Trace Id is missing
July 23, 2020

ilke Homes transforms its business data access with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and CPIT’s KickStart service

ilke Homes is pioneering the future of homes, creating high-quality, energy-efficient modular homes using advanced manufacturing and precision engineering at its 250,000-square-foot factory in Yorkshire, England. As a rapidly growing business, ilke Homes needed to move from spreadsheets and paper to a fully managed enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. Microsoft partner Cooper Parry IT (CPIT) rolled out a rapid implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with its KickStart service, allowing ilke Homes to get up and running rapidly. The scalability of Dynamics 365 Business Central via Kickstart allowed ilke Homes to get started with a minimum viable product, access all of its information from multiple sites on any device at any time, and easily expand to accommodate future growth.

Cooper Parry IT

Revolutionizing the housing industry

ilke Homes is shaking up the housebuilding industry, fast. By bringing together technology and people, ilke Homes is helping to tackle the housing crisis in the United Kingdom by producing high-quality, energy-efficient homes. Digitally designing and precision-engineering in its 250,000-square-foot factory in Yorkshire, ilke Homes is capable of producing 2,000 homes a year, bringing much-needed housing to areas across the country at a range of tenures and price points. 

Historically, ilke Homes had operated through emails, spreadsheets, and lots of paperwork, but rapid expansion signaled that it was time for a new solution.

"We chose CPIT because we needed a partner who understood what we were trying to achieve,” said Dave Sheridan, Executive Chairman, ilke Homes. “CPIT demonstrated that they had the skills and the techniques that we wanted, with a unique offering of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central."

CPIT, based in Derby, England, supports small and medium-sized businesses by utilizing cloud technology. CPIT’s KickStart consulting service offers a rapid minimum viable product (MVP) implementation of Dynamics 365 Business Central. Dynamics 365 Business Central is an all-in-one enterprise resource planning system that enables organizations to streamline processes, drive sales, accelerate growth, and make smarter decisions. The flexibility and scalability of KickStart made it ideal for ilke Homes’ situation.

Moving to Dynamics 365 Business Central

KickStart was rolled out so ilke Homes could move to Dynamics 365 Business Central as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. 

ilke Homes started off small with only two users and implemented the basic accounting functions first. As employees’ knowledge of the system grew, ilke Homes implemented more and more features, from purchase ledger and stock right through to manufacturing and warehouse scanning. Now the company has more than 40 users using Dynamics 365 Business Central every day. 

CPIT advised against lots of custom development to solve unique business process issues and instead implemented rapid deployment of Microsoft Power Apps, which proved much faster to test and deploy.

ilke Homes now has a fully scalable system that can grow as needed, and all of its users can transition over when they are ready.

Joel Andrew, Implementation Analyst at ilke Homes, said, "There's very few systems at this level that are as scalable if you need a couple of users to sign up to begin a small-scale implementation and do something really, really basic. But with CPIT KickStart and Business Central, you can do that. If, on the other hand, you've got 150 users that you want to transition from your current systems, you can do that as well: It's just as easy whatever size environment you're working in.

"Business Central has solved a number of problems for us. We work across multiple sites and we've got users in lots of different locations. We're also quite a large site, so pulling all of that data together in one place and having it all electronic and in the cloud — accessible all the time on your phone, on your tablet, on your laptop or your PC, and access to that data wherever you are — has been a fantastic benefit to us." 

Gaining efficiency and flexibility 

By utilizing the features of Dynamics 365 Business Central to pull in all the data from multiple sites to the cloud, and having that accessible on a tablet, a phone, or a laptop anywhere in the country and at any time, has transformed how the business runs. It’s much more efficient than the old way of printing off emails, signing paper documents, and using spreadsheets.

"We're in the process of implementing into production, and one of the benefits that we're foreseeing achieving through that is much better material flows, which will be a huge potential cash saving,” said Andrew.

“Business Central has solved a number of problems for us. We work across multiple sites and we've got users in lots of different locations. We're also quite a large site, so pulling all of that data together in one place and having it all electronic and in the cloud — accessible all the time on your phone, on your tablet, on your laptop or your PC, and access to that data wherever you are — has been a fantastic benefit to us.”

Joel Andrew, Implementation Analyst, ilke Homes

Take the next step

Fuel innovation with Microsoft

Talk to an expert about custom solutions

Let us help you create customized solutions and achieve your unique business goals.

Drive results with proven solutions

Achieve more with the products and solutions that helped our customers reach their goals.

Follow Microsoft