Implementing Business Central: Strategies and Lessons Learned

The implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC) can be transformative for businesses looking to streamline operations, improve financial visibility, and enhance decision-making. However, like any new or changed system, a successful deployment requires careful planning, strategic execution, and continuous learning. Here, we explore HKRP's implementation process and key lessons learned to help other businesses achieve their desired outcomes.

Understanding Business Central

Business Central is a comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution designed for small to mid-sized organisations. It integrates core business processes such as finance, sales, inventory, project management, and customer service into a single platform. Its scalability and customisation options make it a popular choice for growing businesses.

Business Case for Business Central

• Realise cost savings from consolidating operations with respect to multi entity multi-currency accounting and improve accuracy
• Seamless operation of the HKRP group across all entities and currencies, while maintaining compliance with local tax and payroll regulations
• Reduce costs of maintaining the ERP system
• Manage Sales, CRM, HR, Payroll PMO, Contract Management, and other operations in one place
• The goal of this project is to migrate all current ERP systems, functionality and data within WorkFlowMax (WFM) and XERO systems to Business Central by 26th of June 2024 without disruptions to HKRP operations as WFM was being retired by the vendor.

Key project outcomes

• Document current business processes
• Identify opportunities to consolidate processes from disparate functions (Finance, HR, Payroll, PMO, Sales, etc) to increase inter-functional efficiencies
• Document and design HKRP’s future state - we took our own medicine and implemented our Model Based Systems Engineering Approach
• Implement and support the ERP system in the future.

10 Key lessons learnt

Get the right team onboard

Leadership needs to be actively involved in the project to be successful:

• Get the Finance Manager personally involved so they understand all business processes and how they ultimately impact finance
• Everyone needs to know more than their own tasks. They need to understand how they fit into the larger process
• Pick the right partner or consultant – someone who will take a holistic approach to the business rather than simply implementing what is already there
• If you are consolidating multiple systems, no one is too important or too busy to be involved in the project. You need everyone's help to get to the correct solution.

The right Project Champion is crucial

• The right person understands processes across the organisation and knows how to re-engineer and automate them (e.g., pricing)
• It’s helpful if the project champion has a functional as well as a technical background so they can communicate with both groups
• The project lead needs to be able to translate among all groups in the organisation and the consultants
• Users left to their own devices without oversight will always recreate their legacy system in the new software, and the project champion needs to make sure that doesn’t happen – e.g. cashflow spreadsheets!!!

Document and test E2E processes ASAP 

• This will be an agile, iterative process
• If your team has never been required to follow the process, meet with them, document what you can before starting the project, and have the process owner sign off on the new process before implementation.

Avoid over analysis and over documenting process

• We had hours of meetings outlining the processes, but there was so much complexity that we were not able to go deep enough with the knowledge base we had on the target product
• When it came time to build the technical specs and detailed process documents, we had to start from scratch because there was so much there not in our current systems
• A better approach would have been to start with one area, build an outline of the process, and try to implement that before moving on. Include Finance manager and other leads so they can let you know when choices would impact other areas of the organisation.

Data migration must be addressed before the project starts

• What will the Chart of Accounts look like?
• What will the dimensions look like?
• How will you map from source systems to the final system?
• What is the minimum data that you will need to bring into the new system?
• How will you export master data from your current system, and how much will that cost?
• How will you combine data from disparate systems?

Start user migration and adoption as soon as the project starts

• Bad experiences stick with users for a long time
• All users listened in on the initial meetings; only a handful of people spoke, but the users felt like they were part of the process
• If possible, bring everyone together in person for design. Worst case, get everyone on Teams
• Subject Matter Expert inclusion does not guarantee user adoption!

Build integrations ASAP

• Integrations and customisations always take longer to build than you expect!
• Integrations and customisations always take longer to validate than you expect!
• Integrations and customisations are never as simple as you expect!
• The only way to fully test integrations and customisations is with end-to-end process walkthroughs.

Know your project timelines and consequences of slippage

• Know your plan for when things go wrong that would impact your timeline
• Track your progress against a joint project plan with your partners so each side knows the details of the other’s remaining tasks
• Don’t try to push faster than your partner or consultant estimates it will take.

Test, Test, Test!

• Get finance involved in all testing to verify that what they get is what they need, not just what someone thinks they need
• End-to-end testing is crucial. Prove the entire end-to-end process rather than just point solutions
• Test with historical information to ensure expected results
• Ideally (perfect world) the last 3-6 months prior to going live are nothing but testing - we did not achieve this and needed to fix errors with issues becoming user, customer and vendor facing.

Be willing to let some things go

• Not all processes need to be implemented. Sometimes, users need to be told they need to use standard product functionality even if it takes a bit longer, no matter how important it is
• The system will never be what everyone, or even you, as the sponsor, wants. The goal is to find a middle ground that everyone can agree on
• Sometimes letting go means that you will reach a solution that everyone wants, but you can’t get it done by go-live. Plan for multiple phases in the implementation as well as post-implementation.

If everything needs to be perfect, you will never complete the project - extra lesson!

• Know exactly what project completion means noting this can change through the project lifecycle
• Know when to cut things off
• Successful projects require strong project management and empowered project leaders. They cannot be overruled when they try to set limits or postpone features to a future phase.

Conclusion

Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a significant step for HKRP. By following a structured approach, engaging stakeholders, and learning from common pitfalls, we have unlocked the potential of this powerful ERP solution. Remember, successful implementation doesn’t end at operational readiness and go-live; it’s a continuous journey of optimisation and improvement and we are still learning about how to get the best out of our ERP solution.

If you would like to know more about this story or are about to embark on a similar journey I encourage you to get in contact us so you can learn from our lessons and ensure your project is a success!