CHS, Inc. is a global agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers, and local cooperatives across the United States. With over 10,000 employees, they are “committed to creating connections to empower agriculture” and helping their members and customers grow their businesses.
CHS connects growers to consumers worldwide. They also supply crop nutrients and crop protection products, grain marketing services, production and agricultural services, animal nutrition products, food ingredients, and risk management services.
To meet their member and customer expectations, CHS knows how important it is to have the right tools in place. For them, the right ERP solution specifically was needed that could be customizable for their unique industry.
Challenge: Finding a customizable ERP for agribusiness
CHS acquired a Minnesota business specializing in Crop Protection. At the time, the Minnesota company was using a highly customized instance of Microsoft AX 2009 to manage their business. Due to the nature of their industry, they used many unique tools developed in AX around pricing management, prepayments, compliance, and more. When Microsoft announced they were ending mainstream support for AX, the company started searching for a new solution to meet their needs.
CHS knew they wanted all the benefits and advantages of a cloud-based ERP solution, but they also needed the ability to customize the system for their industry.
Solution: Cloud and customizations with Dynamics 365 F&SCM
After looking at various ERP solutions, the CHS team decided on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (formerly Finance and Operations) with Power BI for reporting. It met all their needs for out-of-the-box capabilities and ability to customize. Plus, it gave them the benefits of being cloud-based – easy remote access, mobile access, user friendly, automations, and including Microsoft bi-annual releases enhancing functionality.
Jason Schmidt, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis for CHS Inc.’s Crop Protection company said the ability to customize was a huge selling point.
“You speak to people representing other kinds of solutions with ERPs, and they’ll tell you customization is a no; you don’t want to do it. You want to stay as far away from it as possible. But that’s the thing I liked about going with D365 F&SCM is that we could do a significant amount of custom work to help the users use the system better,” he said.
Benefits of Dynamics 365 F&SCM for agribusiness distributor
CHS benefitted greatly from their Microsoft ERP for agribusiness implementation. Here are several key benefits they are experiencing with their new system:
- Flexible, easily configurable advanced pricing features were implemented to ensure customers get invoiced accurately.
- Due to their business being item-based, flexible prepayment methods were needed. CHS needed to set up rules on prepayments with the ability to apply them to all items that have discounts, specific invoices, or specific items on invoices.
- They now have the ability to manage customer “tank” specifications for tracking, traceability, and prevention of cross contamination. CHS manages customers’ tank contents, chemical compatibility codes, cleaning procedures, refills, lifecycles, and retirement at end of life.
- Automation of required paperwork was a must. Dynamics 365 F&SCM allows easy automation of paperwork for tracking orders. It includes the option to view details on an item level if needed.
- Tracking and processing future orders is easy. CHS enters forecasts on specific products from customers and then can automatically turn them into future orders when needed to ship.
- Robust reporting capabilities and technical data design allow for the creation of key reports that drive business decisions and success.
“You speak to people representing other kinds of solutions with ERPs, and they’ll tell you customization is a no … But that’s the thing I liked about going with D365 F&SCM is that we could do a significant amount of custom work to help the users use the system better.”
Jason Schmidt, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis
Why CHS chose Boyer & Associates
CHS had previously worked with another Microsoft partner, but that partner referred the company to Boyer for their Dynamics 365 F&SCM and expertise in ERP for agribusiness. It was a great fit. Not only did the Boyer team help customize their system, but they also recommended leadership think through the company’s processes. This allowed CHS to take into consideration all ways to use new functionality available in D365 F&SCM and decide which would be best for their business.
“Not only did they customize D365 for our business, but the Boyer team recommended three great add-ons we needed. It’s great having a knowledgeable partner who has worked with a lot of the additional products. They know who to work with and who to stay away from,” said Schmidt.
CHS knows that having the right partner — an experienced partner — makes all the difference in an implementation. There are always unexpected things that come up during the first month after going live. Being able to rely on a committed team of experts to solve any issues quickly contributed to the company’s post-implementation success.
“The best thing about working with Catherine Dean and her team would be that she is a true partner and interested in your success,” said Schmidt. “They are very attentive to your needs and are straight shooters on what they think the best thing is for your business.”
Moving forward, post go-live stabilization, CHS is still implementing additional functionality and tailoring the system further for their users’ productivity. The global agribusiness is committed to continuous improvement and evolving their processes to better handle customer needs.
“We continue to have a great relationship with the Boyer team, and we know they are committed to our success,” added Schmidt.
