Challenge
A multi-site, international manufacturing enterprise ran several disconnected 1C-based systems — production planning, sales and accounting were separate and not integrated, so consolidating data for management reporting meant collecting and reconciling it by hand, and much of the document flow was still on paper. The company decided to bring everything onto a single ERP — Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations. It became a cross-functional programme with 100+ participants over roughly two years, delivered remotely — the vendor’s project team worked from abroad through the pandemic, over Microsoft Teams.
My role — coordination & liaison
I’m the company’s in-house IT specialist, and on this programme I acted as the coordinator between the external implementation team and the business. I didn’t build the ERP — I kept the right people connected, in both directions:
- Helped the consultants reach the employee who could best explain a given business process or make a required decision.
- During build and testing, helped colleagues find the right consultant for questions about a specific functional area of the system.
- Held the map of who owned what across 100+ people, so requirements, data and decisions flowed to the right place.
- Kept the IT and infrastructure side aligned with the rollout throughout.
During my MSc studies at TalTech I also analysed this implementation as a research case, looking at the gap between planning and delivery and the factors behind ERP success and failure.
Result
The Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations rollout completed successfully — replacing the enterprise’s legacy 1C ERP and accounting, and consolidating previously disconnected systems onto one platform.