Magnetic component design & manufacturer, iNRCORE, transforms supply chain forecasting with Dynamics 365

iNRCORE designs and manufactures magnetic components like power inductors and transformers that transmit high-speed, mission-critical data and power in the harshest operating conditions. For more than 70 years, iNRCORE’s solutions have reliably powered next-gen systems in virtually every high-performance industry, from defense to space exploration, including Lockheed Martin, Digi-Key, and Avnet.

Like any business today—and any manufacturing business, in particular—iNRCORE has been fighting the supply chain battle. But in a business that provides highly customized solutions, one that does not have the luxury of waiting to buy materials but must order them well in advance due to very long lead times, opportunities are won or lost based on how fast solutions can be delivered.

For iNRCORE, the problem was a case of technology not supporting critical areas like forecasting. The company was using Salesforce, but it was a carry-over from a time when the business was structured differently and was not able to meet current needs—and too inflexible to easily modify. For example, the sales pipeline was housed in Salesforce but managed in Excel. In addition, licensing was very costly, so as the time to renew approached, iNRCORE CEO Sarah Harris tasked GM Bob Jones to find another solution.

Key drivers for selection included:

• Cost savings
• Ease of use
• Ability to segregate data between different operations
• Elimination of managing the sales pipeline in both Excel and Salesforce
• Automation of key processes

Another wrinkle: The deadline for renewing the Salesforce contract was approaching very quickly, so the selected solution—including multiple integrations—would either need to be implemented within approximately THREE WEEKS, or the company would need to hold off until the next contract cycle.

All parties have been very pleased with the results so far: Bob’s iNRCORE team is managing the forecasting processes well, and Sarah is happy with being able to see the numbers she needs to make strategic decisions. “It’s transformed the business, taking it to a whole new level,” she said. “What we were getting before didn’t give me a sense of confidence. We were reactive, and now we can be proactive. It’s been a game-changer for everyone.”

Both Bob and Sarah are also pleased with the ease of use and flexibility of D365. Although they have a support contract with HSO, it was important to them that they be able to troubleshoot issues and add functionality internally, without outside help.

“Even at the end, we didn’t pay for things like dashboard creation,” said Bob. “We thought, if this is really a flexible platform, we should be able to do it ourselves. We got great guidance and training from the HSO team, but at the end of the day, we were able to build entire groups of dashboards, workflows, and all kinds of other things, which is ultimately what we ended up showing Sarah—and what convinced her to implement D365 in the other businesses. We have a sustainable solution and a healthy relationship with our partner.” “We’re the type of business that pivots quickly…we don’t have to deal with a big corporate bureaucracy,” continued Sarah. “Once we have those dashboards, we can learn from them and immediately know what to change. We have discovered opportunities we hadn’t even thought of before.”

The next steps are to move annual planning and budget processes into D365, including adding bookings targets by customers, person, or product group, and to pull other areas, like engineering, into the system for automating the design review process and more.

Sarah concluded it best: “Just getting the teams aware of what D365 can do is getting them thinking about what they can do faster and better speaks well of the platform—of its usability and flexibility.”