Manuka Health evolving their business with Dynamics 365

 |   Microsoft NZ News Centre

Manuka Health Honey
As Previously Published on Sable37

New Zealand based natural healthcare company, Manuka Health has chosen Microsoft Dynamics 365, to underpin a major digital transformation initiative across the business.

Established in 2006, Manuka Health is on a significant growth trajectory. With 140 employees across New Zealand, the natural healthcare company operates over 17,000 beehives and processes honey and other bee products. They distribute products to over 45 countries throughout the world.

To streamline operations and transform efficiency Manuka Health is replacing their legacy ERP system with Microsoft Dynamics 365. The integrated cloud-based solution ensures that Manuka Health personnel have secure, anytime, anywhere access to information and real-time decision-making support.

Ben Boase, Manuka Health’s Chief Financial Officer, is the lead architect and champion for the digital transformation project. He says, “We are transforming in a number of ways – one is the way we manage and deliver our products in the digital space. We’re in a developing industry and there are evolving regulations around honey and bee products and their distribution in the markets we serve. We see technology as a key enabler in delivering exceptional products and helping our customers lead healthier lives.”

“Our vision for the business was critical to picking Microsoft Dynamics 365. Its out of the box functionality and easy user experience gave us the confidence that our technology would enable us to facilitate growth in the business.”

To build this system, Manuka Health partnered with Microsoft Dynamics Partner Sable37, known internationally for their Dynamics 365 expertise. Leveraging Sable37’s knowledge and experience in the food processing industry coupled with their understanding of the Microsoft ecosystem allows Manuka Health to build a trusted system designed to match its needs.

Boase adds that Sable37 demonstrated that Microsoft Dynamics 365 was the right platform for the business and they had the team with the skills and experience to deliver an out of the box solution.

“Cultural fit was really important to us. We felt that Sable37 had a similar culture to ours and our people matched very well, providing a solid foundation for a partnership. Sable37’s team had the skills and experience to deliver a platform that would support our business from beekeeping right through manufacturing and distribution.”

Tight integration across Microsoft platforms, particularly Dynamics 365 and Power BI, ensures transparency and accuracy along with rich reporting tools to support Manuka Health executives’ decision-making.

“In the first phase, we’re excited about the improved demand planning and forecasting that Microsoft Dynamics 365 delivers out of the box. In a developing industry like ours, this is a game changer, helping us make more data-driven decisions to improve critical business processes,” Boase adds.

Ciaran Quinn, Manuka Health’s Group Financial Controller believes that as a cloud based software, Dynamics 365 enables a single source of information being made available to users; “Across locations, it’s simple, intuitive and integrates our various systems, so employees are no longer working in silos with manual processes. We want to facilitate self-service capabilities across the organisation, so our employees are empowered to draw analysis and insights from our data.”

The technology and business transformation that has already been wrought by Dynamics 365 will continue across the business, given the team’s commitment to continuous improvement.

Quinn explains that the business is looking forward to the upgrade that Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides, a move that optimises how the organisation manages their distribution network, so vendors, suppliers and the business all have access to a broader, single source of information.

Boase believes that technology will play an increasingly important role across the New Zealand agriculture sector and concludes “We see Microsoft Dynamics 365 as our platform of the future. As the system matures and the data provides a richer output, efficiencies and opportunities for optimisation become stronger and dynamic. Being in the cloud allows us to scale without having to worry about infrastructure. We’re also excited about the developments in IoT and look forward to using the technology to manage beekeepers and drive efficiencies in the business.”

“In our move to the cloud, trust and security have been key. Microsoft has always been a strong, reliable brand, and a known entity to us, and working closely with a partner like Sable37, who understand the Microsoft ecosystem so well gave us the peace of mind that everything would run smoothly,” he concludes.

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