Tixis Technologies is an IT services company in the Arcelor group, a world leader in the steel industry; Tixis Technologies manages IT infrastructures and operates professional applications for more than 200 corporate customers. The company chose SAS solutions to help its customers determine the critical factors that will optimize Arcelor's IT costs.
Arcelor – a global leader in the steel industry with €26.6 billion (US$32.6 billion) in annual sales for 2002 – grew out of the merger of three European groups (Usinor, Arbed and Aceralia). Tixis Technologies was created in 2000 during the restructuring of the Usinor group, which, at the time, comprised separate units for core business activities and shared services (e.g., information technology, purchasing, administration, payroll, cash balances, accounting, etc.). Today, Tixis Technologies provides a range of solutions and services that allows its customers to strengthen competitive advantage by taking full advantage of available technologies.
Creating a process model
With a mission to provide an infrastructure that meets each customer's needs while supporting the Arcelor group's strategy of optimizing costs, Tixis Technologies has to be competitive.
From the beginning, the company decided to develop a new process model for billing its services, based on contracts signed with each of its customers.
With SAS IT Management Solutions, Tixis Technologies can:
* Input the services catalog and prices, including the determination of pricing rules.
* Establish specific pricing terms.
* Organize customer files intoa hierarchy.
* Reproduce data, such as issuing accounting invoices and reproducing billing details and content on the intranet for all customers.
"The objective beyond billing was to establish our offerings and pricing in a way that aligns with our mission," says Dominique Pineau, director of Commercial and Marketing at Tixis Technologies. "We began by benchmarking our offerings and describing them in a catalog of services that would help customers have better control over their costs. For example, since a workstation with Internet access is more expensive, it is assigned only to people who really need it. The description of the 'Workstation' offering and the corresponding price therefore broke out Internet access and, more generally, a whole set of additional services used by a more targeted population."
Better control over IT costs
Tixis Technologies decided to implement the SAS IT Management Solutions to handle its billing, a process that is based on targeted objectives and one that is becoming increasingly complex. The company uses this system not just to charge back costs, but also to control and take action on costs. After a year of collaboration with SAS, Tixis Technologies has a greater understanding of the model, its strengths and how to use it. "The SAS solution made it possible for us – and our customers – to better exploit changes in our offerings and pricing," adds Pineau. "Our old model could no longer be supported by our first billing tool, because we had too many categories and parameters to deal with. These parameters have meaning only if they provide the tools our customers need to take action regarding their costs. Each of the changes in our supply is translated into services, whose very definition and pricing must fulfill the three major principles that drive us: transparency, equity and value. For example, for the mainframe, we proposed different prices according to the time of day – this would avoid having to manage periods with too much activity and enable us to optimize our resources." In this way, Tixis Technologies defined evolving pricing based on its customers' needs, which has helped them use computer resources carefully and act on demand.
Coordinating progress with customers
Tixis Technologies established service contracts to clarify the customer/supplier relationship, using the best market practices.
The company also opted for a better structured customer file, complete declaration of its catalog (billing marketing base, formalizing the supply and sales terms) and a database that compiles all customer activities each month; Tixis Technologies then applies the sales terms to generate billing. Among the more interesting aspects of the model is that it relies on transparency and improvement process making useable information available to customers.
Thanks to SAS IT Management Solutions, Tixis Technologies now has a clear view of its workload and helps its customers monitor their costs and prepare their budgets. According to Pineau, "Our customers work on expressing their needs, and we strive to bring them solutions, working in partnership with them to reduce unit costs. We remain a preferred supplier in the sense that we have the same steel industry culture, the same shareholder, the same interests; we seek to optimize costs within the group. Our strength is in giving our customers controls that help them work in synergy and make shared choices."
Reliable analysis of services delivered
Today, the model is successful thanks to support and acceptance of the solution by both Tixis Technologies and its customers alike. The company now has a database listing all services billed. "The SAS solution's advantage is that it lets us maintain a history and retrace events accurately. Customers have access to this common base and can get excerpts, make summaries, prepare reports, etc.," comments Pineau. In this way, Tixis Technologies can demonstrate billing changes by service and by customer. It has a reliable and easily accessible analysis base, which will be fully operational in 2004.
In the future, Tixis Technologies will continue to refine and adapt its model. It also envisions exploring the range of possibilities offered by the SAS solution, such as making extrapolations, simulations or even forecasts for budgets.
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