DXC Eclipse gives Pickles Auctions the technology backbone needed for digital transformation

A Pickles Auctions is Australia’s number one auction and valuation specialist, grown from a single operation in 1964 to 21 branches nationally, including every state and territory in the country. For more than 50 years, Pickles has forged a national reputation for integrity and high standards of business conduct in its quest for competitive excellence.

As a long-time car auctioneer, Pickles Auctions (Pickles) was relying on in-person auctioneers. However, industry disruption from online car sales meant the business had to expand its services to the web and find new ways to compete with emerging players. Pickles was able to offer online bidding for in-person auctions but found it difficult to scale beyond that.

The company’s ability to innovate was hampered by its reliance on legacy systems that had been developed over time but no longer served its needs. This had become a major constraint in recent years, prompting Pickles to review its technology position and consider upgrading.

Ivan Goh, ERP delivery lead at Pickles, said, “The IT team spent so much time just keeping the legacy systems up and running that it was impossible to rethink innovation beyond that. Pickles needed to replace its entire business platform, not just to free up the IT team from the burden of daily maintenance, but also to improve the company’s competitiveness in the disrupted marketplace.”

Pickles realised that such a significant project would require a large investment. The business needed to view this as a whole-of-business transformation, rather than a simple IT implementation.

Claudio Salinas, Pickles’ chief information officer, explained, “The costs of maintaining the existing system were increasing and the skillsets needed to maintain it were becoming harder to find.

“Updating to newer technologies would let Pickles pivot, adapt, and change faster. This would let the business leverage opportunities faster and more effectively. For example, Pickles wanted to reach a broader audience by partnering with different organisations such as finance companies and lease companies. This would help elevate the business’s competitiveness and its ability to engage with a wider buyer base, but our existing technology made such partnerships difficult.”

Pickles needed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that would provide visibility over all operations, a single source of truth for decision-making, flexibility and scalability to expand the business in any direction. Pickles was also looking to move to the cloud, so the ERP solution needed to be cloud-based.

Solution

Pickles evaluated a number of technology platforms and technology partners to implement such a large change. Pickles soon realised this project needed to be led by a complete business transformation.

Pickles selected DXC Eclipse, a practice within DXC Technology, as their preferred implementation partner, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations (Dynamics 365) as the solution to move the business forward. As an existing Microsoft customer, Pickles was comfortable with the intuitive, and user-friendliness of Dynamics 365. Plus, Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based solution, so it ticked all the right boxes.

According to David De Jonge, Pickles’ chief financial officer, “Pickles chose to work with DXC Eclipse as the team is well-credentialed in the space. We needed to find a partner that knew what they were doing as this was a make-or-break project for the company.” DXC Eclipse and Pickles agreed on a five-phase project that would start with restructuring the business’ accounts.

Outcome and benefits

Following a collaborative process, phase one of the project was implemented on time and under budget.

Since implementing Dynamics 365, Pickles has been able to completely replace one legacy system, as well as integrate Dynamics 365 with other large legacy systems. Pickles plans to grow the Dynamics 365 footprint throughout the company and shut down or decommission legacy systems as it rolls out.

According to Salinas, “We now have a cloud-ready and modern solution with Dynamics 365, letting us access information from anywhere. Previously, we were restricted to accessing systems from the office only. Now with Dynamics 365, we are given greater flexibility and it’s changed the workstyle and pattern of users for improved productivity.”

A key area for improvement has been the organisation’s charter of accounts. The incumbent system didn’t deliver the degree of detail Pickles needed to understand business performance and its current financial position. In a tough competitive market, this information was crucial for the leadership to make the right decisions.

“Now that we have a cloud-ready solution that can scale up easily and quickly, we can start exploring some of the opportunities in new ventures,” said De Jonge. “The technology implemented with this project is the backbone of the wider digital transformation of our business. Without this solution, we really can’t do all the other things that we aspire to.”

As the project progressed, Pickles’ business users realised they could determine the next stage of the transformation project. This has resulted in a high degree of engagement and a growing sense of excitement among users.

“We have an exciting journey ahead of us that is going to impact many people,” said Goh. “There’s an absolute trust between Pickles and DXC Eclipse. We have created a strong partnership and we’re invested in carrying on the journey, especially now we’ve seen the success of phase one.”

Working with DXC Eclipse

Pickles needed a safe pair of hands to manage this project, which was a significant departure for the business and could not be allowed to fail. It chose to work with DXC Eclipse due to the team’s strong reputation in the industry as an experienced, knowledgeable partner.

“From the initial evaluation we could see the DXC Eclipse team was highly cooperative, knowledgeable and credible in the industry. The team took the time to understand our business, which was very important to us,” said Goh. “DXC Eclipse’s can-do attitude proved to be the right cultural fit for us. When an auction is scheduled, come rain, hail or shine, the auction will go forward. We do everything it takes and there was that same sense of spirit we saw in the DXC Eclipse team.”

De Jonge added: “DXC Eclipse was very accommodating throughout the implementation process. While there were rocky patches, as there are in projects, there was a drive from the team to actively fix issues that arose.”