Electrical Power Maintenance Company Poised for Growth With Dynamics 365 Business Central
After several successful acquisitions, a growing electrical power maintenance company found themselves with 6 different siloed ERP systems ranging from Dynamics NAV 4.0 to QuickBooks and Sage. The systems housed 4 different chart of accounts, 3 separate payroll solutions running on 3 pay cycles, and no way to report on aggregate data. Additionally, the systems housed over 2,000 customizations with no documentation and an estimated 10 million errors.
With disparate information, inaccuracies in data, and no way to view real-time information, leaders knew they needed to make some changes in order to gain the insights necessary to make informed business decisions related to inventory levels, projected sales, or production efficiencies.
A Broad Look at Business Processes
The leadership team at this organization knew they needed a scalable company-wide solution that would consolidate their data and processes into a single source of truth while giving them the ability to grow as acquisitions continued. The first step was partnering with Stoneridge Software to complete an Enterprise Process Review (EPR).
The EPR was a valuable step that documented the current day-to-day processes and pain points at the business, as well as improvements that needed to be made. By gaining a broader understanding of all the processes that make the business function, the manufacturing team and Stoneridge were able to work together to prioritize efforts, quantify solution gaps, and determine the best software solution moving forward.
With a blueprint of where they are today, where they want to go, and how to get there, Dynamics 365 Business Central was selected as the best fit solution for the entire organization based on the scope and business needs.
Integration and One Data Source for Operations
The implementation of new software gave them the opportunity to transform their business processes. The core functionality within Business Central immediately helped to gain efficiencies and automate processes. This modern solution also provides direct integration to a third-party payroll and CRM system allowing for the company to seamlessly pass data between different solutions. This integrated platform ensured that real-time, accurate data was available across departments and roles.
Leveraging Core Functionality and Out-of-the box Features
By using Dimensions within the application set-up, they were able to better track transactions by business unit in both the old data and new data moving forward. This empowered the team with the business intelligence needed to understand the profitability of each business unit and make critical business decisions based on facts.
By reducing customizations and leveraging out of the box functionality, the team was able to get up and running faster, while eliminating up-front spend on customizations as well as the recurring cost to update any customizations to remain compatible with future releases of Dynamics 365 Business Central. Relying on core functionality within the system also provided long term system sustainability and allows new team members to learn and understand the system faster thanks to the robust training opportunities available from Stoneridge, Microsoft, and a variety of Dynamics user groups.
Training Provides High User Adoption
At go-live, the in-house training portal, training documentation, and enthusiastic leadership efforts led to a high level of adoption among the more than 200 end-users in multiple locations spanning their global locations. With Dynamics 365 Business Central in place, they were able to reduce customizations by over 95 percent, eliminate system errors and provide documentation, one source of data, and accessible reporting. Users were able to complete their daily tasks on day one with minimal support from Stoneridge.
Adoption of Dynamics 365 Speeds Acquisition Process
Moving forward, this organization has a plan in place to onboard acquired companies and quickly integrate their data and financial information into Dynamics 365 Business Central.
With a solid roadmap and invested team members from both the manufacturing organization and Stoneridge Software, they were able to successfully modernize and transform their business operation systems, poising the company for continued business growth.
Benefits:
- Ability to scale the business
- Reduce of manual business processes
- Reduce customizations and leverage out-of-the-box Business Central Functionality
- Implement repeatable acquisition integration processes
- Introduce best practices through organizational change management, release management, and code management
