Sakata Seed America sows Innovation with Dynamics 365

Before Dynamics 365

Sakata has had a long relationship with Microsoft, starting with the implementation of Microsoft Axapta ERP software and later Dynamics AX 2012. By 2018, Sakata was ready for the cloud. Their business was transforming. They wanted to support continued growth of the business globally, hire more people, and support their headquarters move to Woodland, California. “The business was changing, shifting, growing,” said Doug Kenyon, IT Manager at Sakata. “It was time for a change, and we had an excellent history with Microsoft products and decided to continue that journey with Dynamics 365.”

Sakata’s products are living things—seeds and cuttings used in agriculture and horticulture. Sakata needs to track the attributes of each seed and product type they stock. This includes tens of thousands of variations. Product units range from a few grams to many tons. Sakata produces their seeds worldwide through a network of third-party growers and performs extensive quality testing to ensure that their seeds will produce the yields customers expect.

Sakata’s Dynamics AX 2012 system was dated. They wanted to move to the cloud and digitally transform. Transformation meant reengineering and streamlining business processes to support growth and diversification of the business, redesigned integrations to create scalability, automation to improve efficiency and accuracy, and new reporting tools for more timely decision making and better collaboration.

A fresh start

The project was a significant undertaking, so Sakata tapped Real Dynamics as a partner. Sakata and Real Dynamics quickly got to work analyzing the complexities of updating the old system. They agreed that Sakata should make a fresh start rather than upgrade Dynamics AX 2012. This is where their Dynamics 365 journey began.

The team designed and implemented processes and data to support current business needs with an eye to transform in the future and created a solid foundation for the design and build phases. Sakata and Real Dynamics drafted a list of goals for the implementation with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management with the intent to:

• Improve operational efficiency via business process improvements.
• Improve accuracy of lead-times for sales demand and production planning.
• Develop robust and diverse transaction-level reporting.
• Improve intercompany and multicompany visibility.
• Automate routine accounting functions.  
• Improve visibility of transactions and movement of goods.

The Dynamics 365 solution

Sakata had a pressing need to improve financial reporting and budget planning functions. The team recognized the opportunity to provide a quick return on Sakata’s investment and decided to start their Dynamics 365 journey there. Their first budget review was in September, so Dynamics 365 needed to be ready in July.

With Dynamics 365 Finance, cost center managers prepare their budgets in Excel and use the Excel add-in feature to publish back into the system. As part of this implementation, Sakata redefined their cost centers and departments and created templates for data entry that enhance efficiency and data accuracy. Everyone can do their own budget calculations and capture the budget information. As a result, Sakata’s information technology team no longer needs to move budgeting data back and forth.

The new budgeting and financial reporting system went live on the scheduled date of July 31, 2021.

“Now, everything is seamless as you can render Excel documents directly in your browser. We can now edit the values, and then simply save it back to Dynamics 365,” says Ryan Nagahori, Sakata Project Manager. “This saves us a substantial amount of time.”

Enhanced automation

Prior to Dynamics 365, pricing updates were entered in Excel spreadsheets, manually updated by the sales team, and then sent back to the technical team to load into the system. Now, automated calculations adjust prices, and the process is faster and easier to perform. And instead of being maintained in Excel, pricelist and price agreements are generated in Dynamics 365 so there is a single source of truth.

Sakata is also using Dynamics 365, Power Automate, and AI Builder to increase automation and reduce manual processes, saving a significant amount of time and paper. This includes automating vendor invoice entry and approval and customer credit approval. Prior to Dynamics 365, credit approval required extensive support from the technical team, which slowed the order entry process. Now a salesperson can propose a credit limit increase in Dynamics 365 and a Power Automate flow automatically routes the request to Finance for approval. When the approval is submitted, the system updates the credit limit and releases the order hold. With this workflow both sales and technical teams are hands-free, making the process virtually effortless.

Seed orders are routed to the warehouse, where the seeds are picked from their stocking location and cleaned, processed, or blended prior to shipment. The challenge is that one sack of seeds looks the same as any other. If the wrong seed is picked, processed, and packaged, it could go undetected for months until the resulting plants grow to maturity. Sakata implemented a process using Dynamics 365 with physical gates and controls that requires operators to scan the seed barcode to confirm that the seed that was ordered is the same seed that’s shipped.

Extensions for specific processes

Since Sakata’s seeds and plants grow crops that take months to mature, returns may be requested long after delivery. This means they need the ability to retrieve order history and process rules and approvals. Prior to Dynamics 365, obtaining order history for a return was a difficult and time-consuming manual process. Sakata worked with Real Dynamics to create a new process, connecting Dynamics 365 with historical order data in Azure SQL using a Power Automate flow. Now the return workflow and approval process are accurate, smooth, and repeatable.

At Sakata, contract production growers grow the seed crops that are sold to Sakata’s seed dealers, brokers and end-user customers. Sakata and Real Dynamics built a solution using Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management to help manage agreements with the production growers. The custom feature set includes production processes, accounts payable, master planning, general ledger, quality, and inventory. It uses the extensibility capabilities inherent in the solution to make advanced payments and settlements based on the crop yield and contract terms.

Prior to Dynamics 365, Sakata had more than 140 Excel-based reports connected to their production ERP database. Today, they export sales, financial, and inventory data from Dynamics 365 to Azure Data Lake for faster and more accurate data warehousing and reporting.

Benefits and impacts

Quick return on investment (ROI): Dynamics 365 produced a quick ROI by providing greater efficiency in a streamlined and enhanced budgeting process. The technical team is no longer involved, since the system is self-service company wide.

Ease and automation: Sakata automated invoice entry and approval and credit approvals using Dynamics 365, AI Builder, and Power Automate. Streamlined processes and increased automation increased accuracy and productivity while reducing manual processes and costs.   

Extensible framework: A Dynamics 365 workflow connects with Sakata’s internal SharePoint-Power Automate workflow to retrieve order data. A smooth and repeatable returns process with integrated system controls for approvals saves time, ensures accuracy, and simplifies internal control audit procedures.

Reducing operational risk: Sakata’s Dynamics 365 integration with barcode scanning controls ties directly to seed processing equipment. By reducing the risk of processing, picking, packing, or shipping the wrong seed, Sakata has significantly reduced operating risk.

Departmental self-service: With Dynamics 365, the budget planning function is in the hands of budget managers. Sales pricing updates are self-service and prices are more accurate. Users are autonomous and work flows seamlessly and efficiently.  

Efficient price updates: Automating price updates reduced cumbersome manual processes, resulting in time savings of more than 60% per update cycle.

Better data, better decisions: With Dynamics 365 export to Azure Data Lake, Sakata has easy access to standardized information, data is aggregated, and reporting is faster and more accurate. They have better data for decision making and 30% fewer reports to maintain.

Today and tomorrow

Innovation is at the core of Sakata’s DNA, inspiring every employee to seek excellence in every aspect of their role. It’s no wonder the company continues to look for ways to use emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and IoT to streamline their business processes. The relationship between Sakata and Microsoft continues to grow, reaping rewards in time savings and process efficiencies for this blossoming seed company.