It always works like that, except when it doesn’t. Another failed implementation.

The client did everything that they thought they should. They decided that the time was right to upgrade their old bespoke ERP and as fans of Microsoft who had followed the markets, they had decided that Business Central was the system for them. This was confirmed with the demos from two different partners and after two separate reference visits, they engaged one of the partners to implement Business Central.

Discovery started and, in the quote, they had allowed a full-day’s consultancy for manufacturing. The client assumed that this was going to be enough, after all their manufacturing processes were very simple.

Discovery was arranged to take place as a series of workshops that would be conducted in this new world of Microsoft Teams. The client was happy because he didn’t need to pay the 200 miles at 45p per mile or hotel bills, and over the week of discovery, he would save at least ￡500. He assumed that the consultant would also have more time available.

The manufacturing session started with the manager taking the lead, but because he wasn’t the expert, he brought along Joe. Joe had worked for 30 years on the three lines that they had. Joe knew everything that anyone ever needed to know, however Joe doesn’t like IT and can’t understand the concept of talking into a computer, so other than hello, and a few “Yes, that is correct” he didn’t say much.

The consultant heard about the manufacturing process, about the batch sizes for each machine, and that the components were kept in one area for each machine, and everything is always the same, except of course when the site floods (about twice a year) and they can’t get a forklift into one machine, but the consultant didn’t hear about that.

The routes were simple, the Bom’s simple and the consultant wrote it all up. The scope and documents were sent to the project sponsors and the management. It was signed off and went through two rounds of UAT testing.

Go-live is uneventful and everything seems fine, but then the yard floods so Line 3 is effectively out of action.

I won’t go into the specifics, but with a demand plan that was unrelenting, the factory staff did what was necessary to get the goods out. The office staff did what they could with the production orders, moving stock to the right places before raising the pick. The major issue came when they were trying to do the picks up to two weeks after the materials had been used and unfortunately the raw materials were now out of date. Someone decided to remove the components from the production order, which at least allowed them to output the finished goods. However, this was a FMCG industry, and the SOP / warehouse teams couldn’t ship the goods until the production order had output them. Someone used the item journal to positively adjust the goods. Life carried on, goods were going out of the door and cash was coming in, the rest was just seen as a bad system that couldn’t be trusted.

Three months later, a new member of staff arrived in the production office. They were trained by their predecessor to see if the materials were in the correct machine bin, if they were, raise the pick, if they weren’t, remove the component line from the production order.

Within six months the system had become one of record keeping only, and even that wasn’t to be trusted. All planning functions were done on excel spreadsheets and all movements, production orders, picks, put-aways were done after the fact. Nobody trusted the inventory, and everybody hated Business Central.

So who is at fault?

Obviously, the consultant who did the discovery defends himself, saying that they despite his questioning during the workshops, they failed to give him the information necessary.

The partner simply refers to the documents and says we are sorry, but the scope of the project was clearly defined and signed off, and it went through two rounds of user acceptance testing.

The client thinks they have done everything right. They provided an SME for each of the areas, attended all the workshops, reviewed all the documents, and tested the system in line with the training provided. The client is really annoyed because they even went on two reference visits, one for each of the prospective partners and chose the partner on the strength of this.

What has contributed to this failure?

When consultants work for partners, the client is often not their only client. They have a thing called billable hours, and if they don’t keep their billable hours up, they must explain themselves and can end up losing their jobs. I have experience with partners and my billable percentage had to be 80%.

So, if the quote for discovery allowed eight hours and the workshop was four hours long, I had to draw the process flows, write the documents and design the set-up in four hours and that time would often include having to refresh my memory on functionality I may not have used for a while. Only when the client came back and said we have read this and just realised we didn’t tell you about this could we then spend more time on it, because the client is authorising more time.

Now it is important for me to say that a consultant will always do their best for you, I am not saying they will deliberately leave things out but what I am saying is things do get missed and if you must account for every minute, you haven’t got time to ponder these things and wait for the penny to drop.

When you ask a partner to arrange a reference visit, they are going to their large list of clients, and they will select the ones where it went well. They are never going to say, go visit customer x, his implementation failed, and he no longer works with us; so obviously a reference visit must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Clients often look to save money and again there is nothing wrong with this but in this case, Joe who is the expert in all things production, and kept the machines going during the flood, didn’t feel comfortable enough for whatever reason to raise this issue. Would he have felt more comfortable if he was sat in a room with a man in a suit asking him questions? Perhaps not, but if that man was stood in the factory in a pair of overalls watching Joe work, he might.

So what can help avoid situations like this?

There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from this story and sadly, it is not rare. Implementations fail for a variety of reasons, and I have only briefly covered some of them here, but there is one thing you can do to guide you through. Employ the services of a Business Central Consultant directly on a short-term contract on a day rate. With reduced expenses, you get the knowledge and ability that you will get from a partner but from within your own organisation. Most of us have a wide variety of experience gained in different industries, and have worked during our careers for Microsoft Gold Partners, but prefer to be in the thick of it with an end user client, getting to know the business and really adding value.

Implementations are as much about people within the business as they are the software. If the people aren't on board, the implementation is at huge risk. An on-site consultant can spend time building the all-important relationships that simply cannot be done in a few hours over teams.

In the case of this story, a consultant on your side would have teased the knowledge out of Joe, it might not have been in a formal face to face meeting, maybe stood at the coffee machine or while walking down a corridor, but then when the discovery for manufacturing was written up, it would have included the except when it doesn’t….

If you are currently living with a failed or stalled implementation, are planning to implement Business Central or just need a chat about what is possible and what we could provide for you, we can be reached at www.business-central.team