Insights Until the Cows Come Home

With a unique market position and innovative approach in a critical industry, our client, a dairy processing solutions provider, saw outstanding growth from the early 2000s onward. As time went on and their core markets changed rapidly, the organization’s leadership knew a top-down change was needed away from legacy enterprise applications towards flexible solutions that gave more complete insights on every aspect of their operations.

Core Drivers

Our client’s consistent growth meant that a series of challenges had arisen, driving an urgent need to upgrade their ERP. These included:

• Intensive customization of 4 legacy systems that ultimately stifled business expansion
• Need to manage multiple regional workplace cultures and expectations with a consistent view
• Desire to simplify pricing to accelerate go-to-market for new products
• Reconciling 10 facilities and 30 legal entities spread across 6 countries

In each of these areas, our client sought the most effective partner that would deeply engage with their business requirements. Based on a willingness to work around customer constraints while still offering a strong perspective, Talan became the obvious choice.

Getting It Done

Our client could not afford a complex transition – with ongoing activity in all lines of business necessitating a seamless and complete transition. With this in mind, Talan’s team offered a “Big Bang” approach that leaned as much as possible on the powerful, out-of-the-box capabilities of Dynamics 365.

At the same time, the integration team leveraged automation to accelerate the extensive integration testing to implement all at once, and was nonetheless successful, with the month following launch requiring minimal adjustments and changes.

The Outcomes

With Talan’s implementation, our client realized almost immediate financial benefits, while day-to-day operations became more smooth and seamless than ever before. These benefits included:

• Reduction in aggregate IT and support headcount in all regions

• Significant increases in productivity, efficiency and executive-level visibility on day-to-day operations

• Standardization of production, product management, warehousing and reporting processes that increased profitability and reduced carrying cost of inventory

“The biggest impact of D365 has been on our teamwork,” said the client’s CIO. “Talan’s commitment to delivering a nimble and transparent solution has improved cohesion at all levels, allowing us to better manage end-of-life products, more rapidly implement strategic changes and maintain investment in organizational success at every level. We couldn’t be happier!” 

Client, at a Glance

• Dairy processing and milking systems provider
• Founded in the mid-19th century
• Over 500 employees today
• International reputation for innovation with entities across Europe and North America
• Market leader in robotic milking systems with revenues exceeding $100 million annually since the late 1990s