Grupo AFAL Case Study
Unlocking value from implement to operate and beyond
Headquartered in Baja California, Grupo AFAL is a leader in the quick-service and fast-casual restaurant sector in Mexico. The company’s impressive brand portfolio includes Sal de Jade, Cypress, and El Café 57, and it is a key franchisee of Carl’s Junior. With more than 100 restaurants throughout Mexico, Grupo AFAL employs more than 5,000 people. Vertical integration between its restaurant, real estate and logistics & distribution divisions further strengthens the company’s operating model, contributing to its growth and positioning it for long-term success.
The problem
Grupo AFAL’s HR system had been built out piece by piece. While certain aspects, such as Payroll, were quite robust, the system as a whole lacked the integration and modern capabilities needed to empower managers and employees.
While changing entrenched ways of doing things would be challenging, leaders recognized that maintaining the status quo was not an option. Complex, manual processes and inadequate systems were preventing Grupo AFAL from optimizing its workforce and developing and retaining talent to meet its business objectives. Having used Workday in a previous role at another company, Magaña knew there was a better way. With the goal of making things easier for employees, and therefore freeing them to focus on what matters, Magaña and other leaders decided to implement the Workday platform, starting with core Workday Human Capital Management (HCM).
In our previous system, even simple HR transactions, like an end user asking to update their phone number or debit card, took a very long time. A user would need to submit their request through their manager and then the manager would need to route the request through HR, and HR would need to go to a specialist—and so it went, all the way around.
René Magaña Human Resources Director for Grupo Afal
The plan
Established in 1994, Grupo AFAL had been operating with essentially the same culture and work requirements for over 30 years. Therefore, implementing a modern, cloud platform like Workday would require more than cultural evolution; it would require a paradigm shift. “In order to attain our goals of being more efficient and accurate with the HR services we provide, we needed to break entrenched patterns and influence all of our managers, all of our directors, and everyone to start using this new technology,” said Magaña. “For that level of change, we needed a reliable implementation partner who not only knew how to deploy the technology but also how to instill leading practices, gain buy-in, and drive adoption throughout the organization.”
With this in mind, Grupo AFAL selected Deloitte to help guide its Workday-enabled transformation. “Deloitte had all the capabilities we were looking for and their previous track record of successful implementations with the Group and elsewhere made them a practical choice for us,” says Magaña. “They brought a deep understanding of Workday, including proprietary tools like FastForward powered by Workday, a pre-configured leading practice solution, which helped us determine which processes to focus on first. They also brought knowledge of best practices that helped us understand where we could go next to empower our people and get more value from our Workday investments.”
The project team leveraged these capabilities, along with a joint commitment to managing change and gaining buy-in, to roll out the core Workday HCM solution at Grupo AFAL efficiently and cost-effectively. As a testament to the success of this initial effort, the project team, with the help of Deloitte went on to implement Workday Adaptive Planning as well as the Workforce Planning and Learning modules of Workday HCM.
The results
Once the project team overcame the initial resistance, users embraced the new system as they realized that it made their jobs much easier. Leveraging Workday’s robust self-service capabilities, employees and managers are now empowered to perform many HR transactions through their mobile phones. They can also do all of their trainings wherever and whenever they want, whether at home, at work or on the go. Leaders are also benefitting from real-time reports and dashboards to make informed decisions, where previously it could take up to a month to locate the data and run a report. Furthermore, Finance and HR teams now have all the information they need for planning, budgeting, and optimizing the workforce all in one place, along with robust automation to shorten the planning cycle and advanced analytics to unearth insights.
The benefits, however, didn’t stop there. Understanding that go live is Day One, the HR and IT support teams are well-positioned not only to maintain but also to continuously optimize and refine the system, with the help of Deloitte’s Operate services, a new type of dynamic managed services focused on value-based, business outcomes.
“Guided by the North Star of empowering its employees, Grupo AFAL is firmly committed to developing and maturing their HR processes,” observes Rosina Morales, a partner in Deloitte’s Technology and Transformation Practice and Workday Alliance leader for LATAM. “It has been a pleasure to partner with them on this transformation journey and to witness the excitement as their managers and workers realize the many ways in which Workday can enhance their experience. With other modules and features under consideration, we’re looking forward to next steps and to helping Grupo AFAL to unlock even more value from their Workday platform from implement to operate and beyond.”
Deloitte brought a deep understanding of Workday, including proprietary tools like FastForward powered by Workday, a pre-configured leading practice solution, which helped us determine which processes to focus on. They also brought knowledge of leading practices that helped us understand where we could go next to help empower our people and get more value from our Workday investments.
René Magaña Human Resources Director for Grupo Afal
