Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 Finance
Financial management, cost accounting and close automation across entities and currencies.
Manufacturing · Strategy & Transformation
Sixty acquired companies onto one value chain
A multinational food ingredients group, Europe. A multi-local operating model built from sixty small and mid-sized companies had produced a scattered IT landscape with disparate ERPs, blocking collaboration and cross-selling.
The situation
What the organization was dealing with
A multi-local operating model built from sixty small and mid-sized companies had produced a scattered IT landscape with disparate ERPs, blocking collaboration and cross-selling.
A group assembled from sixty acquisitions has sixty operating models. The multi-local structure is often a genuine commercial strength, and the IT fragmentation it produces is an unintended cost that nobody chose.
What was done
The work, and the part that was actually hard
Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management were made the anchor of the group's digital strategy, with master planning driving procurement and manufacturing from forecast orders.
The interesting decision was to keep the multi-local commercial model while consolidating the operational spine. Cross-selling was the stated prize, and it was blocked not by strategy but by the absence of a shared view of what each company could supply.
Results
What was published
These are the figures exactly as reported in the source. Nothing has been rounded, extrapolated or restated.
Companies consolidating60
Value chain controlEnd-to-end
Warehouse processesOptimised
What changed
- Full control of the value chain from raw material to finished product across borders
- Master planning driving procurement and manufacturing from forecast demand
- Warehouse processes optimised, saving time on inbound and outbound activity
- Transparency enabling the cross-selling the operating model had prevented
Platforms involved
What each product was doing here
Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
Planning, inventory, warehouse and production execution, with availability that reflects what is physically there.
What transfers
If you were to attempt this
Any acquisitive group has this pattern. The question worth asking early is which parts of local autonomy are commercially valuable and which are merely historical.
Where it usually gets harder than expected: Consolidating acquisitions onto one platform is as much a change programme as a technical one. The companies that resist are usually the ones performing well, which makes the argument harder rather than easier.
How we would take it on
Our approach to Strategy & Transformation work
1
Establish the real baseline
We measure what the current estate actually costs to run and what it prevents, before anyone proposes a target state.
2
Agree the outcomes in writing
The measures, the definitions and the method — settled with the executive team before design begins rather than argued about at the end.
3
Sequence by payback
Phase one is scoped to prove itself before phase two is commissioned. Long programmes that produce nothing for a year lose their sponsor before they finish.
4
Keep the option to stop
Each phase ends at a decision point with the evidence to make it. Continuing to protect a decision already made is an expensive habit.
Recognise the problem?
If any of the above describes your organization, tell us where it hurts most. We will tell you what the same platforms could realistically do in your environment, what we would measure, and whether we think it is worth doing at all.
Talk to our teamMore Strategy & Transformation storiesWe reply to every message within one business day.
Related reports
Others you may want to read
A heavily customised ERP retired across twenty-four plantsAlso in ManufacturingMonth-end close cut by a quarter across sixteen plantsAlso in ManufacturingA forecast horizon extended from three months to eighteenAlso in ManufacturingA meat producer that decided to become a technology companyAlso in Manufacturing