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February 07, 2023

Koppert seeds transformation with Microsoft Dynamics 365

For more than 50 years, the mission of Koppert has been to make agriculture and horticulture healthier, safer, more productive, and more sustainable, working in partnership with nature. Founded in 1967 by grower and visionary Jan Koppert, the company has helped farmers and growers around the world maximize yields while reducing their environmental impact. Koppert advocates using natural enemies to combat pests, bumblebees for pollination, and microbials and biostimulants that naturally strengthen and protect crops. Because Koppert products are alive, it is paramount that customers receive their products in peak condition.

The protection of flowers and plants against disease and pests is changing rapidly as more and more consumers are demanding natural, non-GMO, and pesticide-free food. Koppert offers an integrated system of specialist knowledge and natural, safe solutions that improve crop health, resilience, and production. With 30 offices worldwide and operations in more than 100 countries, Koppert is leading this growing transformation.

Koppert

“The world is changing. The company is changing. It’s good to have a solution that can deal with those changes. And it’s good to know we will never need a new ERP solution ever again.”

Harm Jan Westera, Corporate IT Manager, Koppert

Before Dynamics 365

Most of the products that Koppert produces, and ships are living organisms with a limited shelf life. There is no room for error in the supply chain—every hour matters. Further, serving markets with offices in 30 countries means business and compliance requirements can be complex and change rapidly. The company’s legacy Dynamics AX 2009 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system was highly customized, and still wasn’t meeting their needs.

Koppert understood that to fuel continued growth, they needed an IT platform that was agile, flexible, and scalable—an ERP system that could adapt as fast as the world changed. They also realized the value of the cloud and software-as-a-service. They decided to move from their old system to Dynamics 365 for finance, supply chain, and sales operations, with the following objectives:

  • Enhanced customer service
  • Increased order delivery performance  
  • Easier compliance with local requirements
  • Improved warehouse capabilities
  • Standardized processes, including intercompany processes for all legal entities
  • A strong foundation for future growth and agility


“Our supply chain is designed for the packaging and shipping of living material, so it is a very challenging task, which goes on day and night. There is not much room for error when changing an ERP system,” said Harm Jan Westera, Corporate IT Manager at Koppert. “Therefore, we decided to start small, and we added the complexity in phases.”

To start, Koppert would focus on core processes, like procurement, order processing, and finance. This allowed them to learn and become familiar with the system. Next, they would expand the scope to include e-commerce orders, production, and warehousing. Finally, they would plan the roll-out, establishing a core team with one way of working and standard processes and methods. And so, the journey began.

The implementation journey

Koppert realized that because implementing Dynamics 365 would have a major impact on all facets of the business, it should be managed as a business project with a strong IT component. An implementation team with representative stakeholders from across the business, including application experts, had the mandate to make decisions that presented a considerable impact on the enterprise. A steering committee consisting of board members and general managers of subsidiaries provided oversight.

PHASE 1. Phase 1 began in Koppert’s Netherlands office. A team of IT consultants joined the Koppert implementation team. They understood the new enterprise environment and shared their knowledge about the new system.

During this phase, Koppert learned that many of the customizations the old system had required were now standard capabilities of Dynamics 365. Of course, some customization would be needed for specific processes, but this was used in moderation. Koppert also took the opportunity to revise their corporate chart of accounts. It is now the standard, and the starting point of the local chart of accounts at their subsidiaries.

PHASE 2.  During Phase 2, Koppert implemented Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, including purchasing, planning, production, warehousing, logistics, and quality modules, plus Dynamics 365 Sales at their corporate headquarters. Again, standard Dynamics 365 capabilities replaced many of the customizations needed in the old system.

Koppert connected most business areas and integrated subsidiaries with the Dynamics 365 intercompany feature. Koppert implemented scanning with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to ease inventory traceability through the entire supply chain. Koppert also enabled containerization to ensure proper packaging and shipping—pivotal when you produce 1,250 products, with 950 packed in the Netherlands, and 55 are active components.

The team created interfaces for third-party applications such as Sana for e-commerce and online order entry, Optimizer for forecasting, and Declaree for expense management. Koppert used Microsoft Logic Apps so that these integrations could be built for Dynamics 365 in the cloud. This provided a simple and effective way to integrate third-party services and applications into Dynamics 365.

Since this was a phased roll-out, the transactional data required for aggregate reporting was resident in both Dynamics 365 and the legacy system. The information would need to be available for reporting purposes for several years following go-live. It didn’t make sense to bring the historical data into their fresh Dynamics 365 system since it was only needed for reporting. Koppert resolved this issue by transferring the data into one central data warehouse.

Work started in the Netherlands with implementing Dynamics 365 Sales in parallel with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management. The strategy was to implement finance and supply chain capabilities first, and directly afterwards implement sales. One Dynamics One Platform and dual-write capabilities would seamlessly maintain data synchronization, making real-time sales and customer information available to users. Now, communications with customers can be easily documented, and users have easy access with Outlook and mobile apps.

PHASE 3. Roll-out and onboarding of Dynamics 365 is currently in process with specific local and regulatory complexity for subsidiaries in Mexico and Brazil. Building on previous successes, Koppert used the roll-out process they had previously established for Dynamics AX as a foundation for this program.

Winning change management

Koppert’s governance structure manages people, processes, and technology and is one of the key success factors of the implementation process that continues to this day. The steering committee membership is fluid, with board members joined by the general managers of the subsidiaries actively transitioning to the new system.

The core team consists of IT experts acting as consultants doing the implementation, and process experts with oversight of areas such as Production, Finance, or Supply Chain. The core team ensures that the system works for each process in the department and in each country or location.

“IT delivers the solution, and the process experts determine if the solution is acceptable,” said Westera, Koppert’s Corporate IT Manager. “That’s one of the key factors in our success, as we’re able to speak the same business language as the demand side of the company. Koppert has our own team of application experts to implement these solutions. We close the gap between the business and the applications.”

The Koppert implementation team chose to track and automate project activities using Microsoft Azure DevOps. They built a template to be used for each company roll-out, including tasks for each configuration and test, all linked to a user story where the process was described. This became the backbone for successful testing and decision-making on the readiness of the company go-live.

Best practices are making each implementation and roll-out more streamlined. Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, and Sales are now template projects, with additions for local and regulatory requirements specific to each country. As of this publication date, approximately 60 percent of the implementations are complete, with final project completion scheduled for Q2 2024.

“Success depends on the technology, as well as the process and people. We think it’s important to make time for change management and give teams time to feel comfortable with the system.”

Manuelle Bos-Koppert, Project Manager, Koppert

Benefits and impacts

With Dynamics 365, Koppert has an agile, flexible, and scalable ERP system that can adjust quickly to a changing world—and a quickly growing organization. Koppert has standardized processes from the initial sales order intake through packaging and delivery of their live product.

Enhanced communications. Employees and management now have instant access to real-time consolidated data, documents, and reports to enable better decision-making. The use of scanners ensures inventory is up-to-date, and workspaces and mobile devices provide insight into the status of all relevant processes.

Foundation for growth. The company now has the foundation to easily scale increases in users, transactions, and workloads. Koppert can integrate acquired companies with greater ease as the roll-out demonstrated the strength of the infrastructure. Koppert can further instill the “One Company” company culture with one system, one language, and one way of working globally.

Quick onboarding. Dynamics 365 provides a friendly, easy to use, modern user interface so users are up and running in no time, and existing users gain valuable insights with workspaces and mobile devices.

Optimizing intercompany orders. Dynamics 365 intercompany processing is used extensively at Koppert. Most business areas are connected and trade with each other, and subsidiaries are integrated using intercompany functionality. Koppert headquarters estimates that today 28 percent of sales orders are transacted through the Dynamics 365 intercompany feature.

Supply chain conformance. Production is managed through Dynamics 365 and completed orders are released to the warehouse for processing. Koppert uses batch tracking for traceability through the entire supply chain. “Traceability is necessary in our business,” said Westera. “We needed scanning to keep up with the increasing amount of transactions.”

To meet that need, Koppert employs the integrated warehouse management mobile scanning application in Dynamics 365. When orders are ready to ship, containerization functionality describes how the live product is packaged according to product type, environment, and final destination country. Next, the product is grouped with other shipments being transported to the same regional destination and scheduled for shipping. “There is a lot of pressure on the whole supply chain to deliver goods on time in good condition,” said Westera. “We are over 99 percent in conformance, delivering the right product in the right quantity, in the right time.”

Better customer insights, better service. With Dynamics 365, Koppert is using the dual-write feature to enable real-time data synchronization of customer information, including sales orders and invoices. Instead of emails and spreadsheets to track customer interactions, users have a 360-degree view of customers. This enables greater insight and communication between departments to provide better service to existing customers and more quickly convert leads into new customers. 

Continuous improvement. Koppert continues to look for ways to optimize their processes. They are experimenting with real-time IoT tracking sensors in the product packaging to monitor the temperature, pressure, and other variables affecting the live product during transport.

As Koppert continues to eye potential efficiencies, Westera acknowledges the efficiency of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and managing their infrastructure in the cloud. “The world is changing. The company is changing. It’s good to have a solution that can deal with those changes,” he said. “And it’s good to know we will never need a completely new ERP solution ever again.”

Future capabilities

Koppert continues their digital transformation, growing their technology capabilities to serve the needs of the future. To date, corporate IT supports 14 countries and additional entities. As of this publication, implementations have been completed in the Netherlands, Slovakia, USA, Mexico, and Canada. Canada and Mexico are next in line to implement Dynamics 365 Sales.

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