Organization: Canalta Controls
Industry: Oil & Gas
Solution: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Staff Size: 300 employees
Highlights
Canalta Controls’ complex manufacturing processes have already outgrown their legacy Dynamics NAV 2009. Using an unsupported, 15-year old ERP software with too many customizations posed operational and security risks and hindered their company from being innovative and competitive.
Systema Solutions helped Canalta Controls modernize its ERP to Dynamics 365 Business Central while operating business as usual with minimal downtime.
Canalta Controls unified their siloed processes, centralized their critical business data, and now has a sustainable, cost-effective way to benefit from new functionalities released by Microsoft for Business Central.
Canalta Controls is a manufacturing company that distributes and sells high-quality flow measurement equipment for the oil and gas industry. Its primary manufacturing and warehousing facilities are in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Korea, and has direct sales offices in the United Kingdom, Buenos Aires, and Singapore.
The challenges with using unsupported, legacy ERP software
For an organization that operates globally and have an extensive global distribution network, it is expected to have logistical challenges around arrival timeframes of their inventory. The manufacturing processes and the number of product combinations are also enormously complex so having a robust financial management software to manage all these moving pieces is critical.
After 15 years of using Dynamics NAV 2009, Canalta Controls faces operational risks with the limited ability to support their growing global operations and complex business processes. Dynamics NAV 2009 already reached its end of life in 2015 and with heavy custom solutions developed on their NAV ERP, it presented business and security challenges that the company wanted to address before anything untoward happens.
Speaking to Daryl Newman, Chief Finance Officer of Canalta Controls, he shared, “The age of [Dynamics NAV 2009] was a concern, and we had customized it so much. We were worried that it’s no longer supported and that no one uses it anymore. If something significant happened, we’d be in trouble. Also, no third-party software could easily integrate with an old software like NAV 2009.”
Canalta Controls wanted to enable easy but secure access to information for their people that their current on-premises ERP couldn’t seamlessly provide, such as advanced forecast, payroll, capital asset and more. While Dynamics NAV 2009 served its purpose for quite a significant time, it is now hindering Canalta Controls’ ability to innovate and stay competitive. “We want to have an innovative company that provides easy access to information for our people. We want an up-to-date, relevant solution that our people could get excited about the new possibilities it could introduce,” said Newman.
Out with the old, in with the new and cloud-based ERP
For Canalta Controls, only Microsoft Dynamics was their ERP platform of choice. They were quite happy with Dynamics NAV and its manufacturing capabilities. Learning of its cloud-based, modern iteration with Dynamics 365 Business Central made it their clear solution choice. “The thought of moving to a completely new ERP system that is unknown in terms of its limitations wasn’t really even an option for us,” shared Newman.
After careful consideration, Canalta Controls chose Systema Solutions as its Microsoft Dynamics Partner.
“We chose Systema Solutions because despite having a lean team, we could see the expertise and the years of experience behind it. It was also their personal touch and responsiveness that we felt from Systema Solutions that we knew if we did have problems, we have a project team that would be there consistently”. Darryl Newman, Chief Finance Officer, Canalta Controls
Systema Solutions modernized their NAV 2009 ERP to cloud-based Dynamics 365 Business Central using its Premium license SKU to provide Canalta Controls access to more advanced features such as manufacturing, supply planning and service management. The company made the transition to Dynamics 365 Business Central for Canalta Controls seamless, safe, and hassle-free, allowing their operations to continue as usual with barely any disruption.
“Being in the financial role for so many years, I’ve heard of people going through an ERP upgrade, and no one had anything good to say. So we know there would be struggles, but Systema Solutions made the transition easy for us,” said Newman. “We have a team at Systema Solutions who are willing to come to our office and try to understand the business. Their responsiveness spoke volumes to us”.
Result
Transitioning to Business Central paved the way for Canalta Controls to remove the siloes in their processes caused by the customizations previously developed outside of NAV 2009. Some of these customizations were already part of the out of the box Business Central functionalities. This provides Canalta Controls with a sustainable way to take advantage of Business Central’s latest features and functionalities at a lower cost over the long term.
The solution unified Canalta Controls’ processes and centralized their critical business data. With Business Central now widely used by sales, planning, purchasing, production, scheduling, and shipping teams, they now have better control to maintain oversight of their company’s manufacturing and distribution operations.
“Business Central is our hub. We use it extensively throughout the company by almost all employees. It’s an information gathering spot for us, so it’s highly critical to our organizational success”. Darryl Newman, Chief Finance Officer, Canalta Controls
For more information about how Systema Solutions can help your business, please get in touch with us here.
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