Grupo LAR chooses Cezanne for its flexibility and modular approach

Grupo Lar specialises in the development of real estate projects. The company is unusual in its industry sector because of its focus on alliances and because of its business approach and vision. Grupo Lar’s strategic plans are based on a combination of innovation and constant and solid organic growth. In fact, during the last three years the size of the company has doubled, and in the next five years the plan is to triple in size and reach a turnover of 1.2 billion Euros, 30% of which should come from international operations.

Helping HR to support growth
This focus on international expansion has led Grupo Lar to enter the Mexican market, as well as central and Eastern Europe with the opening of offices in Poland, Hungary and Romania, among others. In order to support this exponential growth, the company has undergone a revolution in the way it manages its recruitment, development and talent retention activities; tasks that are traditionally the responsibility of the HR department. To meet the new challenge, the company needed to be able to implement a standard approach across all countries, using the same tools and processes and, ultimately, adopting a common culture that could be enriched by the practices of each country.

These requirements led Grupo Lar to Cezanne Software and its solutions for human capital management. Commenting on the choice of Cezanne, Ana Sarasibar, HR Director of Grupo Lar, says: “For us, a tool like Cezanne, that allows us to have a very dynamic HR database, was key. We also valued the flexibility and modular approach of the Cezanne suite, which encompasses support for pretty much all of the processes related to HR management”.

She continues: “Before we started working with Cezanne we evaluated several other packages and solutions from other vendors. Cezanne’s was the one that gave us the best feeling; it made us feel that Cezanne “know” HR issues and this knowledge is reflected in the product. We also felt that the group of people behind the scenes at Cezanne Software understand their customers, and react to their needs.”

Function-rich, yet easy to customise
“We’re not using much of the product in its standard form, as we wanted to customise several areas to suit our unique business approach”, explains Ana Sarasibar. “This ease of customisation is another advantage that Cezanne offers. For example, we were able to adapt Cezanne’s competency evaluation functionality to support our complex needs and models.”

Grupo Lar has already implemented the following modules:
- Cezanne People, which is used to collect information for all employees.
- Cezanne Performance - the module for competency/performance evaluation. This was the most important system for Grupo Lar and, as a result, is the one that has been customised the most. The system contributes to the development of individual employees and, as a consequence, to the company itself. The system has been set up to assign a specific competency profile to each role, which means that managers can see if individual employees posses the level of competency required for the role, and makes it easier for them to define personal development plans.
- Cezanne Budget, which allows the company to calculate HR costs and define forecasts.
The next module to go live will be Cezanne Training, which provides tools to plan and administer a wide range of training activities.

Looking to the future
In the mid term, Grupo Lar plans to implement all of the other modules in the Cezanne Enterprise suite, as well as role out a full employee and manager portal. For the company it is important to get the maximum benefit from the applications that have already been rolled out.

As Ana Sarasibar explains: “At the moment, the benefits for the human resources department are tangible, but they are less visible for the rest of the group. The ultimate objective is to make the system more widely available and give managers access to information about both themselves and their teams. This will free up the time that the Human Resources Department currently spends dealing with problems and questions.

Once the roll out is finished, integration with other applications will go ahead. The project, which is planned for next year, will create a single repository for all of the salary data in the group. The information will be drawn from the individual employee payroll applications used at country level and will allow Grupo Lar to produce integrated reports.

A very positive result
Grupo Lar is already using the Cezanne systems to manage 350 of its employees; a number that increases if you take into account the competency evaluation module, which has been rolled out to all of the groups’ employees worldwide.

Overall, the results have been very positive. Ana Sarasibar explains: “We are a demanding and complex company and Cezanne has delivered a solution that fits our needs. We also appreciate the human side of the relationship. We feel we are “treated well” because Cezanne listens to our requests and responds to them. The feeling they give us is that they are not just suppliers, but partners in a project that we are working on together.

“Looking at the changes within Grupo Lar, we have seen improvements in both management and processes. For instance, because we are using Cezanne Budget for all aspects of the personnel budget we no longer have to use more complicated and less efficient systems, like creating Excel spreadsheets that have to be linked together. Thanks to Cezanne, everything is easier - which means we save time - and we have the added benefit of having historical data available.”

In addition, we gain access to reports and analysis that just weren’t available to us before. In summary, the use of Cezanne gives us a lot more flexibility, specifically in the quality of information available and the ability to access new data. The most significant benefit for us is the competency evaluation tool, Cezanne Performance. It is a powerful tool that the company will use to support strategic activities, such as employee development and salary planning. The Cezanne solution provides essential support for our Human Resources Department”.

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