When good avos go bad: the importance of being a great technology partner

1 month ago 53

To stay alive in business, an organisation needs to keep its customers happy and its client base growing, not to mention staying ahead of the competition. Once the products and solutions have been established, technology is a key part of staying on top of your organisation’s performance, and today it’s frequently advisable for the IT functionality to be outsourced to a specialist company.

However, technology partners are well advised to refrain from implementing new technologies just because they are available, or perhaps because a solution has been upgraded. There are times when doing this can result in the exact opposite of the desired result, with the outcome being a certain amount of egg on faces, metaphorically speaking.

In the case of Mission Produce, it was avocado and not egg, in an incident that could perhaps be called “The Case of the Failed ERP Roll-out”.

Smashed avo consequences

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications lie at the heart of the operations of many large operations, and the consequences of a failed software roll-out can be serious. This is what happened to US-based Mission Produce, which packs, ripens and distributes avocados all over the world, including from South Africa.

In November 2021, the company turned on a new ERP system intended to support international growth with improved operational visibility and financial reporting capabilities. The results, however, were initially disastrous.

Suddenly Mission Produce, which facilitates the delivery of just-ripened avocados all over the world, no longer had access to crucial details such as its actual avocado stock numbers or how ripe they were. Many of the avocados became unfit for sale, and the company had to buy in fruit from other suppliers to meet its delivery commitments. Additionally, there were delays in its automated customer invoicing.

Mission Produce was forced to develop new processes to keep information flowing around the business. It also had to hire a third-party consultant to sort out its ERP system. Understandably, the drop in earnings was substantial.

Implementing mismatched or hasty solutions

As outlined above, the consequences of implementing mismatched solutions can be extremely severe on a business. They can include the following:

Lost revenue: Customers who experience poor service as a result of a mismatched solution implementation are less likely to make repeat purchases or recommend the business to others. This results in lost sales opportunities, even if only temporary.
Damage to reputation: Negative experiences shared by dissatisfied customers can tarnish the company’s reputation, which leads to a loss of trust and credibility in the market.
Legal issues: In extreme cases, negative experiences can cause disputes which can lead to legal action, or result in costly litigation and damage to the company’s reputation.
Impact on brand image: A mismatched technology solution can ultimately cause the brand’s image and values to be dented, making it more difficult to attract and retain customers.

A successful ERP implementation in the education arena

So much for when things go wrong with a new ERP roll-out: let’s have a look at when things go right.

As a result of a successful ERP implementation, Braintree’s client – South African tertiary education institution Eduvos – has gained real-time insights, allowing it to run more smoothly and deliver more learning opportunities to students in South Africa. Eduvos was able to simplify its student enrolment experience from 90 days to being virtually instantaneous with Microsoft Dynamics 365.

With 12 campuses to manage around the country, Eduvos had identified a critical obstacle impeding its operational efficiency in the form of a significant lack of integration across departments. The absence of a unified platform and a siloed approach resulted in the following issues:

A negative effect on reporting;
Ineffective communication, leading to inaccurate metrics in education, sales, finance and academics;
A fragmented view of student data; and
A negative impact on the organisation’s growth ambitions overall.

The manual processes were transformed through Eduvos’s collaboration with Braintree by implementing Dynamics 365 solutions and Azure. The institution now uses Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Sales to streamline student enrolment, Dynamics 365 Customer Service for student management, Dynamics 365 Finance for financial processes, and Dynamics 365 Human Resources.

With Microsoft 365 and Azure, Eduvos was also able to streamline interactions for its students, from enrolment to course completion, which led to a more satisfying educational experience. As a result, its student enrolment has shown an impressive 50% year-on-year growth for two consecutive years.

Braintree: listening to our clients

While it’s true that external factors have a strong impact on a business, success or failure is often also reliant on key internal factors. The structural components you use to operate your business are critically important in producing positive outcomes and helping you to manage risks and threats.

Such a threat could come in the form of a misguided attempt to implement the newest technology solution when it is not inherently a fit.

As Braintree, we understand that there are complexities on both the customers’ side as well as our own. We are always prepared to find a way to meet our clients’ requirements without feeling the need to prioritise a specific solution that might not be the best fit.

We are the technology partner who listens to our customers and understands – and prioritises – their needs.

You could call our team “the good avos” – I mean, eggs.