DayBlink Consulting supported a Cloud ERP migration for a large Communications company as part of a major acquisition
Read the full case study here: Post Acquisition Cloud ERP Consolidation
Introduction
Two large Communications companies agreed to an acquisition. As part of the deal’s target synergies, the client needed to consolidate their ERP systems into a single solution, which required a cloud-to-cloud migration and an on-prem-to-cloud migration. DayBlink supported the business throughout the initiative to align ERP systems, employees and processes across the two organizations. The ERP effort involved hundreds of processes (e.g. billing, supply chain, etc.) that could affect millions of customers. Any major, adverse impacts to these critical processes during the migration posed significant risk to the overall the company brand, customer retention and financial results.
Problem
The ERP consolidation effort was complex, and it was a “make or break” initiative for the acquisition
After the deal, both companies continued operating independently with separate supply chains, financial processes, budgets, IT systems, etc. To realize efficiencies, the companies began efforts to combine and streamline processes and supporting tools/systems into a single Cloud solution.
This highly complex initiative was initially stood up with minimal structure and experienced several challenges from the onset including; resistance to change, limited resourcing availability, top down pressure, varying system architectures, and misaligned and unclear processes. Cultural differences between the two organizations further magnified these challenges and resulted in communication breakdowns, missed deadlines, cost overages and a general lack of clarity on how to move forward.
The organization was risking major impacts to customers and essential business processes, which could hurt its reputation and customer retention.
Solution
DayBlink was brought in to assess the current state of the program and implement mitigations across the various teams
Over the course of several releases, DayBlink was engaged to support critical aspects of the consolidation effort, including System Integration Testing (SIT) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT). DayBlink also enhanced project reporting for Leadership to better inform decisions.
Once DayBlink started supporting the initiative, the challenges and cultural friction quickly became apparent. We improved the structure and hygiene of the initiative. Also, we redefined accountability to better represent the business in a primarily IT driven program.
DayBlink embedded within the Business leadership and delivery teams, assessed the current state cross-company dynamics, and led the team through the following key phases: (1) defined the program structure and governance model (ie. executive steering committee, operating committee, program goals, program workstreams, migration strategy and approach, etc.) (2) secured executive buy-in on overall program approach and mobilized key delivery teams, (3) facilitated collection of hundreds technical requirements, (4) setup tools to effectively manage testing activities and report against program progress, (5) assessed current state processes and designed future state processes, (6) orchestrated business team collaboration during SIT and UAT to test thousands of test cases, (7) provided post-production support by assisting with the management of production defects and additional change requests, (8) completed a post-release retrospective and incorporated improvement opportunities for leadership to use for future ERP releases.
This approach allowed the team to identify major problems, then develop mitigation plans that were achievable. Once the key delivery teams were mobilized, DayBlink was able to provide additional support to oversee the implementation of the mitigation plans.
Outcome
ERP systems merged on schedule decreasing expected costs by millions
DayBlink bridged the gap between teams to help the companies successfully migrate the new consolidated ERP Cloud solution. By streamlining 400+ processes and dozens of large datasets (e.g., customer, invoice, inventory, etc) into the same platform, overall ERP operational spend was reduced, allowing the unified company to operate more efficiently.
Due to the robust testing and the thousands of test cases that were completed during SIT and UAT, there were minimal adverse impacts of the customer experience after launch. Employees also were able to quickly transition to new the business processes, ERP tools, and ways of working through targeted training and communications.
Cultural cohesion also improved as the mitigation plans made accountabilities and processes more clear, which allowed the teams to start working together more effectively to complete major milestones.