Liberty Latin America: Keeping customers connected by linking employees from Colombia to Curaçao
Enabling HR teams to add even greater value
Liberty Latin America helps people in some of the world’s remotest areas to connect. By integrating the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution and an SAP Cloud ERP solution, the communications company has linked its own dispersed workforce, enhancing HR processes, accelerating reporting, and helping keep a unique corporate culture alive.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Telecommunications | Latin America | 10,600 employees |
to create headcount reports, down from 15 days.
day to allow new employees to submit expenses, down from 2 to 3 months.
of automated tasks replacing manual work.
Vice President for People Operations, Liberty Latin America
Harmonizing information and processes across the business
Liberty Latin America is connecting communities and changing lives in more than 30 distinct markets across Puerto Rico, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Some of these are islands so remote that employees must travel by plane or boat to reach them, and hurricanes are a fact of life for many.
This geographical spread has a huge influence on company culture and HR operations. María Pueyrredon, Vice President for People Operations at the company, explains: “Our people have different cultures, ethnicities, and ways of working. We aim to standardize as much as possible, but we also try to nurture the dynamics that make our cultures and peoples so special.”
Prior to implementing a unified suite of SAP solutions, multiple acquisitions helped Liberty Latin America expand across the region, but they also left the company with a patchwork of around 15 different ERP systems and 7 HR information systems. Integrating each new company and its employees was “a nightmare,” according to Pueyrredon. On day-to-day business, she adds: “Every manual process came with controls, so we had to take screenshots, download reports, and certify documents by hand. Connecting our employees with an HR person was very difficult because we don’t have someone in each of our markets. Even changing an address took time; and if an employee moved, we couldn’t easily track this.”
On the reporting side, it took one person half their working month to create a headcount report from information in different systems and formats. And any change, such as a new hire, during this process meant information was often out of date by the time the report was completed. Lacking one source of HR and financial data made it difficult to pay people correctly, onboard people efficiently, and view employee data quickly.
Due to the nature of the company, new employees often need to travel from day one. Pueyrredon explains: “A new employee today may need to be in Puerto Rico or the Bahamas tomorrow. Making that happen demanded a lot of effort behind the scenes. They couldn’t book a ticket themselves, and reimbursement had to wait until they were connected with expense management software.” Legal compliance was also an issue across the different markets, including 16 islands with their own governments and laws.
Pueyrredon says, “To enable efficiency and growth and be the best company possible for our employees, we needed to introduce a platform that could help us improve connectivity on both the finance and HR side. And the platform had to provide a great experience so our employees would be fully on board.”
Vice President for People Operations, Liberty Latin America
Centralizing and unifying employee data
The communications company decided that integrating a suite of SAP solutions—including SAP Cloud ERP and the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution—would help it connect finance and HR data across diverse countries and automate processes.
Pueyrredon says, “With these solutions, we could build a single platform for different markets and harmonize our processes using standardized software. With a short implementation time frame, we needed to stay efficient from a budget perspective, and standardization would help with that too.”
This approach would also enable easier access to HR data. “We decided to use SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central as a point of entry. So, whether it’s payroll or benefit information, even if it’s in a third-party solution, we wanted people to use one home page to access it.”
Vice President for People Operations, Liberty Latin America
Creating an automated, smart, and connected HR organization
In leveraging a suite of SAP solutions, the company is better positioned to align its processes, connect its data, and support its people—no matter how remote their location.
Now, Liberty Latin America has one source of data on employees, whether they spend their days among city skyscrapers or island-hopping by plane. According to Pueyrredon, “Creating a single source of truth for our employee data has been amazing. From day one, we could create a headcount report in minutes. You can’t imagine how important that is in a hurricane zone: If we need to make sure an employee is okay, we can connect with them quickly because we have their data.”
Having information at their fingertips enables HR to make smarter decisions too. Pueyrredon explains, “We can see how many people we have with a specific talent, how many people are in a country, or how we’re taking care of our employees in another market. This has really changed our way of working.”
Unifying processes in one platform has enabled a new shared-services approach, with both managers and employees also able to self-serve. For instance, a manager can change an employee cost center themselves in seconds, while an employee can swiftly update their home address or marital status.
Overall, the HR organization is leaner, more efficient, and more strategic. Pueyrredon elaborates, “We complete a transaction, such as an employee spot bonus, and it flows to our payroll system, gets processed, and goes directly to the general ledger account. We don’t touch it at all. We also need fewer controls because it’s automatic, and there are fewer possibilities for error.”
On the expenses front, new employees can link with SAP Concur solutions using their e-mail address to book travel tickets and get reimbursed, enjoying a smooth and streamlined experience from day one. Employees can access everything from pay slips to vacation information from one source. And HR is released from operational tasks to add value in areas such as talent acquisition and management. Pueyrredon cites the example of the company’s move from cable to fiber, where HR is now free to focus on reskilling technicians.
Compliance, including with financial regulations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, is more efficient. So is the process of acquiring and divesting companies. According to Pueyrredon, “We had a big integration recently when we bought Claro Panama. From a system perspective, we just took the data and put it into SAP SuccessFactors solutions, and things were completely smooth. When we previously did the same in Costa Rica, it was a huge challenge because we had different platforms, systems, and ways of categorizing employees and managing benefits, with no system for harmonizing them.”
As for the broader workforce, Pueyrredon says, “Our implementation has been a great opportunity to keep that connection going among employees. It’s not only linking communities but also connecting our employees with each other by making access to data more seamless. We’ve gained more than a system; we’ve gained an employee experience—and a great one at that.”
Building on its new HR foundation
Implementing SAP Cloud ERP and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central was just the start. Liberty Latin America is now ready to expand its use of SAP’s integrated suite of HR and finance solutions by deploying other SAP SuccessFactors solutions that will help it manage areas from employee recognition and talent acquisition to recruiting, employee service delivery, and variable compensation.
The company intends to continue to unify HR processes. Pueyrredon says, “We want to go deeper with harmonization, making sure we keep custom functionality only if needed by law or because one of our policies requires it. We want to make things even more lean and effective across everything we do.”
Another potential area of interest involves leveraging AI capabilities in SAP SuccessFactors solutions, including the Joule copilot. AI can help enhance HR interactions and make it easier to complete common tasks, such as finding answers to HR policy questions or creating job descriptions.
In addition, SAP SuccessFactors solutions will play an important role in helping HR transform so it can better reskill people in new technologies as they arise, for example, by equipping workers accustomed to making door-to-door sales to assist customers with new self-installation products.
As the company’s digital landscape evolves, the flexibility and breadth of SAP’s suite of solutions helps ensure the platform can grow with its needs.
As Pueyrredon says, “This is what we do for a living: We connect people. Now that our employees are connected too, we can move forward. Because of the different solutions it brings, SAP gives us possibilities to continue to grow.”