Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central For Media Companies
Adevinta Case Study
"...we have found their project team was flexible enough to meet with the project changes and tight deadlines as well as with a key person in the project leaving Adevinta.
This meant that the system did what it needed to do from go live."
Who are Adevinta?
Adevinta is a global digital company with a family of local marketplace brands. They are the biggest marketplace specialists in Europe. The London based Adevinta Products & Technologies UK was previously owned by Schibsted and was re-branded from Schibstead Products & Technologies after being acquired by the Adevinta group of companies at the beginning of the year.
The change of ownership meant Adevinta had to move away from their (heavily customised) Microsoft Dynamics NAV system that was managed previously by the Swedish head office. The UK business required an independent solution that could scale with their users and growth. They also did not want to invest in or look after any hardware.
What was the business challenge
The team was losing access to their core Finance & Reporting system as well as the core team that looked after it. Moving away from a customised, highly automated system looked after by a team of experts in Sweden – and in a short time scale – was going to be a challenge. While the Swedish team knew Dynamics NAV inside out, the UK team only used a small portion of it.
The UK Finance Manager was far more familiar with Sages offerings and wanted to work with a partner that could help the team understand the ‘gaps’ in knowledge from a business process point of view.
THE BUSINESS BENEFITS
How did Cbiz address the business challenges?
An agile and trustworthy partner was needed as the scope was not defined, but the deadline was set in stone. The agility was further needed to work with a 3rd party accounts firm that would take over much of the data entry and usage of the new system as well. The software needed to be highly automated, especially in regard to working with Purchase Invoice automation. Ideally with ExFlow, which their approvers already knew how to use.
What alternative solutions did Adevinta consider?
Dynamics 365 Business Central was always seen as the ideal solution as they knew it was flexible enough to meet with their previous system. However, familiarity with the users was with Sage more than Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV).
The Finance Manager knew Sage inside out but was not sure it was flexible enough to cope with the ‘moving target’ that the project scope would entail.
Why did Adevinta Choose Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Dynamics 365 Business Central was chosen as it was flexible enough to cope with the needs of the old parent company and that of the new owners (who also used Dynamics NAV).
Cbiz was chosen as a partner as they took the time to really understand what we were looking for and identified with the headache of splitting from one head office system & expectations and moving to another.
They had done this before and were willing to be flexible enough to take the requirements that the project would throw at them and get the deadline met.
We talked directly to people that had experience in implementing such systems and were not given the ’big sell’ nor did we have to liaise with salespeople that had no real-world experience.
What would have happened if Adevinta had not upgraded?
We would have been forced to use a system & adopt processes that had been designed for the new owners. This would have required a bigger finance team in the UK and have involved training that was not from local experts.
Working with local experts helped the project run smoothly as they understood the UK requirements and also how the Swedish system varied from this.
What were the principal risks in implementing the solution?
The biggest factor was having a ‘Plan B’ for the new system if Business Central could not go live in time. We could have gone Sage and done that in house, but that would have really been difficult time-wise. We had to choose the right system and partner, as Plan B was going to be really tough to see through from a resourcing point of view.
The other risk was having a system that did not meet the new owners’ requirements, we had not been able to do a detailed review of what they needed and had to move fast. Having an agile system and partner was critical to this going well.
HOW OUR SOLUTION HELPED
What measurable benefits have you seen?
"Working with Cbiz, we have found their project team was flexible enough to meet with the project changes and tight deadlines as well as with a key person in the project leaving Adevinta. This meant that the system did what it needed to do from go live.
It also meant that the changes that arose once Adevinta had taken over could be met on an ad-hoc, but timely basis. Keeping us productive and helping the new finance manager understand the new system.
The system has managed to keep up with requests for change, has proven to be reliable and the new users have been trained on an ongoing basis. The integration with ExFlow works well and has saved the disruption and expense of training the approvers in a new system."
Adevinta UK Ltd.
Find out more by calling us on 03300 882 515 and ask to talk to someone about our customer transformation journeys.
We will be happy to hear from you and promise that you will not be hounded by pushy salespeople. We don't like those kinds of tactics and we don't believe others do either.
THE MISSION
We are here to get more done. Daily.
Seeing the time saved once the solution is installed has compelled us to create this tailorable solution as an Extension to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Extending your solution without compromising on getting timely upgrades.
