BERG standardizes customization with Advanced Supply Chain Management by HSO

"Our old ERP system, Dynamics AX 2012 R2, was still functioning well," Henk explains. "But we once waited a long time to migrate to a newer version because we had so much customization. A cumulative update of Dynamics AX took us six months with a team of 10 people working on it. The same applied to adding new functionality; it often took months before it became operational. This made it difficult for us to quickly adapt to changes in the market."

The need: less customization and more functionality

Henk: "We are constantly working on improving our processes, including logistics, finance, and the supply chain. That's why we preferred a cloud solution that is continuously evolving. Together with our key users, I evaluated different systems, and in the end, we chose Dynamics 365 and HSO. We were also interested in Business Central, but Dynamics 365 offered much more functionality that aligned with our operations, logistics challenges, and growth ambitions. Moreover, HSO is a trusted and valued IT partner of BERG. We were also drawn to the ERP template because we wanted standardization without customization."

Despite BERG's preference to avoid customization, the analysis phase revealed some company-specific processes that determined the identity of the wholesaler. "When a customer buys a go-kart from us, it is not delivered as a whole," explains Henk. "They receive two boxes: one with the go-kart frame and another with a package that determines the appearance of the go-kart. So we had a total of ten points of customization. We adjusted some of our business processes to fit the system, while HSO standardized and incorporated the remaining requirements into the template. This way, our ERP system can keep up with updates, and this functionality is also available to new customers of HSO."

Successful implementation with a guiding methodology

With Advanced Supply Chain Management, part of wholesale360, HSO follows a guiding approach. The HSO consultants propose a specific setup instead of gathering all requirements first and then configuring the system. Once the foundation is in place, they delve deeper. "This allowed us to start working much faster in a functioning environment," says Henk. "We agreed to work with HSO in July 2021, standardized our customization in October that year, and had the basic ERP system running in December 2021. It was a flying start."

Henk: "In the years following our last migration, our IT landscape had grown significantly. We now have more integrations with other applications, and our business intelligence capabilities have expanded. So, once the foundation was established, the key users began extensive testing of data migration and building all the integrations. After the summer of 2022, we integrated our webshop and provided comprehensive training to all end users. We took ample time for testing and training, as that was one of the lessons learned from the previous implementation. Additionally, we also built a brand-new warehouse. In January 2023, we went live with our new ERP system."