XON conquers the strain of growth with Microsoft Dynamics

XON Business Solutions has implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX, allowing the company to consolidate management information across its several divisions, each with unique reporting requirements, into a single reporting format.

Following a period of rapid growth, the deployment has delivered almost immeasurable benefits: primarily, customer and vendor relationships have improved through increased productivity and more accurate operations, and finance information is available and accessible.

"We have made use of almost every module available and have yet to discover a weakness. Every operational function is fully integrated. This makes it one of the most convenient and comprehensive ERP solutions available," says Jacques van Zyl, financial manager at XON. Data reporting, recording and managing, document handling, project management, lead times, inventory management and tracking, budgeting and forecasts, internal control and warranty management have all improved considerably, while reporting is more flexible, accurate and timely and information is easy to find and manage. "You would be amazed how easy it is to track, record and report on any level," says Van Zyl. "Once familiar with the system, you do not need to be a programmer to write your own reports. There is no comparison between our historical systems and this solution". In 1999 the business found itself in a fortunate but challenging position: it was growing and expanding into new lines of business at such speed that its legacy system was struggling to maintain pace. It became increasingly difficult to manage new branches and business units.

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"It was a mess," says Bart van Buynder, financial director at XON. "Our system was unable to facilitate accurate and timely financial information. Operational requirements also strained the legacy system. It simply could not handle the expansion."

The situation became serious when XON missed deals primarily due to inefficient service delivery management processes. One major contributing factor was that the database was increasingly difficult to access and that made it hard to find and handle crucial business information. At the time Dynamics AX was called Axapta and was sold by Denmark-based Damgaard. "We knew we needed to implement a powerful, comprehensive and flexible ERP solution to accommodate all the deficiencies we had with our historical systems," says Van Zyl.

The XON team researched available solutions before settling on Axapta. It was so impressed by the product that XON became an Axapta reseller. "The research and development work was done in-house to better understand the product, and because the support structure was limited at the time," says Van Zyl. "It took us three months to install and configure the system and another three months to improve on its reporting function." It continues to be customised to suit the needs of the company. Thesystem has been systematically upgraded with new versions since it was introduced and on November 6, 2006, XON became the first company in South Africa to go live on Microsoft Dynamics AX version 4.0. "With every new version comes new functionality and complexity. We strive to make use of as many features as possible to make the most of the product's capabilities," says Van Zyl.