Anyone who has gone through an ERP implementation, either as an employee or as a member of the ERP project team, knows it’s a long and difficult process. According to Panorama Consulting, an independent ERP consultancy company, the average ERP implementation takes a whopping 16 months. Such a project obviously puts an enormous strain on the day to day activities of any business.
Limiting the duration of the ERP implementation can be very valuable to the organisation. That is why we are proud to say the Adifo ERP team managed to implement the entire MILAS AX solution at Mole Valley Forage Services LTD, part of one of England’s leading agricultural cooperatives, in just 6 months. A remarkable achievement that made for a satisfied customer and impressed Microsoft.
But how did we manage to accomplish such a remarkable feat three times faster than the average implementation time and still provide a solid solution?
Initial pitfalls to overcome
In order to understand how we managed to quickly and successfully implement MILAS AX, we have to go back to the beginning of the project.
According to Alan Parsons, program manager at Mole Valley Farmers: “The major target was to implement an industry-specific ERP solution that could support our future business expansion plans. We wanted a system that could accommodate the way an agricultural core business demands rather than forcing us to adapt to an ERP flow that was made for other sectors."
As a nutrition industry specialist, Adifo understands the pains and business challenges of the agricultural industry. 40 years of experience have thought us that one of the most important factors that can make or break a successful implementation is communication. It is essential to be on the same page as the client and to ensure that all parties involved are working towards the same goal – we published an E-Book on this subject. A good match between implementer and customer is essential for a successful ERP implementation.
When Mole Valley Forage Services started looking for a solution that could support their business they were impressed by our industry knowledge. As a software specialist in the agricultural industry, Mole Valley Forage Services’ did not need to explain the entire industry and its challenges. We could immediately proceed to their business and how they do it.
Our experience, along with our feed industry-specific solution, MILAS AX, proved to be an essential part of convincing Mole Valley Forage Services we were the right partner for this project.
Keeping up the pace
"Adifo established itself as a valuable partner, providing us with a solution just like we envisioned. MILAS, based on Microsoft Dynamics AX, is just what we need.” says Mole Valley Farmers’ program manager, Alan Parsons.
Apart from Adifo’s sector experience, Barna Ugróczky, project manager at Adifo, can see 3 key reasons why we could complete a successful Dynamics AX implementation in just 6 months:
- We used the standard Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step project methodology to implement MILAS AX, ensuring planning and preparation were optimized. This way, we took the best route to match the targets put forward by Mole Valley Forage Services.
- The good relationship with Mole Valley Forage Services and our industry experiencekept us safe from the most frequently occurring ERP implementation problem: the misunderstanding between implementer and customer.
- From the beginning Mole Valley Forage Services committed some of its strongest resources to the project, eliminating the usual lag between the implementer’s questions and the customer’s answers.
The good match between Mole Valley Forage Services and Adifo has led to a successful implementation where both parties got decisions made very quickly and initial testing was done immediately. The entire project was completed within the impressive time frame of just 6 months, leaving Mole Valley Forage Services with an ERP solution that can accommodate the way their business demands rather than forcing them to adapt to an ERP flow that was made for other sectors.
