Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) was founded in 1942 with the aim of exploiting the iron ore mines in the so-called "Iron Triangle", in the state of Minas Gerais.

A state owned company up to that time, in May of 1997 CVRD was privatized, being acquired by Consrcio Brasil. Now CVRD is the largest diversified mining company in the Americas and has three core businesses: Mining, Logistics and the Generation of Electric Power. During its history, the company has expanded its activities all over Brazil, diversifying its portfolio of mineral products and consolidating its services as a logistics provider. In all its undertakings, CVRD acts in a socially responsible manner and is notable for its development of projects using high technology, in harmony with the environment.

~Mining of iron ore and pellets, manganese and ferro-alloys as well as gold, bauxite, kaolin, aluminium and alumina CVRD mining activities generate thousands of jobs and guarantee products vital to the economy, such as cars, domestic appliances and computers

~Logistics with an extensive network of railroads, ports and terminals is the largest operation of its kind in Brazil CVRD transport integrates important regions in the country, pushing back the frontiers of Brazil's agricultural economy, enabling food production to be increased

~Electricity production with three hydroelectric plants that are in operation, and another six under construction - the generation of 502 MW of electricity by the plants in which CVRD has a stake is enough to provide power to a city of 500,000 inhabitants

CVRD has a commitment to promoting the professional growth of its employees, contributing to the development of communities where it is present, encouraging integration between the Company and the families of employees and investing in the preservation of the environment. The implementation and use of safety and health instruments in all areas of CVRDs operations is also critical.

As a public company (prior to 1997), CVRD had legal obligation to spend 8% of net profits in economic and social development actions. Since privatization CVRD strives to maintain that sense of Corporate Social Responsibility. They even created the Foundation Vale do Rio Doce to control and implement all their social projects. With over 18,000 employees the company is dedicated to creating sustainable social development and actions in the locations where they work.

Throughout the different presentations at Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), the class learned a great deal about the strong vision of the company and how technology is used to help deploy this vision. CVRD is the third largest mining company in the world, and is aggressively trying to improve this position all the time. Any companys plan for the future must include improved IT and CVRD is no exception.

While the company has close to 20,000 employees, only 150 of them work in IT with many additional positions outsourced. In the organization chart all the Vice Presidents have a more visible role than the Chief Information Officer so seemingly IT processes are not important. In reality, IT is critical to helping the company remain as efficient as possible but CVRD would like it to remain invisible to the process. Their IT Strategy is based on 3 dimensions:

1) Providing Business Support Solutions to all levels of the company through CRM, e-business, ERP, Procurement, SCM, and Business Intelligence

2) Developing a progressive Technological Architecture

3) Maintaining strong IT Governance to ensure alignment of IT strategy with business strategy, making IT transparent to the company because it is not a core competency

To this end the IT Department oversees 3 main areas. They include Production and Project Management, IT Architecture Management and Client Management. These areas all incorporate outsourced projects with need for dedicated management and consistency. To maintain this level of professionalism, CVRD requires all Project Managers to be certified by the Project Management Institute (PMI), and they have attained CMM Level 3 with Level 4 soon to come. In addition, key processes for the department are IT strategic planning, budget management, priority to improvements, integrated projects management, production management, architecture development and performance evaluation.

As previously mentioned much of the IT work is outsourced to technology companies. Starting in 2001 CVRD outsourced infrastructure development and maintenance to EDS, an unusual choice for this area of technology outsourcing. While the Service Level Agreement was difficult with a tough negotiation process, CVRD is very happy with the relationship and overall delivery of the project. Another area, Information Systems, was outsourced to Accenture around the same time as the EDS project and has been equally successful. CVRDs overall IT investment is currently at $74.4 Million including all outsourcing and an Oracle ERP undertaking.

Generally, CVRD stressed the idea of finding a balance between flexibility and standardization in all areas of their work. Recently, they have become more than a mining company gaining 10% of their revenue from Transportation and Logistics. They are always looking for ways to grow and enhance their businesses and production. At the same time they are always supporting the communities in which they are present by providing social development for the workers and their families. The Foundation Vale do Rio Doce is also a major financial backer of another organization the class visited, CDI.