By Rob Preston | May 2021

In a world in which companies describe even their most mundane initiatives as feats of “transformation,” Brazil’s Globo is the real deal.

Globo, South America’s largest media and entertainment company, emerged from the January 2020 merger of what were separate operating units: broadcaster TV Globo, pay TV service Globosat, music company Som Livre, its DGCorp subsidiary, online site globo.com, and streaming video service Globoplay. The challenge now for the company in creating “Only One Globo” is to align the discrete systems, processes, and cultures of those previously autonomous units. No small feat.

Back in 2018, Globo started working with consulting partner Accenture on that strategic alignment, which includes design, content creation, production, programming, exhibition, and back-end processes. Among the goals: improve operational efficiency, market agility, and information flow, while bringing a variety of services to its millions of viewers as one company—Uma Só Globo.

In many cases, technology is the glue that binds that corporate integration and the broader transformation. It includes “our day-to-day operations, the operational model that guides our work, the firm’s internal culture, and the way we deliver services to our end customers,” says Renata Pessoa, who as Globo’s director of corporate solutions leads the tech team at the center of the transformation.

Back-office overhaul

Another focus area is Globo’s back-end financial processes. Working with Accenture, the company is consolidating three different sets of financial applications onto the Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite, modernizing its procurement, accounts payable, expense reporting, and other key processes, while reducing IT management costs. Built-in AI capabilities will help it increase the automation of those processes.

Oracle Cloud ERP will make both long- and short-term financial decision-making easier, Pessoa says.

Long term, “we want to have a more complete vision of the P&L for each channel and each program,” she says, “to be able to make the right decisions to have an adequate return.” Shorter term, say the producer of one of Globo’s telenovelas decides while walking to the set that she needs a certain kind of sofa to make a scene work. Tapping the Oracle Cloud ERP procurement module on her mobile phone, she can enter the order on the spot, Pessoa notes.

Meanwhile, Globo is working with Accenture to implement Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM), a suite of human resources applications. The main goals of that rollout—which began at the same time as the Oracle Cloud ERP implementation, in June 2020—is to make it easier for employees to access a range of basic HR data (vacation time, paystubs, health benefits, etc.) as well as engage with more strategic performance, training, workforce health and safety, and other HR applications. Unlike its “big bang” ERP rollout, Globo is rolling out the Oracle Cloud HCM modules in stages.

The set of TV Globo’s Fantastico news program, the most watched show on Brazilian television every Sunday evening.

The company’s Oracle Cloud HCM implementation and HR process integration go hand in hand with its broader efforts to create a single cultural identity. “When we merged different companies, each one had its own different culture,” Pessoa says. “A lot of different people coming together resulted in a new mix of people and, naturally, a new culture. One common, integrated HR system will help bring that all together.”

Why Oracle?

Pessoa says Globo, which is scheduled to complete both the ERP and HCM implementations in August 2021, was drawn to the Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications suite for two main reasons:

• Oracle brings years of experience engaging with customers worldwide, incorporating what it learns into a clear product roadmap and then delivering best-in-class features each quarter. “Then it is on us at Globo to see what’s coming and use that in the way that’s best suited for our context,” Pessoa says. “Not everything will make sense for our processes, but now we have a partner that is thinking of how the process will evolve right by our side.”
• Unlike the applications of other major technology providers that Globo evaluated, Oracle’s are cloud native. “It was not just some software that was eventually migrated to the public cloud. No, it was reconstructed for the public cloud,” she says. “That significantly decreases the friction in designing integrations across a whole solution, which in turn needs to communicate with Globo’s legacy systems.”

“Bringing together the finance and HR processes across all Globo divisions requires strong leadership, vision, and powerful cloud applications,” says Alexandre Maioral, vice president of applications for Oracle Brazil. “We are delighted to work with Accenture to transform Globo’s challenges into opportunities for innovation and to make ‘Uma Só Globo’ a reality.”

Photography courtesy of Globo