Lallemand ferments its digital evolution with Microsoft Dynamics 365

“Not your typical transformation”

Microorganisms are in high demand. Their expanded application in nutrition, pharmaceuticals, and biofuels accelerated Lallemand’s growth, but revealed limitations within its on-premises technology. Though maintaining these legacy solutions had become cumbersome and costly, the pandemic further strained systems not designed to operate in a work-from-home world.  

“We’re not going through a typical digital transformation,” said Vice President, CIO, and CTO Marco Petruccelli, who joined Lallemand in February 2020—just before COVID shutdowns began. “It's really a digital transformation that has catalyzed a wider business transformation. . . Internal business users were asking for modern and optimized solutions to help them become more productive. All this has been possible because we embraced technology, but transformation is a journey, not a sprint.” 

Transitioning to remote meant no longer ignoring longstanding log-in, connectivity, and inbox issues they’d tolerated for years. The paper, lots of paper approach, was no longer sufficient nor efficient. Employees began asking for improved data accessibility and collaboration tools to enhance business productivity and operations. Lallemand understood it needed to supplement its traditional business techniques with modern cloud solutions that offered greater flexibility. Its business evolution needed to continue. 

“The business began asking for new tools, new ways of collaborating, sharing files, and having their data accessible from different devices,” said Remy Landreville, Platform and Network Services Manager. “With our on-premises environments, it was difficult to provide that level of flexibility our users were asking for while maintaining today’s required security standards to keep our company safe. People wanted to have access to their devices in ways that worked for them, and—in turn—Lallemand.”

Driving adoption through understanding

In a unique position for growth, the pandemic compelled Lallemand to act. With Marco Petruccelli newly installed as their Vice President, CIO, and CTO, Lallemand was ready to begin their transition to the cloud. Reviewing potential cloud providers, Lallemand ultimately chose Microsoft believing it offered a superior partnership alongside its industry-leading solutions. Further empowered by Microsoft’s extensive partner ecosystem, Lallemand identified a partner with the expertise necessary to fast-track their transformation. This led to their collaboration with Masao, a Microsoft Partner who specializes in Dynamics 365 CRM implementations. With their guidance, Lallemand began transitioning its CRM solution. For Lallemand, reimplementation made sense since its initial on-premises Dynamics CRM implementation had created some unnecessary complexity. Reimplementation within Dynamics 365 enabled Masao to eliminate unused customizations and created meaningful functionality based on business-specific roles. 

Streamlining with a cloud solution was fruitful. “The initial impact was immediate,” said Christian Palka, Corporate Director – Dynamics 365 Projects; “CRM usage jumped 10% across the organization within days of our Dynamics 365 go-live.”

While change is never easy, creating personal connections has always served Lallemand well. “Personal contact is how we have driven growth and strong relationships through the decades,” said Olga Tymoshenko, Change Management Advisor. “It's by meeting with people, going to the fields, the farms, factories, bakeries, or wherever our clients are, and talking face-to-face was our foundation. Requiring this intermediary technology to facilitate conversations was perceived as a nuisance by many employees.”

To increase buy-in, the Lallemand implementation team worked with individual business units to identify unique needs and tailor Dynamics 365 Sales user experience, accordingly. Obsolete menu items and fields were removed. This simplified view allows Lallemand’s various sales users to focus on important activities, while increasing system security and compliance through improved, role-based restrictions.

Taking this grassroots approach, Lallemand demonstrated what could be achieved by leveraging new technologies. “With Teams, we’re able to bring together hundreds of people and develop a more comprehensive suite of training programs” said President and CEO Antoine Chagnon. “Teams has allowed us to disseminate information to larger audiences in a meaningful way, which has led to considerable cost-savings.”

While video conferencing would become essential during the pandemic, Marco Petruccelli says the leveraging of cloud technologies “truly increased our productivity” for the company, and enabled Lallemand to complete its O365 transition in about nine months. 

Beyond Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams, their adoption of Microsoft 365 expanded data access within Lallemand. This enhancement is on full display at their Montreal flagship, Prefontaine plant, which is collecting data from manufacturing processes to drive greater innovation and efficiency. Further inclusion of the Microsoft Azure cloud allowed Lallemand to deploy IoT devices within the Montreal plant to gather data and improve decision-making. Leveraging this data within new visual dashboards has empowered Lallemand leadership and facility managers to connect data to insights and drive action like never before. While reducing their overall hardware footprint and allowing for faster deployment updates within vital systems due to decreased maintenance downtime. 

“We are working towards having the data we need in real time at our fingertips, rather than waiting for information for days or weeks at a time. The importance of data analytics moving forward will be in providing key data in real-time to enhance business decisions to better support our business,” Marco Petruccelli said.

Together with Microsoft, Lallemand removed the technology barriers that had historically inhibited its business at every level, freeing them to focus on its commitment to customers.

Anticipating the change to come

Though COVID accelerated their timeline, Lallemand is now well-positioned to capitalize on their new cloud capabilities. Solution adoption is on the rise. As a result, Lallemand is beginning to enjoy the benefit of the transformation labors. Cross collaboration has increased, thanks to Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement empowering employees to connect with their counterparts in other business units. “The world has become so complex,” said Christian Palka, “but Microsoft is trying to simplify it.”

This investment has also improved Lallemand’s ability to connect with customers and expanded its ability to provide products that meet specific needs. If anything, Remy Landreville says, the company’s successful cloud transition has taught him the value of early adoption. “The sooner the better,” he said. “Don’t wait till you’re in front of the wall to start thinking about it. It will bring a lot of value to your user and will allow you to be more flexible in terms of delivering to the business.” 

However, it is still early days for Lallemand. Like a fine wine, the business’ ability to leverage the cloud will mature with time. For now, the company plans to push on with their Industry 4.0 initiative, adding automation with Power Automate, refining data analytics, along with advanced AI, machine learning, and robotics to further process innovation—all backed by the Microsoft Cloud. “It’s exciting. We know Microsoft will continue to advance the product(s) with every update, which will only improve our ability to serve customers, build relationships, and collaborate while allowing the business to adapt to market challenges,” said Christian Palka. Lallemand also sees Microsoft HoloLens as a potential component of their cloud strategy, allowing for proactive and predictive product maintenance, which is currently difficult with standard remote work technologies.

In sum, “Lallemand has a bright future,” said Antoine, “with plenty of potential to enact meaningful change through microorganisms and this work can be improved and accelerated with the right technology in place.”