The Mall of America has served as a staple of tourism in Minnesota and the Midwest for 30 years. When their internal software systems started to show critical signs of aging, they sought out a local Dynamics ERP support partner for assistance. Boyer & Associates helped the Mall of America improve the technology experience for their 11,000 employees with Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Note: This article was originally published by Microsoft in 2020.
For nearly 30 years, Mall of America (MOA) has served as a staple for tourism in Minnesota and across the Midwest. With over 520 stores and 11,000 employees year-round, MOA strives to embrace its visitors with the warmth and hospitality so readily associated with the North Star State. With guidance from Microsoft and Boyer & Associates, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, MOA has been able to further enhance that experience by simplifying employee workflows with the adoption of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Featuring a 1.3-million-gallon onsite aquarium, a seven-acre indoor theme park, two attached hotels, and over 520 stores, Mall of America (MOA) is known worldwide for delivering memorable experiences. Every year, more than 40 million guests travel to Bloomington, Minnesota to visit MOA. Patrick Wand, Ron Dico, and Eric Engstrom are just three of the 11,000 MOA employees dedicated to welcoming every visitor with the warmth and hospitality associated with the North Star State.
Even though Wand, Dico and Engstrom aren’t on the mall floor greeting guests, the three represent the inner infrastructure that keeps MOA running seamlessly.
“We’re always looking at technologies that are going to enhance the user experience, reduce operational overhead, reduce expenses, or open new revenue streams,” explains Wand, MOA’s Senior IT Project Manager. “From our standpoint, that becomes a guest experience project or an employee experience project.”
Enhancing the employee experience
To empower employees to perform their daily operations more efficiently and confidently, Wand, Dico, and Engstrom launched Dynamics 365 Business Central in October 2019 with partnership from Boyer & Associates. The MOA team championed this adoption as a key piece in modernizing internal resources.
“Whenever we have a chance to thrive internally, to make someone’s job easier, we have to take the opportunity,” says Engstrom, IT Project Manager.
Today, Business Central is helping streamline operations and improve the employee experience across MOA. Even something as simple as adding product images to purchase orders allows the Buyers team to reference the “item card” to view products seamlessly.
The point-of-sale solution is giving buyers increased visibility into inventory status, and account teams easier access to key data points. At the same time, Power BI promises to help MOA completely transform how it analyzes and implements data. “We’ve modernized the way we work using the power of Microsoft and the power of Business Central,” says Engstrom.
With Business Central connected to employee cell phones and tablets, MOA is promoting a more mobile and connected workforce. Retail buyers can now generate exact specifications of potential products, while warehouse employees enter bid transfers and reclassification journals without missing a beat.
“There’s so much here that has great potential,” Engstrom says. “We’re looking forward to seeing what else we can accomplish with this technology.”
Partnering for the future
Before Business Central, MOA’s IT network ran on a twenty-year-old SQL 2000 legacy system. Its inventory network was constantly being repaired, and MOA employees had to go through needlessly lengthy processes to accomplish basic tasks like creating purchase orders. “We realized that we needed to make plans for the future if we wanted to succeed long term,” Wand says.
“We couldn’t update SQL 2000,” Dico, Systems Integrator at MOA, recalls. “We couldn’t customize it to the level that we have now. There were hardly any integrations available. We knew what we needed, but we didn’t have a partner that could help put all the pieces together.”
Boyer & Associates provided MOA with the necessary insight and expertise to bring its Business Central adoption to life. “Integration without guidance is a challenge. It would have been a lot of guessing games, but with Boyer’s guidance, we can be sure that we’re populating the correct information,” says Dico.
“At the end of the day, this was to help our team members feel successful for the future,” Engstrom says. “And I think Boyer & Associates and Microsoft have given us a path for success.”
