Gough Group live with Microsoft Dynamics 365 in 114 days

The Gough Group employs more than 950 staff at 50 sites across Australia and New Zealand, and represents premium global brands. Its businesses include the sales and support franchise for heavy machinery brands CAT and Palfinger, national spare parts distribution, finance, and transport and logistics support solutions.

Challenge

As the Gough Group started to implement its strategic plan, it emerged that the incumbent ERP system posed such significant technological challenges that it would prevent the Group from delivering the organisational vision.

In place for five years, the existing ERP system had failed to deliver the operational improvements originally expected. With extensive customisations to the core system, it was costly to run, difficult to manage and impossible to scale.

Advancements in cloud solution delivery meant the system would need expensive, continuous development to integrate with new systems and processes. Nor was it suitable for deployment outside New Zealand.

Solution

Partnering with DXC Eclipse, the Microsoft practice within DXC Technology, the Gough Group selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 to replace the existing ERP system. As a cloud-based solution, Microsoft Dynamics 365 was assessed as the lowest risk, best fit platform by Gough because it offered a close core match between the old and new systems, which allowed for rapid deployment and scalability.

Working with DXC Eclipse, the Gough Group prioritised delivery of required functionality using Microsoft’s comprehensive out-of-the-box capabilities. Working in small teams, the Group rapidly identified the necessary functionality to go live and meet the aggressive timeline.

Together, DXC Eclipse and the Gough Group identified 76 functionality gaps, which were systematically and collaboratively reduced to 14 gaps for launch. Prioritisation to maximise the use of the standard version of Microsoft Dynamics 365, and the expertise of the DXC Eclipse team, helped accelerate the Gough Group’s transformation.

Results

The new system went live on schedule, 114 days after launch. The immediate success of go live was felt on Day 1 because the system was faster than the previous system.

Within days of the rollout, the Group saw rapid, positive improvements to customer experience. The team had better customer interactions, could serve customers faster and were able to locate stock more effectively. Customer orders took four steps instead of 20 steps. In the first week a report arrived from the warehouse showing they were able to receipt products in 25 minutes. Previously the warehouse processes took an hour to receipt a product.

The new solution is on track to deliver many other system and performance benefits, including a Human Resources Information System (HRIS), Demand Forecasting, Warehouse Management (WMS), Business Intelligence (BI), Field Service applications and a modern Point of Sale (POS) system.

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