"This is the year for strengthening the Group: in 2021 we are strengthening our culture, maintaining the specificities of each organization and betting on the synergies that make us stronger."

Alexandre Rosa, CEO of Noesis, talks about the integration of Noesis into the Altia Group, the objectives and next steps.

Alexandre Rosa. CEO of Noesis, an Altia Company

Noesis, an Altia Company… and more so all the time

At Noesis we feel, more and more, that we are an "Altia Company". And this is what we have been working toward since our integration into the Group in 2020.

We have developed a plan for 2021-2023 with a set of ambitious objectives based on five pillars of action – People, Markets, Operations, Marketing and Management Control. A plan that will allow us to grow at a strong pace and increase our international "footprint", always keeping our goal in mind – add value to our clients.

This is the year for strengthening the Group: in 2021 we are strengthening our culture, maintaining the specificities of each organization and betting on the synergies that make us stronger.

As we approach the end of 2021, we have the feeling that this is the first year of operation as the Altia Group, but with the optimism and security that many important steps are already underway.

The creation of an Executive Committee, an organization model that allows us to maintain a strategy focused on growth and have a better dialogue between the two companies, seeking synergies, sharing good practices, and standardizing processes within the group;

In Management and Financial Control, the appointment of Luís Castro, CFO of Noesis and member of the Executive Committee;

In Marketing we took steps to strengthen the two brands. In addition to a strategic alignment to capitalize on good practices and the exchange of knowledge, several Go-to-market actions were carried out, together with other initiatives, in the different markets in which the companies operate.

In People management, we shared practices and standardized processes at the level of Human Resources Management. But more than that, we have reinforced the Group's staff with new talent that adds strength and capacity to the two companies;

In Spain, the hiring of essential resources and consultants also represented an important milestone in terms of Operations;

In the International Markets we see positive signs that confirm our vision that together we are able to innovate and add value to the Group's customer base.

Little by little, we will also overcome the difficulties imposed by the pandemic that hindered us and made many of the initiatives to promote union between teams and companies unviable.

Certainly, there's a lot of work to be done: improve processes, create new synergies, and establish new links. Let us hope that 2022 brings us more freedom to travel and move around and that in this way we can be together more to continue the path we started in 2020.

The “Oracle Retail” project is divided into four sub-projects.

Release management

This project aims to protect the production environment, allowing business corrections and improvements to be implemented in a controlled way through the management, planning, scheduling, and control of releases in different states and environments, by reducing the probability of errors in production and using formal checks and procedures.

Reduction in the probability of errors in production, increase in delivery quality, greater standardization of processes, and streamlining of the Deploy process were some of the benefits that this unit was able to generate.

Deploy management

The main objective of this project is to ensure the quality of code delivery in non-productive environments and protect the production environment through the use of an automated tool for managing and implementing Deploys, namely FlexDeploy, as well as streamlining implementation times, monitoring and control of code and versions implemented in all environments and continuous improvement in the Deploy process.

This project ensured that the client achieved a reduction in release implementation time, environment setup and environment alignment, greater confidence in delivery, cost reduction with deploy automation, and reduction in the probability of errors in production.

Madrid System Testing

The main objective of this project was to guarantee the correct flow of information between two deploys using an access tool to the Madrid system. All this with administrative capacity, ensuring that the information is processed on the correct dates, monitoring and controlling the data correctly between the systems, and executing manual processes when necessary.

With this project, Primark ensured better consistency between systems, greater confidence in delivery, and reduced the probability of errors in production.

Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT)

Noesis’ fundamental objective was to successfully deliver the OAT phase for both Releases, allowing the client to have a highly secure system capable of functioning in case of failure.

The implementation of this project allowed the client to benefit from a secure system without vulnerabilities, secure communications, and an effective recovery plan in a short time in a natural disaster recovery situation, increasing the possibility of data recovery and ensuring that the system is recoverable in case of failure (backups and restores). The project also allowed the client to benefit from a system with high availability, resilience, and without points of failure since it allows all applications to be in regular operation without performance failures.

In the Primark ePOS project – System Integrated / Performance & Operational Acceptance Testing, the main objective is to identify and report failures/bugs so that they are corrected until the final product reaches the desired/agreed quality. The project also aims to avoid errors in production at an operational level (OAT – Operational Acceptance Testing) and Performance and a functional level, ensuring that the system meets all legal and fiscal requirements and is put into production with as few errors as possible.

With this project, the client ensured improved consistency between systems, greater confidence in delivery, and reduced probability of errors in production.

Several Noesis teams are focused on the development of these projects, which have already counted or still count on the collaboration of the talents Fábio Araújo, from the Infrastructure Solutions business unit, Ana Filipa Vieira, Ana Rita Santos, Ana Sofia Fernandes, André Marques, Andreia Guedes, Ângela Neves, António Rodrigues, Álvaro Leal, Bruno Ferreira, David Lopes, Fábio Barbosa, Fábio Sousa, Fábio Vieira, Juliana Sousa Travassos, Pedro Ferreira, Rafael Alves, Rodrigo Medina, Ruben Oliveira, Telma Graça and Tiago Leite, from the Quality Management business unit, and Bruno Pereira, Hugo Negrão, João Subtil, Marcos Rafael Soares, Pedro Miguel Paredes and Rafael Costa, from the DevOps & Automation business unit.

*Reference to these clients is for internal knowledge only. Due to our contractual agreements with these clients, reference to them outside Noesis’ internal network is prohibited.

Through a proof of concept, Noesis found that the incoming data flow was inconsistent. The Business Intelligence system did not aggregate all the necessary metrics to formulate a practical analysis.

Miguel Cunha, Noesis responsible for the development of the project at McDonald's, explains that "it was necessary to have a tool that would allow the analysis of sales dynamically and ensure that the various McDonald's systems were interconnected, integrating information and generating coherent data with value for the business."

A tool was then created to automate data processing and data flow management, using Qlik Sense technology, a leading tool for the new generation of Data Analytics, which facilitated the creation of a centralized data repository.

João Gonçalves adds that the project aimed to "present a solution to monitor sales by store, by product and with very detailed drill-down" with the ultimate objective of “understanding the results and performance of the stores.”

The new intelligent system created had the main objectives of being a reliable source of information for the end-users, centralizing the flow of data from different sources, improving usability and user experience for information analysis and research, and ensuring information and data security.

The new "McDonald's Sales Analysis" system, which has more than 25 analytical measures in 30 dimensions, has the following main features:

• The centralization and flexibility to manage large amounts of data flow daily, correlating factors and turning unstructured data into valuable insights.
• Custom report generator, where users can choose, select, export, and relate different dimensions, considering their reality.
• Centralization of data from different payment methods.

Harmonization of data from the various restaurants; sales management, payment history, invoicing; the automation and daily updating of the results of each restaurant, and the visibility and transparency of sales performance indicators for restaurants and other areas of interest to the business were some of the benefits of the BI system developed.

In addition to Miguel Metelo da Cunha and João Gonçalves, the project has the collaboration of Nuno Encantado Faria and Pedro Lopes.

GCO Resource Plan is the name of the first application to be developed by the first work team. The solution, which allows the allocation calculation of the human resources needed for clinical studies, is already in the production stage, having received excellent acceptance by the business and end-users. Its expansion to other areas is already being considered.

With the entry of the second work team, the development of the Supply Chain began, an application for the logistics of medicines and clinical materials, which is also in the production stage with a new evolutionary pipeline currently underway. After its first release into production, the CBO Budget application is also in the evolutionary development phase, which aims to manage the budget required for each research and clinical center.

As a result of the excellent work developed and the ambition of expansion, and the strong commitment of BeiGene to using OutSystems platform, a third work team joined the project and started the MyApprovals project.

Presently in the pilot phase, this application centralizes pending approval requests from various sources such as DocuSign, SAP Concur, and SAP.

The fourth application to go into production was the HR Awards, characterized by its design and broad target audience (a universe of more than 6,000 BeiGene employees). This application was developed to facilitate and make the process of awarding the Productivity Bonuses interactive and aims to promote the company's core values.

Led by team 2, two more applications were also developed. GDRS, currently in production, is an application focused on Supplier Contract Management and Ethics Comitee Letter, currently undergoing acceptance testing and improving BeiGene's Supplier Contract Management processes.

In line with BeiGene's strong commitment to digital transformation, more recently, the need to increase the capacity of the development teams has emerged, and a fourth work team joined. This team is working in the initiation phase of a new application: BeRI, which will seek to meet BeiGene's needs in centralizing critical documentation globally and in a large-scale company with a wide geographic dispersion.

According to José Carlos Pereira, Low-Code Solutions Director, "the balance is very positive, and client feedback has been excellent."

José Carlos Pereira highlights the team's performance and proficiency in the face of challenges. "In a very demanding context, with aggressive timelines, different time zones, and the fact of starting a factory from scratch, in a client without experience in the agile model, there was a need for parallelization of work, which requires great coordination and teamwork, thus as an excellent communication with the client."

Initially coordinated by Nuno Lopes, the four work teams currently have the coordination of Tiago Fernandes, Low-Code Solutions Manager, to develop the applications mentioned above.

• Team 1: Ricardo Moreira, Alex Lima, Renata Pereira, and Marcelo Borges, having initially counted on the contribution of Joana Martins.
• Team 2: Carlos Hassan, Ricardo Monteiro, Ana Carvalho and Wagner Amaral.
• Team 3: Ricardo Pereira, Virgílio Abrantes and Bernardo Castel-Branco, having initially counted on the contribution of Miguel Rocha.
• Team 4: Liliana Lourenço, João Moreira, Óscar Nunes and Afonso Silva.

Across the entire project, João Veras, Inês Correia, Soraia Gonçalinho and Ana Luís Oliveira, are supporting the four teams in UI/UX Design, Front-End development, and testing.

*Reference to these clients is for internal knowledge only. Due to our contractual agreements with these clients, reference to them outside Noesis' internal network is prohibited.