By Boomi
Houston, TX-based Quanta Services is the largest contractor for electrical line resources and pipeline construction in the US, and a big enabler of the first responders to events, like natural disasters, that impact electrical grids. In 2017 when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria struck the US and Puerto Rico, Quanta was able to mobilize key resources quickly by leveraging Boomi integration technologies.
Some of those essential resources include utilities vehicles like bucket trucks, of which Quanta manages the nation’s sixth largest fleet. It’s critical for Quanta to know where all of those vehicles are 24×7, and Boomi enables that by integrating the master data, including GPS data, of Quanta’s entire fleet.
Kurt Witt, head of data management at Quanta Services, said, “During hurricanes, storms, and floods, Quanta is the first responder. We’re out there putting the power lines back up and getting homes back on the grid. Boomi syncs the GPS data for our entire fleet of vehicles across 180 operating companies ensuring that we know where all the vehicles are. During high intensity events it’s important to be able to bring those vehicles together to support the first responders.”
Boomi does much more than integrate vehicle data to provide that support — the Boomi Platform enables Quanta’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy that helps unify business-critical systems across Quanta’s 180 operating companies.
This is critical because each operating company has its own suite of systems, data in many programming languages, and other business critical systems like banking, IT administration, and treasury, built on disparate platforms.
Boomi helps Quanta speed M&A integrations by more than 75 percent. Read the case study to learn more.
For M&A to succeed, especially in times of urgency, Quanta relies on Boomi to help properly integrate operating companies much faster than before — and with minimal IT support, so that true business and service synergies can be delivered. Quanta has achieved some impressive business outcomes over the past four years with Boomi, such as:
75% faster integration of banking systems between new companies and Quanta corporate
Integration speed is important for Quanta, which in just the last quarter acquired five multimillion-dollar companies.
“Boomi enabled us to speed execution of banking integration for these acquisitions, which is a critical element of our M&A model,” said Witt. “What used to take six to nine months can now be done in less than one month. We have visibility into where funds are going much faster.”
As an enabler of the onboarding process, Boomi facilitates faster and more efficient closure of M&A activities.
100+ systems integrated by citizen developers
Quanta has a lot of non-technical users in the field. Boomi enables Quanta corporate to build integrations through configuration versus core development.
“With Boomi, citizen developers can configure integrations efficiently and execute them pretty much immediately without any development,” Witt said. “Our CFOs are citizen developers. They understand the Boomi technology and appreciate how it lets them focus on their core banking responsibilities, such as payroll and on-time delivery to vendors.”
Visibility into critical electric power assets facilitates natural disaster recovery
Quanta depends on Boomi to identify the location of all vehicles in its large fleet of bucket trucks. This allows Quanta and its operating companies to dispatch vehicles to support first responders quickly.
“Boomi supports our field by integrating master data and syncing core systems like GPS and employee base systems across the enterprise,” Witt said.
180 integrated, yet autonomous operating companies
In addition to Boomi being a facilitator of faster integrations by way of enabling citizen developers, another differentiator compared to competing integration solutions is that Boomi is a single-instance, multi-tenant cloud application. Quanta Services can therefore bring acquired companies together in a way that allows them to run autonomously, which is essential to its business model.
“With Boomi, our operating companies are integrated and can access and share needed information in a secure way,” Witt said. “The multi-tenant architecture allows us to carve out a secure tenant for each of our operating companies, and through its low-code development platform, Boomi allows us to lower our technical debt.
To find out more about how Boomi can help with M&A, read our blog post “How Modern Integration Makes Mergers & Acquisitions Better.”
Why Boomi?
Quanta initially evaluated MuleSoft, Informatica, Oracle, and Microsoft, but ultimately chose Boomi for three compelling reasons:
- Reference data management: Boomi Master Data Hub allows Quanta to translate all the languages of its companies and key systems, then consolidate that into a corporate language. This lets Quanta push information to multiple cloud application platforms that require a common language. In addition, the high quality of reference data ensures that the information is accurate at every endpoint.
- Self-service integration: Quanta’s “citizen developers,” from CFOs to controllers, can use Boomi without understanding every detail of an integration. With Boomi’s prepackaged integrations they can control, manage, execute, and schedule integrations, ultimately supporting their organizations without IT’s involvement.
- Center of Excellence: Boomi can be distributed consistently by Quanta corporate, which aids the company in building a centralized integration center of excellence with governance and controls on the way that integrations are patched, delivered, and executed.
With Boomi’s help, Quanta Services has accomplished several of its strategic business goals. These include the ability to acquire three to four companies a quarter, integrating key systems such as banking, and allowing its operating companies to run securely and independently. The latter is especially important to Quanta, as some of its operating companies actually compete with one another.
To enable this independence, Boomi provides what Witt calls a “walled garden” that secures the operations of each company and gives them a unique development platform. Boomi also limits each operating company to seeing and accessing only its own data, while also ensuring that Quanta can execute governance controls over the platform.
Using the Boomi Platform, Quanta Services has completed more than 100 integrations, including over 30 ERP systems, and numerous banking, cloud application, and corporate enterprise platforms. Boomi has also helped Quanta eliminate three challenges:
- Data in multiple languages spread across 180 operating units
- Inability to push information to multiple cloud application platforms that required a common language
- Dependence on IT to build, execute, and manage integrations, which impacted the pace of M&A activities
Looking ahead, Quanta Services plans to focus on connecting all systems, people, and processes; leveraging APIs to efficiently expose critical information to facilitate the company’s aggressive M&A strategy and enable its business expansion in electric power, pipeline, industrial, and communications industries.
For more information on how Boomi can help your organization, contact our integration experts today!