Supporting Manufacturing companies in their entire lifecycle

Deploying technology across multinational organisations can be a challenging task. In addition to default topics like process alignment and agreement, or the scope of the application, multinationals also need to thoroughly consider the level of kernelization they want to achieve. Yes, you might be looking for a unified way of working but is your organisation really a single organisation?

Another essential element to consider is the number of contracting parties when embarking on a digital transformation. To what extent can you reduce the number of contracting parties? Or: to what level can your business transformation partners take you? A single country? A single application? Or do they go the extra mile and their responsibility, to drive results and take care of matters.

HSO International runs multinational programs on a daily base. We have seen many different flavours over the years and are confident we know how to deploy Microsoft technology at global organisations.

It is no secret that Dynamics AX is still running at many organisations around the world. However, it’s important to address the challenges that multinational manufacturing companies using Dynamics AX may face. Firstly, Microsoft has stopped releasing patches and security updates for both AX 2009 and AX 2012, posing security risks due to unaddressed vulnerabilities. Moreover, outdated applications lack crucial performance improvements introduced in later versions. Additionally, the accumulation of irrelevant customizations can burden support efforts. Lastly, the inability to embrace the latest innovations, such as AI, hampers your ability to unlock their benefits. 

Dynamics 365 is Microsoft's answer to the needs of businesses around the world and recognized as such. Companies across industries are moving more workloads to the Microsoft cloud, enabling them to leverage new innovations. As companies migrate to the cloud though, it is important to not reinvent the wheel and bear in mind the lessons learnt from prior implementations. Simply stating that all AX customizations should be present in the new application does not make sense. Talking about customization, you also talk about data, data conversion and data migration. How do you maintain a single version of the truth from a business performance perspective, bearing in mind multinational programs can take up to multiple years. Relevant questions that multinational organisations will need to think through.

Once companies are live and operational on Dynamics 365, your digital transformation isn't finished. New questions will come in, for example related to the regular updates that Microsoft is releasing. Postponing them is only a temporary solution. Just pushing them through isn't a solution at all. How do you manage this properly, blending it in your company's DevOps strategy, making sure all systems remain online, updates do not disturb the business and new innovations are realized. Finally, no application is ever going to be complete and perfect. Gaps between the apps will remain. Being in the cloud does establish a paradigm shift to how you can and should solve these gaps. Because nobody wants to redo the intrusive customizations from two decades ago.