Piracanjuba: care, quality and well-being also in information security
About Piracanjuba
The Piracanjuba Group gathers the beloved brands that are well known in Brazilian homes: Piracanjuba, Emana, LeitBom and the licensed Almond Breeze (almond drinks), Ninho and Molico (long life milk).
It all started in 1955, in a small factory in the state of Goiás, with the production of a single product: butter. The brand’s focus on every aspect is quality, innovation and attending to the most specific needs of consumers.
Their main motto? Enjoying doing what you do well. Excellence is the main concern of all processes at the Piracanjuba Group, and surely, it would be no different with information security.
The Challenge
The Piracanjuba group has always invested in protection technologies. This care has ensured stable operations, with levels of availability, integrity and confidentiality appropriate to preserve the entire ecosystem that supports and depends on this industry.
But those responsible for the security area, Marcelo Campos, information security coordinator, and Izaias Gomes, operations manager, realized that a challenge still needed to be overcome: information security was not part of employees' daily routines. Yes, some cybersecurity education initiatives were carried out, but they were limited to informative emails sent sporadically.
Izaias and Marcelo felt that these measures did not have the necessary impact to create a cybersecurity culture among employees, especially in a world that is so dynamic, and dependent on technology and access to information as the one we live in today.
“Over time, specific communications about policies no longer made sense. Much less working only by sending phishing emails. With the world being dynamic, working statically no longer made sense.” — Izaias
Choosing Hacker Rangers
The main questions for the Piracanjuba Group were: How to engage employees with few familiarity with technology and transform them into active agents in protecting the company? How to connect these people to real daily risks, ensuring that they understand the importance for information security?
Searching for answers, the company realized that, in order to engage employees, it was essential to create a program designed for them, with an engaging dynamic that was relevant to their daily lives. Only then would the security culture cease to be a distant idea and become part of the organization's DNA.
That's how the company decided to go beyond traditional methodologies and found the answer it was looking for in Hacker Rangers.
Belonging and value content
Regarding content, the gamified solution brought content with scams that occur on a daily basis in Brazil, allowing the Piracanjuba Group to offer a training that is contextualized and next to the reality of the employees.
With a simple and accessible language, program managers were able to show employees that information security was essential both for the company and protection in their daily lives.
“Hacker Rangers is a solution that speaks the same language of our employees. And, most importantly, that addresses the problems we face in Brazil, something that we don’t see in other tools.”
It worked. In its first season, in 2022, Piracanjuba achieved 95% of program adherence.
Results: the power of gamification
The success of the first season was undeniable, but the Piracanjuba Group knew that the journey was only beginning. Raising awareness and empowering employees to make the best decisions regarding information security continued to be the priority. After all, as they rightly defined: “continuity is the best strategy”.
To maintain the security culture alive, gamification became a great ally. With a combination of competitiveness and recognition, the company not only engaged employees, but also ensured that interest in the cybersecurity program was maintained over time. Today, the Hacker Rangers program is already part of the routine of more than 1,700 employees in the company, from administrative staff to the factory floor. The numbers from the last season, the fifth one carried out, speak for themselves: 83% access to the platform and 949 cyberattitudes sent by users.
The numbers from the last season, the fifth one carried out, speak for themselves: 83% access to the platform and 949 cyberattitudes sent by users.
Results: leaders perceptions
Throughout the seasons, Izaias and Marcelo, who monitor access monthly, noticed an interesting pattern: there were no peaks in engagement based on recognition, but rather constant involvement.
Likewise, the quality of cyberattitudes also grew notably. Reports, suggestions and feedback became more mature each day, reflecting the team's genuine involvement with the topic. Increasingly, employees were not only understanding the importance of safety, but also incorporating it into their daily lives, taking this knowledge beyond work, making safety practices part of their routine.
“The amount of cyberattitudes we receive with feedback, suggestions, compliments and people putting the content in practice is very interesting. We see this conversations about what they have learned and how they are practicing reflecting in the company's corridors on a daily basis”. - states Marcelo.
“The amount of cyberattitudes we receive with feedback, suggestions, compliments and people putting the content in practice is very interesting. We see this conversations about what they have learned and how they are practicing reflecting in the company's corridors on a daily basis”.
Results: transforming safe behaviours into safe habits
Nowadays, tiny habits, such as locking the screen when leaving the computer - a challenge for many companies - became automatic and natural for the Group Piracanjuba employees. Marcelo and Izaias also noticed that security is no longer an individual responsibility but a collective one, with employees exchanging information and helping each other on a daily basis.
“It is very nice to see cyberattitudes operating in a live state. People always share information, communicate well with the security team and help each other all the time, not only at the company, but also at home.”
And, of course, the Piracanjuba Group does not fail to recognize all this engagement. The company performs monthly, seasonal and annual recognition! And the next step? Implementing weekly recognition to further reinforce even more the commitment with security.
From Piracanjuba to the homes of employees
The biggest triumph of the Piracanjuba Group was knowing that, for the cybersecurity program to succeed, the employee needed to be the protagonist. They not only implemented the program, but also listened carefully to employee feedback, continually adjusting strategies to ensure that everything made sense to those who really matter: the user.
Piracanjuba Group employees soon realized that cybersecurity was not only a priority for the company, but something that connected directly to their daily lives. It was no longer a distant topic or restricted to the workplace; it was present in conversations at home, in their daily concerns and even in the actions they took outside the company.
“We have several reports of employees who helped their families and passed on what they learned in the security program. Some even asked if it would be possible to expand it so that people at home could also access the platform. The owners of Piracanjuba themselves know Hacker Rangers!” - says Marcelo, laughing.
To the future and beyond
The Piracanjuba Group is already proudly displaying its Red Certified and celebrating the excellent results achieved so far. But, as its leaders point out, the journey does not stop there. In 2025, they know it is time to take another step: more strategies, more content and new challenges to overcome. Cybersecurity is an ongoing mission, and there is still much to be done
Next to Hacker Rangers and with other efforts that reinforce the security culture, the Piracanjuba Group will continue to perpetuate a cybersecurity culture, both inside and outside the workplace.
