tna solutions transforms business with Microsoft Dynamics 365

As a growing global business, the tna solutions leadership team knew digital transformation was essential to reaching future revenue and growth plans. After appointing Pravin Singh as chief information officer in 2017 to spearhead the change, the tna solutions leadership team designed a five-year strategy to transform the business.

Challenge

Founded in Sydney in 1982, tna solutions manufactures food processing and packaging equipment as well as supplies turnkey solutions to food manufacturers worldwide. With customers in more than 120 countries, tna solutions employs more than 500 people in 30 offices globally and operates six manufacturing sites.

“tna solutions has grown rapidly in the last ten years through several acquisitions. The acquisitions brought excellent growth but also multiple systems, manual processes and ageing infrastructure to maintain. It was clear our thirty-year old infrastructure was no longer capable of running the business of today, or tomorrow,” said Pravin Singh, chief information officer, tna solutions.

Solution and outcomes

Already a happy Microsoft Dynamics AX customer, tna solutions chose to build future infrastructure on a Microsoft platform. The team launched a tender process to identify the best technology partner to work with them through the transformation journey. Ultimately DXC Practice for Microsoft was chosen as that partner.

“We wanted more than a partner who could simply implement technology. We wanted a true partnership, with a team able to work with us on evolving the infrastructure that drives the business. DXC Practice for Microsoft brought outstanding technical skill, the global reach we needed, excellent talent and connections to Microsoft in Seattle, which helped refine our five-year transformation strategy. We’re really happy with how DXC Practice for Microsoft have helped us,” said Singh. 

As a business experiencing rapid growth, which also brought cost pressures, tna solutions made the decision to start its transformation with a series of small technology changes. The first phase in the transformation journey was to standardise platforms. After a 12-month standardisation project, 560 users globally were using the Microsoft Office 365 platform. The next step was to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent (Dynamics 365 Human Resources).

“In the past, we managed many human resources tasks using Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent has made human resources management incredibly fast, simple and effective. From onboarding to performance management and offboarding, we have complete visibility across our team with no more paperwork,” said Singh.

Six months after tna solutions went live with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent, the team deployed Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. Core to the success of this phase of the project was Microsoft FastTrack. The service provides a smooth transition, with Microsoft engineers and partners working alongside your team.

“DXC Practice for Microsoft introduced us to Microsoft FastTrack, which helped us streamline data cleansing and migration and enabled the Sales project to go live quickly,” said Singh.

Historically, reporting was also difficult and time consuming for tna solutions. The data required for reporting needed to be mapped into Microsoft Excel, then users would have to write queries or create macros to build the desired reports. A time-consuming and manual process, end of month reports could take several weeks to produce. To benefit from real-time, data-driven insights, tna solutions implemented Microsoft Power BI.

“Microsoft Power BI means our data and reporting views are updated daily. Single sign-on lets the team log in anytime, anywhere, from personal and work devices to see exactly what our CRM system is showing across leads, opportunities and contracts. We have close to real-time visibility to powerful insights, which are enabling data-based judgements across the business. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales is opening up new ways of working for our team, helping us define our processes and driving better accountability,” said Singh.

Future projects

The next phase of the tna solutions digital transformation journey include the rollout of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service and the deployment of a new ERP system, running on Microsoft Dynamics 365.

“Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service will enable field teams to use iPads to more efficiently manage customer accounts. All customer orders will go directly into the new ERP system, which will ensure a faster, better customer experience while improving the speed and accuracy of billing,” said Singh.

Most recently, tna solutions has been working with Microsoft and DXC Practice for Microsoft on pilots involving the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence to create a connected factory environment.

“When our 5-year strategy is complete, we’ll be completely cloud-based with no reliance on ageing hardware with all the associated costs and teams. And, we’ll be a highly disciplined business. We’ll know the status of our business daily and will be able to make data-based decisions based on accurate insights. The recent work we’re doing with Microsoft and DXC Practice for Microsoft is also enabling us to explore Industry 4.0 principles, which has the potential to revolutionise our business and go-to-market model,” concludes Singh.