ServiceNow delivers security, efficiency, and productivity for Asahi

About Asahi Group

Asahi Europe and International quenches the thirsts of millions of people every day. With centuries of brewing heritage behind it, Asahi is the custodian of some of the most popular beer brands in the world, as well as numerous non-alcoholic and soft drinks too.

Part of the Japanese Asahi Group, in Europe, Asahi employs more than 15,000 people in 18 production facilities in eight countries, brewing and bottling 4.4 billion litres of beer every year.  

The challenge

When Asahi’s European operations were merged in 2016, along with great tasting beers, Asahi also acquired a diverse mix of IT infrastructure, systems, platforms, and teams each with their own cultures, suppliers, contracts, and hosting arrangements. Technical Security Manager, Stefaniu Criste eloquently describes it this way: “like having a horse, a zebra, and a camel all pulling the same chariot together!”.

As a result, the company has turned to the ServiceNow platform to standardise its use of technology. With a single, intelligent, and composable platform, Asahi can deliver centralised management and control, service improvements, closer collaboration, and cost and process efficiencies.

In particular, Asahi wanted to improve its enterprise-wide security capabilities to protect itself more effectively against constantly evolving and increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats.

“Our goal is to unify our teams throughout Europe as well as recent acquisitions in the US and Taiwan, with consolidated, integrated systems, and processes,” says Miroslav Cibula, Cloud and Platform Solutions Owner.

“This will enable us to work quickly, effectively, and securely together with the same overall objectives. We’ll all be using a single version of the truth, improving services, and providing the business with the visibility to manage with consistency. It’s a huge challenge because we must continue functioning while we transition, so it’s good to have our partner ServiceNow supporting us on our journey.”

The solution

Automation delivers security and efficiency

With production dispersed across Europe, using their own systems, establishing robust and consistent security provisions to manage risks and vulnerabilities is complex but essential. To safeguard productivity and business continuity and achieve its security goals, Asahi selected ServiceNow’s AI platform for business transformation.

“We’re constantly discovering new vulnerabilities,” explains Stefaniu Criste. “And because we’re managing very large numbers—15,000 users, 12,000 devices, and 800 servers—tracking and remediating everything is not possible without automation, which is where the ServiceNow platform comes in.”

Working closely with ServiceNow Elite Partner, Devoteam, Asahi deployed ServiceNow Security Operations with Vulnerability Response. Integrated with existing vulnerability scanning solutions, it establishes a single, standardised, transparent, and accurate picture of its vulnerability landscape. By automating and streamlining prioritisation of the most important risks and vulnerabilities, and associated remediation, all on the ServiceNow platform, overnight Asahi tightened security while greatly reducing manual tasks and management time.

A simple update of Adobe Reader on 3,000 computers previously required 3,000 individual tasks. The ServiceNow platform automatically groups tasks by specific criteria such as device, business unit, or country. Then it assigns tasks to the right team, issues reminders where necessary, and tracks progress to completion. Automating numerous processes reduces tasks to just a handful while minimising the resources, time, and administrative tasks.

Focusing on the most important risks

“Importantly, the ServiceNow platform automatically calculates each risk and the potential implications, and the importance of each remediation task,” explains Stefaniu Criste. “Prioritisation means that we deal with the most significant risks first, the ones that could cause the most damage.

“We’re now much better organised with strong foundations and everything in one place. Incidents resulting from vulnerabilities have been reduced to zero and our mean time to recovery following a system or product failure is 59% faster. With the ServiceNow platform, we have visibility across the business, we can learn lessons and share valuable information with colleagues and executives.

“Now we can see potential problems early and deal with them quickly, and plan our maintenance programs more efficiently, minimising the impact on our operations, which in turn helps to improve productivity.”

Automating processes also helps to protect relationships with customers and partners too, by ensuring that vulnerabilities that may impact on external communications channels are closely monitored and prioritised. Sharing security information with customers and partners builds trust and confidence and creates safer, more secure working environments.

Focusing on critical systems

ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM) is also part of Asahi’s security armoury, with the deployment of Event Management improving the performance of the company’s existing data monitoring tools. Consolidating monitoring activity into the ServiceNow platform has enabled Asahi to standardise and ensure vendors’ systems operate consistently, to agreed quality standards.

A single system and user-friendly interface provides visibility into vulnerability management lifecycles, enhancing collaboration amongst teams and informing proactive decision-making. Changes made in Event Management are communicated directly to each monitoring tool, reducing technical and management time and cost.

Understanding connection and interdependencies

Also contributing to the streamlining of its security capabilities and IT operations generally, has been Asahi’s work to update its Customer Management Database and align it with current technical best practice.

“We had customised our ServiceNow platform to meet our needs,” explains Configuration and Asset Manager, Jan Skuhravy. “But we wanted to take full advantage of all ServiceNow’s beautiful features and functionality, such as its AI capabilities, which eliminates manual work.

“So, we de-customised and returned to standard settings. All the benefits of standardisation are enabled by the ServiceNow platform because it’s the backbone on which everything runs. That’s where our data lives and where we understand the connections and interdependencies between systems and applications.

Next, Asahi plans to activate Discovery within ITOM to automate the identification and mapping of all remaining assets into its CMDB. This will enable complete asset lifecycle management, from procurement to decommissioning, eliminating time-consuming manual tasks.

Asahi is also an extensive user of IT Service Management, with most of its 15,000 employees using a ServiceNow portal to access IT support, assisted by knowledge articles and a service catalogue. A chatbot is available to help users complete self-service tasks, such as resetting passwords.

“Previously everyone had to raise a ticket and wait,” explains Jan Skuhravy. “Now, the ServiceNow platform automation and AI completes the process in five minutes. We’re also working on automating the installation of software to save time and money and help teams to be more productive, which is appreciated by everyone in the business. Our user satisfaction score speaks for itself. It’s now 89 which is a 17% increase since January 2023.”

Concludes Miroslav Cibula: “ServiceNow is a strategic platform for Asahi, a core system that is constantly extending the scope of our digital transformation.”