McKinna Group – Success Story
McKinna Group’s Leap to Digital Excellence with Business Central
McKinna Group, led by Managing Director Michael Harrod, is a third-generation family business based in Victoria. The company specialises in architectural building products and has been in operation for 70 years. With a workforce of seventy-two people, McKinna Group has evolved from a jobbing shop to handling large-scale projects such as train stations, and kiosks for companies and airports.
The challenge: Legacy system holding back growth
As the business scaled into commercial projects, their existing system, MYOB, was unable to provide real-time data and customisable processes that the company required.
McKinna Group chose to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central due to its out-of-the-box integration to the Microsoft Power Platform. “One of the rules that we have in our digital strategy is to have full connectivity with the Microsoft platform. This was due to the work that we’ve done in PowerBI and Power Apps previously,” said Mr Harrod.
Sharon Harrod, Digital Systems Designer concurred, “Much of our existing data capture processes revolved around these custom-built applications that we already used, so the fact that we could just repurpose these existing applications and plug them into the new system was such a big win for us.”
The project began with an implementation partner that understood they needed the ability to repurpose their existing applications into the new system, however their first choice in partner did not go to plan. Sharon recalls, “We quite quickly realised that there were issues with their lack of knowledge in terms of the finance and accounting set up in the back end. We knew we were either going to have to scrap the project as a whole or find someone else with a greater depth of knowledge that could help us in the implementation of Business Central.”
There were plenty of people in the space that claimed that they knew how to work with Business Central. It’s one thing to understand the technology, but it’s another thing to understand the finance side of the system, and it was that expert financial knowledge EBS was able to provide.
Sharon Harrod, Digital Systems Designer
McKinna Group
The journey: Finding the right partner
Under severe time pressures to get the project live in time for the start of the financial year, McKinna Group engaged with Evolution Business Systems (EBS). “There were plenty of people in the space that claimed that they knew how to work with Business Central. It’s one thing to understand the technology, but it’s another thing to understand the finance side of the system, and it was that expert financial knowledge EBS was able to provide.”
“EBS had a fundamental understanding of what we needed, and it was really evident to us in that initial scoping process. They provided clear and concise instructions and a project plan that gave clear steps from start to finish. There was no fluff and that was important. They were just as concerned as us about meeting this deadline, and that came across clearly. They understood McKinna Group’s requirements and allowed the company to use our in-house knowledge. They were very good with communication, so the partnership was more of a collaboration than project management from EBS’s end.”
The implementation of Business Central allowed McKinna Group to process a larger number of sales quotes and sales orders. It also provided greater visibility and transparency across the business. The company was able to maintain a clear view of the number of work-in-progress jobs without any downtime between implementing the new system from the old system.
“Our work and work-in-progress is anywhere from 500 to 700 open orders at any one time. Using EBS’s easy upload templates allowed us to maintain that during the implementation and we could launch the project without any downtime in the factory.”
The outcome: Native integration with Microsoft Power Platform
“The top three benefits for me in Business Central are the out of out of the box capabilities, where Business Central ties in with the Power Platform without any extensive custom development. You can plug in external apps flows, it can talk to Power BI, these are things that we were already using as a business, so the ability to take our existing things and repurpose them that that was key for me.
“The customisation with Business Central is also a key feature for us, such as the ability to add fields. At McKinna, we produce custom products. The ability to change what we’re capturing in any screen by inserting a new box or somewhere to capture an extra description to maintain our workflow was a key feature for us.
“Once implemented, we had to put some guardrails in and scale that back because we moved from archaic financial accounting software to Business Central. We had to make that transition for our staff as easy as possible.
“The user interface for Business Central mirrors other Microsoft products on the market. This was a key benefit for us because it meant that it felt familiar to our staff. They were able to easily navigate the system without extensive training.
“We’ve tailored the system to work with our custom workflows. At times we felt like Business Central might not be able to achieve that, but EBS helped us through with ebs-plus. McKinna works in a specific way – custom building almost every single product that we sell our customers. So we found whilst looking at other ERP solutions they didn’t fit with our custom workflow processes. The ability to customise with the help of ebs-plus was a game changer for us.
“EBS were able to provide us with solutions that fit with our custom requirements without the need for extensive development. “
The Future
Following the deployment of Business Central, McKinna Group is looking forward to rolling out external-facing applications that can tie directly in with the system. They are currently working on custom calculators for their website to provide custom pricing to their customers directly and feed orders into Business Central directly. “We achieved the internal deployment and looking forward we now want our customers to be able to integrate with the product through the website. This aligns with our goal of becoming completely paperless, which is only achievable through Business Central.”
McKinna Group highly recommends EBS for their in-depth knowledge of the system and exceptional support. Ms Harrod said, “EBS were willing to partner with us and tailor a package that worked with our needs and requirements. They also spent a lot of time with our team, empowering them to take on ownership of the new system, which was really important.”
When asked what she would say to someone looking to use EBS as a Business Central implementation partner, she exclaimed: “Go for it!”
“The ability to customise with the help of ebs-plus was a game changer for us. EBS were able to provide us with solutions that fit with our custom requirements without the need for extensive development.”
Sharon Harrod, Digital Systems Designer
McKinna Group
Office Location
3/47 Burgundy St
Heidelberg VIC 3084
Postal Address
PO Box 1115
Camberwell VIC 3124
Phone
1300 303 973