https://www.xperience-group.com/case-study/morris-and-spottiswood/
| Client(s): | Morris and Spottiswood |
|---|---|
| Key Contact(s): | Paul Brown |
| Industries | |
| Products | |
| Solutions |
"I'd highly recommend Xperience to any other company considering upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 (now Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central)," says Paul.
Starting as a joinery manufacturing business in 1925, family-owned Morris & Spottiswood is now one of the leading providers of fit-out, housing, maintenance, and M&E services in the UK.
Its Fitout & National Frameworks divisions work with numerous clients in the financial, retail, office, education, hotel, leisure and healthcare sectors on projects ranging from £10k to £10M. Within its M&E & Maintenance divisions, the company delivers to a large portfolio of private and public sector clients. Services include 24-hour emergency repair, installation & commission, testing & inspections, planned preventative maintenance programs, cyclical repairs and asset renewals as well as handling complex M&E refurbishment projects.
In June 2014, Morris & Spottiswood implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central) and NAVcontracts, a specific construction industry solution developed by Xperience.
“We have used Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for many years and wanted to bring the solution up to date so we could integrate with other Microsoft technologies like SharePoint. We also wanted to take advantage of the improved integration with Microsoft Office and the Role Tailored Client functionality that is now available”.
“Reporting’s been speeded up considerably. Also, the ability to drill down into detailed transactions is a lot faster” says Paul Brown, Financial Controller.
Having outgrown their previous reseller, Morris & Spottiswood selected Xperience as their Microsoft partner. “We had worked with some of the Xperience team before,” says Paul.
“We believed we could develop a good working relationship with them and trusted them to deliver the solution we required and deal with the very specific way we do things.”
Another key factor in Morris and Spottiswood’s decision was that Xperience had developed NAVcontracts, a complete ERP project-centric business solution that integrates into Dynamics NAV (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central). “The core Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 product doesn’t come with a construction industry-specific solution,” explains Paul, “So Xperience has developed their own. NAVcontracts allow you to do all the things that a construction company needs to do such as valuations, paying sub-contractors, plant hire and so on.”
“We started the project at the beginning of 2014 with a planned go live on the new system for the end of May” Paul continues. “The first phase involved reviewing our requirements and analysing any changes that would be required for the standard NAVcontracts system.
Xperience then configured a test system for us with these changes made including full conversion of our historical data. A workshop was completed with our key users so that we could complete detailed testing of the system. We fed back changes to Xperience, then tested it again, fed back more changes and so forth.” A week before the Go Live date, Xperience came in to train the whole company on the new system. “There are a lot of differences in NAV 2013,” says Paul.
“For instance, NAV 2013 features a Role Tailored Client interface which helps users focus on their tasks by tailoring the application experience to the needs of their role.” The live data conversion was completed over a weekend. “The whole process began on a Thursday night and was good to go by Tuesday morning, right on schedule. The Xperience team went the extra mile to make sure everything was in place” commented Paul.
Morris & Spottiswood has around 70 users “so we went for a phased release starting with Procurement and working our way through the different roles,” adds Paul. “Xperience had staff on site for the first week and they took on board any teething problems and fixed them pretty quickly.”
In conclusion “I’d highly recommend Xperience to any other company considering upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central),” says Paul.
“The team has been very accommodating in making sure that we get what we want rather than pushing clients down a certain route.
Also, they’ve got the expertise to drive the project forward. It’s still early days but so far everything’s moving in the right direction and we’re delighted.”