If we have selected the wrong experience for you, please change it above.
Fine-tuning the engine
How a global food company wrung all the value from its IT investments
THE SITUATION
By some estimates, your average automobile is built out of roughly 30,000 parts. Put those parts together in basically the right order and you have a car that will get you from point A to point B. But if you want that same car to run at the peak of its potential—with optimal fuel efficiency and at optimal performance levels—you need to do more than assemble the pieces. You need to optimize their performance—optimize how they work together.
The metaphor extends to IT as well. A leading global food company, operating a complex network of production facilities and employing more than 100,000 people, had, when it came to its IT infrastructure, invested in the “parts”—in a suite of advanced technology platforms designed to help it run the business. And yet the company wanted more—wanted to not just modernize those IT operations but, in the process, strengthen cybersecurity and elevate the employee experience. And to make that happen, the company knew it needed a strategic collaborator to help it manage and optimize that existing IT environment. Deloitte would be that collaborator.
The goal of said collaboration? To drive greater efficiency, scalability, and operational excellence—while facilitating business continuity and fostering ongoing innovation.
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR IT STACK?
NO EASY TASK.
THE SOLVE
Deloitte was engaged to assume responsibility for the management and optimization of the company’s selected technology stack— and to do it as an AI-led managed service from the outset. Rather than layering automation afterward, our team built ServiceNow AIOps and Deloitte's Ascend for Operate platform into the foundation of delivery, using AI-driven monitoring, predictive triage and automated remediation to run the environment more precisely than a traditional staff augmented model could.
Our multidisciplinary team delivered a holistic transformation across several key areas:
- Workforce productivity and collaboration: Deloitte worked to stand up a better approach to managing and optimizing the company’s collaboration and productivity platforms, allowing for secure, effective communication and productivity for the workforce. To bring the professionals along on the journey, we also led user-adoption programs and provided ongoing support to maximize the value of these tools.
- Hybrid infrastructure managed services: We oversaw the operation and optimization of critical infrastructure and applications across both on-premises and cloud environments—which included thousands of physical and virtual servers—to maintain scalability, resilience, and efficient operations.
- Identity and access management: We provided a comprehensive approach to the management of identity and access systems, in the process strengthening security and streamlining user experiences across the organization.
- Cybersecurity enhancement: By applying our cybersecurity experience we were able to better protect digital assets, strengthen the security posture, and support compliance with critical food industry regulations.
- Device management: Deloitte helped the company build a better approach to managing tens of thousands of desktops and laptops, providing for secure deployment, regular updates, and ongoing device health for the distributed workforce.
All of this was delivered by a multidisciplinary Deloitte team running an AI-led managed service model--one built for seamless transition, business continuity, and knowledge transfer.
DELOITTE PROFESSIONALS MOBILIZED
DOMAINS OF DELIVERY
AI PLATFORMS AT THE CORE (AIOps + Ascend for Operate)
THE IMPACT
By the end of year one, the combination of more than 400 Deloitte professionals and an AI-led operating model—anchored by ServiceNow AI Ops and Ascend for Operate—had helped the company realize:
- A connected, AI-supported IT environment for roughly 40,000 users, with 91% first-contact resolution driven by automated triage and faster issue routing.
- A 36% reduction in ticket volumes—from 28,000 to 18,000 per month—as predictive monitoring and automation caught and resolved issues earlier.
- An 84% reduction in ticket aging for tickets open more than seven days, and a 71% reduction in ticket backlog, as automated workflows replaced manual, sequential handling.
- A 20% year-over-year reduction in Priority 1 tickets, reflecting the shift from reactive firefighting to AI-driven predictive prevention.
- Reduced operational costs through targeted efficiency gains, with automation absorbing high-volume, repetitive work.
- A strengthened cybersecurity posture, with AI-driven threat detection supporting compliance with critical food industry regulations.
It's this breadth—not any single tool—that made an AI-led approach necessary in the first place. At this scale, the "parts" can't be optimized one at a time; they have to be watched, correlated and increasingly fixed as one connected system.
Having proven the AI-led model in year one, the company is now deepening it—shifting IT further from a reactive support function to a resilience enabler. AIOps will expand event correlation and auto-remediation to a broader set of repeated, automatable issues. Advanced health reporting will increase visibility through consolidated reporting and ServiceNow service maps. And AI agents, building on the Ascend for Operate foundation already in place, will take on more task execution, self-healing, and faster resolution in daily operations.
By leveraging Deloitte’s experience in large-scale, AI-led IT operations, the company is fully realizing the value of its technology investments—demonstrating how organizations can achieve greater efficiency, security and agility through AI-driven management and continuous improvement.
ONE IT “ENGINE”: FINE-TUNED FOR HIGH-QUALITY PERFORMANCE
