Project Success Story: Retail Customer Customer Spotlight

CPG COMPANY MIGRATES TO INTEGRATED ERP PLATFORM WHILE DOUBLING REVENUE 

WESTERN COMPUTER IMPLEMENTS DYNAMICS 365 FINANCE AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT IN SIX MONTHS   

THE CHALLENGE 

When consumer packaged goods companies grow rapidly, they often discover their ERP systems simply can’t keep up with the pace of business to efficiently manage finances, fulfillment, and customer service. The warehouse team ends up falling behind on orders while invoices begin to lag—thus slowing down cash flow. At the same time, customer service does not have real-time visibility into order status and can’t respond quickly to customer inquiries. 

This is the situation that a company specializing in baby products found itself just two years after launching operations. Its Sage Intact ERP and Deposco warehouse management systems could no longer handle the order workload efficiently. In addition, with financial and warehouse processes running on separate platforms, the integration between the two systems was difficult to maintain and inefficient. End-users across the company found it difficult to access the information they needed to process orders, customer requests, and accounting workflows.  

The company also faced the challenge of using a business model that was disrupting the baby goods industry. Instead of selling standard products through retail stores, the firm relies on a direct B2C model. Customers pay subscription fees to receive monthly orders, and they can customize the look of their products with a range of designs to choose from. While this approach gives end-user customers the choices they want, it also requires an ERP system with expanded capabilities to handle the unique facets of each order.  

When factoring in the rapid growth, the legacy ERP system, and the disruptive model…this can be a recipe for disaster if not managed properly. To take on the challenge, the company decided to migrate to a modern ERP platform. 

THE SOLUTION 

The senior management team narrowed the choice of ERP systems down to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and NetSuite. The team also considered the HighJump warehouse management system but was skeptical about having to integrate warehouse operations with an ERP platform. A key assist in the partner selection process came from a colleague working in another industry. They recommended Western Computer, which specializes in Dynamics 365 solution design, implementation, training, and support.  

Western Computer assessed the customer’s requirements and recognized the best fit was another an alternative Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution—Finance and Supply Chain Management. This solution delivers built-in integration between warehouse operations and finance so customers don’t have to worry about connecting and maintaining data exchanges among critical business functions.   

Another key feature is the ability to manage multiple business entities and currencies through a single ERP instance. This was vital to this customer as it provides baby products to customers in the U.S. and Canada with plans to expand into China and Australia. 

From the partner perspective, Western Computer offered the resources and implementation strategy to complete the migration away from the legacy ERP system to Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management within six months. Deploying modern finance and warehouse capabilities into production quickly was paramount given that consumer packaged goods company was in the midst of doubling its revenue from the previous year—to nearly $4M with approximately 40K orders coming in per day.  

Western Computer achieved the ultra-fast implementation by utilizing simultaneous workstreams for system design, configuration, migration and training. Western Computer also integrated the ERP platform with an electronic data interchange tool used by the warehouse and provided best practices for the customer’s internal IT team to handle data cleansing for importing data in the legacy ERP solution. 

THE BENEFITS 

A key benefit delivered by Western Computer emerged shortly after the engagement began. The customer decided to expand its business model—by adding a manufacturing business unit to complement its distribution of third-party baby products. Western Computer responded quickly by configuring the manufacturing module within Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.  

This pivot in the middle of the project exemplifies the agility of both Western Computer and Dynamics 365 solutions. Customers can quickly adjust and expand their ERP capabilities to meet their dynamically-changing business requirements. 

With finance, warehousing, and manufacturing processes all running within a single ERP platform—that’s also integrated with the customer’s Shopify e-commerce platform—data now flows automatically across all operational areas. Orders get fulfilled and delivered sooner, and customer payments are processed more quickly.  

In addition to driving customer satisfaction and loyalty, this helps the customer operate more efficiently:  As the doubling of revenue occurred, the company did not need to hire a commensurate number of internal resources.     

Western Computer also integrated Microsoft Power BI data intelligencereporting capabilities to analyze the data produced by Shopify and Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management. With the need to manually manipulate spreadsheets eliminated, managers now have access to real-time insights on consumer buying behavior and operational KPIs. This drives faster decisions on how to improve the company’s performance in delivering baby products. 

WHY WESTERN COMPUTER? 

Based on the referral from another Western Computer customer, the consumer packaged goods firm knew the quality of delivery that Western Computer provides and its ability to execute an implementation game plan to bring projects in on time. Keys to achieving this include how the team works closely with customers to make decisions promptly, manages the scope of any necessary changes, and constantly communicates the status of projects.  

Western Computer also demonstrated its ability to train end-users to feel comfortable with new ERP functions and then enable them to become self-sufficient over time. With this customer quickly rolling out financial then warehousing and manufacturing capabilities, this approach played a critical role in the project’s success.