracts. They are two or three year contracts, which are in progress, explains the director, José Roberto Rodrigues. “We work with everything related to infrastructure and data center”. According to him, since 2003 the company has recorded an annual growth of 50%. During the fiscal year of 2007, sales evolved by 70% to R$ 130 million, thus the projection of R$ 200 million in 2008.

Rodrigues believes that the current economic scenario can favor the advance of outsourcing among the financial institutions, considering the fact that in Latin American countries in general, this type of contract faces resistance and is even seen with suspicion. “Banks have more flexibility to move assets”, the executive observed, adding that with the outsourcing model it is possible to obtain a lower level of structure management. According to him, for an organization that intends to implement a solution, either CRM or ERP, the SaaS models as well as the IaaS are the most important.

The service provider’s credibility is essential to overcome such obstacles. CIMCORP, for example, is proud of having the SO 9000 certification for over ten years. Besides this, the company received the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) seal and also the PMO (Project Management Office) certification, which is a service project and administration methodology.

In the financial market, CIMCORP is present in practically all banks, including the Bank of Brazil and Caixa Econômica Federal, for which it has developed several types of projects in the area of IT infrastructure. With offices in eight capital cities — Belo Horizonte, Vitória, Brasília, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo – and sales channels in the entire Northern and Northeastern regions, the company has a historic average of providing service to approximately 300 accounts a year. According to Rodrigues, the client portfolio grows at an average annual rate of 20%.

The company has 180 collaborators, the great majority (80%) of which is allocated to the technical area. There are 80 employees in São Paulo and each branch has pre-sales and post-sales professionals who operate in the local markets. “We have infrastructure partners where we certify our team, and project management that normalizes the methodologies for the entire group”, revealed Rodrigues. Besides the operations center in São Paulo, CIMCORP has a help desk center in Belo Horizonte.

In order to stay competitive and demonstrate that it is prepared to meet client demand, CIMCORP invests in the preparation of its collaborators, especially the project engineering team. The formula is in understanding the client’s business in order to provide an IT solution in conformity with its specific needs.

Specialized in technology and outsourcing services, CIMCORP is a private company that has the Bank of America, ABN Amro Capita (subsidiary of the ABN Amro Bank) and the founders as its shareholders. The company operates in the market through two business units: system integration and continued services. With the laaS model, which works in total alignment with the best governance practices proposed by Itil and Cobit, the prospect is making information technology become a financially viable goal for the majority of companies.

Source: Executivos Financeiros (Financial Executives)