Cemex Case Study

1. How did digital technology transform the way Cemex ran its business? It has been said that Cemex has refocused efforts from managing assets to managing information. Explain.

It allowed them to manage unforeseen demand since in the past customers would change their orders last minute. This new system links Cemex’s trucks to a GPS which helped dispatchers know the location, direction and speed of the vehicle and during rerouted orders; it allowed them to redirect deliveries when prompted due to last minute changes.

This change allowed the company to become more efficient by reducing delivery time and having huge savings in fuel, maintenance and personnel costs.

Now, customers, distributors and suppliers can use the internet to get direct contact with Cemex to place orders, check up on shipment delivery times and overlook payment records. Zambrano can now monitor operations in 35 countries via his laptop.

With this new technology, they have better control over what shipment is going where and how long it takes. Customers have better access to information on their orders due to this, whereas before phone lines would be jammed when they tried to get orders straight. Instead of focusing on messed up orders, orders are done correctly, so he can focus on managing the business better and more competently.

At the beginning the company was focused on managing assets “concrete business is an asset intensive….business” since all its processes were normal. The sales and delivery of cement was seen as the main arm of the business and the IT component was seen as a support department in evidence on the company’s focus on managing assets. With the change in direction the company then shifted focus and in turn spent a lot less time delivering cement relative to the time they spent making use of the information which they were able to collect. Managing of this information allowed them to more efficiently run the business.

Power consumption was closely monitored and this...