Fruit of the Loom puts an agile IT at the heart of its growth strategy

A popular apparel brand since 1851
For nearly 170 years, people worldwide have relied on the Fruit of the Loom brand for clothing, from casualwear and sportswear to the garment the company is arguably best known for: underwear. Customers look for the company’s distinctive logo—bunches of green and purple grapes, and grape leaves crowned by a red apple—as a mark of quality, durability, value, and style.

Seeing an intrinsic link between IT and success
Ever since it harnessed the power loom for its earliest production applications, Fruit of the Loom, Inc. has embraced technology for a competitive edge. Every day, the company’s global employees rely on IT to do their jobs effectively, whether that’s to design the perfect T-shirt fit, develop breathable material for sportswear, communicate with key suppliers, or help ensure on-time deliveries to retailers.

However, when the company’s IT service management (ITSM) infrastructure could no longer keep pace with the growing demands and complexity of the business, Fruit of the Loom, Inc. contacted Wipro—its longstanding IT consultant, IT delivery partner, and application management provider—for advice.

“Apparel is a competitive sector, and our employees need IT by their side to be successful,” explains Bobby Berry, Senior Vice President, CIO for Fruit of the Loom, Inc. “Our challenge was that we didn’t have a mechanism to measure the quality and efficiency of the IT services we were providing—for example, how we were performing against service level agreements on tickets—and therefore no basis on which to improve.”

To meet Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s requirements as a competitive, 21st century manufacturer, Wipro recommended consolidating the company’s two highly customized, maintenance-heavy ITSM systems into a single, modern platform featuring automated processes and an easy-to-use service portal for employees. Combining these two geographically dispersed platforms into one would create a single source of truth and give IT leadership insight into the effectiveness of IT globally for the first time, with common KPIs providing a benchmark for continuous improvement.

“Based on Wipro’s recommendations, we could immediately see the potential to transform our efficiency and cost base,” says Bobby.

Realizing its service-oriented, technology-driven vision with ServiceNow and Wipro
Wipro recommended ServiceNow IT Service Management based on the agility and integrity of the solution, breadth of features and capabilities, and track record of success.

Amar Naga, VP, Global ServiceNow Practice for Wipro, explains, “ServiceNow offered everything Fruit of the Loom, Inc. needed to meet its strategic objective for the transformation, which was to create a new, service-oriented ‘face’ for its global IT organization.”

Fruit of the Loom, Inc. agreed, and Wipro and ServiceNow got to work creating a service portal for employees with self-service capabilities and chatbot functionality. The new digital portal replaced a manually driven ticketing process that was slow to respond to employee needs and lacked transparency into ticket status. At the same time, Wipro and ServiceNow simplified the company’s multiple complex service request forms into a simple and easy to navigate catalog.

Wipro and ServiceNow redefine six global service processes in just 10 weeks
The two partners also worked to streamline Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s service processes, which—until that time—varied considerably by geography. This required careful, step-by-step analysis, as a process in the US was very different from a process for a similar IT request in Europe. Within 10 weeks however, six core processes had been redefined: incident, change, knowledge, and high-level release management, plus service levels.

Meanwhile, multiple technical integrations were performed to help ensure internal alignment to the Now Platform—from foundational, location-based data to Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s Microsoft Azure Active Directory. Achieving a stable, consistent data foundation was also critical for the analytics that would later be added to the platform. Simultaneously, Wipro and ServiceNow conducted CMDB data modeling work and created 28 service catalogs.

Employees worldwide transition to ServiceNow in five months
With the IT service management portal finished and service processes defined, ServiceNow was ready for roll out—initially to Fruit of the Loom, Inc. operations in North America where 80% of the company’s workforce is based, then to Europe and Latin America.

To ensure a successful launch, Wipro and ServiceNow engaged Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s global IT leadership to design training sessions and FAQs for both local IT teams and employees worldwide. Further awareness was driven by an internal marketing campaign featuring banners in cafeterias and other visible locations worldwide.

Within five months, all of Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s global employees had migrated from the legacy ITSM platform to ServiceNow. Bobby says, “Careful planning and a thorough communication plan ensured this service-oriented shift was a success.”

Soon after launch, ServiceNow^® CMDB was implemented, along with an analytics capability that provides senior management with data-driven dashboards and reports for a high-level view of global IT. It also offers the capability to drill into the status of individual markets and functional levels. The data allows regional comparisons for the first time, with the resulting analysis enabling continuous improvement.

With global IT behind them, employees have the resources to compete in the digital era
Today, Fruit of the Loom, Inc. sees far-reaching, positive results from its unified IT service management approach. “For the first time, we have complete transparency into the employee service journey,” says Bobby. “We can get precise information about the number of incidents and how long individuals or teams are waiting, and even use that data to assess if an employee might require training in a particular area.”

Meanwhile, the intuitive design of the ServiceNow portal, self-service and chat capabilities, automation of fulfilment, discovery, and incident resolution requests, and redesigned service forms have all sharply increased employee uptake of IT services, with employees confident their needs will be met quickly and efficiently.

“The ServiceNow implementation with Wipro has defined a way for our employees to interact with IT without borders, resulting in customer satisfaction and true alignment with our business teams,” Bobby explains.

In addition, Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s IT leadership can make informed strategic and operational decisions based on ITSM data and drive the continuous improvement of the platform. Bobby says, “Every request in ServiceNow is an opportunity for us to measure how well we deliver IT services to the organization. We focus on delivery efficiency and process excellence.”

The IT team has also been able to drive improvements in cycle time, centralize governance, and realize significant capex and opex savings from both ServiceNow and the decommissioning of the legacy platform.

Reflecting on the implementation and partnership with Wipro and ServiceNow, Bobby says, “By giving our employees a streamlined and consistent way to leverage IT, we are enhancing our ability to build on Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s tradition of excellence and we are thankful for ServiceNow and Wipro’s partnership.”

And they aren’t done yet. Looking ahead, Fruit of the Loom, Inc.’s ITSM journey will continue. With the support of Wipro and ServiceNow, the company is looking at how it can supplement mobile access to the platform and evolve the CMDB in other areas.

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