Holcim Upskills Workforce and Improves Invoicing with Generative AI and AWS Skills Guild

Becoming a cloud-first organization and embracing the possibilities of generative AI offered Holcim the opportunity to enhance agility and operational efficiency. By addressing the limitations of traditional data centers, Holcim wanted to position itself to deliver more innovative, scalable services and foster sustainable growth.

With the aim of creating a lasting cultural shift toward innovation and collaboration, Holcim offered nearly 500 IT employees the opportunity to upskill in AWS and cloud technologies. By empowering its existing workforce to confidently drive change rather than outsourcing, Holcim has been able to more quickly and cost-effectively make use of the cloud and adapt to new challenges, thus securing its competitive edge in an evolving market.

Using the AWS Skills Guild model, Holcim customized the framework to fit its business requirements and launched the I&O Skills Guild. The program was structured to provide both technical and nontechnical employees with the knowledge needed to confidently and effectively utilize the newly available cloud technology. In the first 2 years, more than 50 training sessions were delivered on topics ranging from generative AI and machine learning to data engineering and cloud security.

The program achieved impressive engagement, with an 85 percent participation rate and a 38 percent increase globally in teams trained in AWS services. Holcim also cultivated a network of over 100 cloud practitioners, who served as champions for cloud adoption across the organization. Those champions, drawn from both technical and nontechnical roles, helped foster a culture of collaboration and innovation at the ground level. By sharing cloud best practices and a common cloud language among different business groups within Holcim, they helped drive interest in the cloud and more successful adoption across the company’s operations.

The I&O Skills Guild emphasized hands-on, collaborative learning environments that allowed employees to immediately apply their newfound cloud and AI skills. By tailoring sessions to suit varying levels of expertise, the program made cloud knowledge accessible to a wide range of employees, creating a shared understanding of cloud concepts across the business. “The I&O Skills Guild helped us build AI-powered solutions that have reduced 90 percent of manual invoice processing, freeing up focus for strategic priorities,” says Craig Doroserwicz, global head of infrastructure and operations at Holcim. “That has in turn delivered meaningful business impact and improved experiences for our customers.”

The I&O Skills Guild has been instrumental in Holcim’s successful cloud transformation, and the new culture of collaboration and innovation quickly delivered tangible business outcomes with the AWS Cloud and generative AI.

One group of employees, many of whose members had taken part in the program, developed Omnivore, an AI-powered invoice processing system powered by large language models. The generative AI capabilities of Omnivore were facilitated in large part by Amazon Bedrock, the simplest way to build and scale generative AI applications with foundational models. The solution automated the classification and routing of invoices, reducing the manual workload by an impressive 90 percent for approximately 2,000 invoices every month in just a single country. The solution dramatically increased efficiency, and freed up staff for more valuable, strategic tasks, while operating at a substantial reduction in processing costs. “Omnivore has been a game changer, helping us reduce manual work while improving quality and timeliness,” says Carlos García de la Noceda, head of global I&O cloud architecture at Holcim.

With the simple scalability of cloud technology, Omnivore is already set to expand across Europe. The Omnivore solution demonstrates how employee-driven solutions can make a huge impact when an empowered workforce is given permission to innovate and collaborate with cloud skills.

With AWS cloud technology, a skilled and empowered workforce, and an innovative cloud-first culture in the organization, Holcim is poised to capitalize on emerging trends, including increasing demand for sustainable construction materials and the growing adoption of digital technologies in construction. Through the I&O Skills Guild, Holcim is now well positioned to be a forward-thinking, cloud-powered leader in the industry.