Popular Consumer Craft and Education Brand Creates a Mold for Future Profits

"This project is a showcase example of a client-partner relationship at the highest quality, delivering the project on time and on budget, with improved business processes and seamless information flow across systems, resulting in operational cost efficiencies and improved sales forecasts."

Ram Kanagala, IT Director, Ellison

Country or Region: United States

Customer Profile
Ellison is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of die-cutting systems for educational institutions and leading crafts supplier, with its well-known Sizzix brand of products, and distributes globally.

Business Situation
Ellison business has evolved significantly over the past 30 years and its ERP system does not align with the current business model. Ellison needed a system that reflects the current global business scenario and processes that improve operational efficiencies.

Solution
Ellison chose Microsoft Dynamics AX for its standard processes and scalability, and chose Ignify, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, for the implementation.

Benefits

• Operational processes align with the business model for each of the sales channels, providing insights into operational efficiencies.
• Executives are empowered to make key decisions with real-time business analytics.
• Improved order processing and delivery mechanisms.
• Enhanced understanding of customer base and sales growth.

"A good discovery process by Ignify helped define the scope and goals of the project early on. This, combined with focus and commitment from the Ellison team, helped the project accomplish a lot more than the original goals within the budget and timelines."

Bhavesh Ashani, Vice President, Client Services, Ignify

Ellison, a leading manufacturer and distributor of popular craft and educational products, realized it needed to improve internal processes to reflect its business model in the current global scenario. As sales channels crossed geographical boundaries and customer groups became less defined, Ellison needed an updated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that could take over for its existing one, which was bogged down with customizations and legacy processes. The company opted to implement Microsoft Dynamics® AX. Ignify, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner and Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club and Inner Circle member, helped Ellison implement the new system and also ensured that integrations with existing applications remained or were replaced with in-system functionalities. Ellison is now able to quickly and easily manage sales and inventory transactions, and to leverage its customer and sales history in order to create accurate reports that help guide sales and marketing decisions.

Founded in 1977, Ellison is a leading manufacturer of die-cutting products, and a well-known name in the education and, with Sizzix brand of products, the consumer craft markets. Ellison’s products include the EClips Electronic Shape-Cutting Machine and other popular lines of consumer craft tools sold in leading craft and art stores nationwide.

Ellison’s professional and consumer customer bases were changing. While it used to have distinct education and craft consumer profiles, many customers were crossing between bases and buying products aimed at both markets. Unfortunately, Ellison was unable to track and forecast these potential sales as well as it wanted. In addition, Ellison’s almost decade-old ERP system was bloated with customizations that the company had built to have the features it needed. All of this created a slow, nonintuitive back-end system that was hindering Ellison from reaching its profit potential.

Ellison realized it needed to update its business model, and needed a back-end system sophisticated enough to reflect the current business scenario across various sales channels globally. The company needed a system that improves operational efficiencies and brings visibility to transactional data.

Ellison decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX, largely due to its flexibility and great platform for growth. In addition, Ellison was already running Axapta 3.0, so it was comfortable with the platform. The company also recognized the system’s strong foundation for future upgrades, as well as its scalability and ability to talk to Ellison’s overseas locations in the United Kingdom and China, which currently run on different ERP systems.

Implementation
With help from Ignify, Ellison implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX with the following modules:

• Full Procure to Pay
• Order to Cash
• Inventory Management
• Projects
• Production

Ignify’s expertise with Microsoft Dynamics implementations allowed them to identify Ellison’s biggest needs and offer in-system solutions to the work-arounds that the company had been building with its previous customizations. By employing a strategy that emphasized communication and constant dialogue from data migration to deployment, Ignify was able to ensure the process would be smooth. "The successful implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX at Ellison can be attributed to the close partnership and focused teamwork between Ignify and Ellison,” said Sandeep Walia, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Ignify. “We are proud to have participated in streamlining the business practices and increased productivity that Ellison has realized as a result."

Streamlining Business Practices
The decision to implement the up-to-date version of Microsoft Dynamics AX came on the heels of the company’s realization that its business goals and practices were changing drastically. Ellison’s previous Axapta 3.0 system was completely bogged down with customizations, many of which were not currently being used. With the implementation, Ellison carefully selected features in Microsoft Dynamics AX that could take the place of its most used customizations. Ellison also had a large database of almost 500,000 customer records and 25 million sales transactions. Migrating to the new system ensured that only active customers were moved to the new system and that all duplicate entries were cleansed before migration; Ignify helped with the massive migration by moving 5 years of general ledger data. In addition, the new system now allows Ellison to utilize Microsoft Dynamics AX Accounts Receivable functionality, which was virtually unusable previously because of duplicate or inconsistent customer records. This saves Ellison’s employees valuable time, helps keep its books current, and cuts out time spent manually managing invoicing and collections notices.

Integrating with Third-party Applications
Ellison had a number of third-party applications that helped its system process sales as smoothly as possible. Microsoft Dynamics AX has the functionality to integrate with these various products so Ellison did not have to customize or reinstall key processes. The company was able to keep its existing tax management system, CCH Sales Tax, as well as its Web services software. A major advantage of the new Dynamics AX implementation was the in-system shipping management that integrates with Clippership, reducing the amount of shipping stations Ellison needed in the warehouse by nearly 50%. Functionality in Dynamics AX 2009 also allows Ellison to track in-transit inventory without the need for ghost on-water warehouses.

Ellison’s fresh start began with its Microsoft Dynamics AX implementation. With the new system, the company has cut the fat off its previous database, allowing it to increase efficiency and analyze its data more accurately.

Increased Order Processing Efficiency, from Hours to Just Minutes
One huge impediment to speedy order processing was the existing ERP’s batch processes. Previously, a credit card batch would be scheduled to be run prior to the picking process, and current orders being placed in the system would suffer from long lag time and decreased processing efficiency. Even more importantly, slow system response time meant that customer service representatives (CSRs) could place an order for the same item, creating back orders. Now, processing batches takes mere minutes, revamped business processes make credit card transaction calls in real time, and back-order conflicts have been virtually eliminated.

Decreased Manual Inventory Management Processes by 50%
Ellison had a very unique receiving process with its China manufacturing location. In order to track and manage Ellison’s more than 10,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) correctly and efficiently, Ignify created a customization that tied in with Microsoft Dynamics AX’s existing in-transit functionality. It allows for multiple purchase order (PO) receipts to be entered quickly and simplifies the process of adding shipping invoices into the product’s “landed cost.” Using the system functionality with automated processes has cut manual entry and maintenance for this important step by over 50%, and eliminated the spreadsheets that were being used to track in-transit inventory.

Enhanced Understanding of Customer Base and Sales Growth
One major impetus for Ellison’s decision to overhaul its ERP system was the fact that the sales and marketing team found themselves with a hazy understanding of both their changing customer base as well as their sales and marketing forecasting goals. With the new streamlined Microsoft Dynamics AX, Ellison now possesses more sophisticated forecasting functionality as well as a more defined customer database. The cleansed database also allows the company to create accurate reports to leverage its customer and sales order history in order to make accurate and informed sales predictions. Since the implementation, business analytics provide real-time Sales Revenue, Margins and Expense reports to key decision makers.

The results of the data migration, implementation, and customization of Ellison’s ERP have already been apparent. Ellison has even planned future implementations of Microsoft Dynamics AX in its China and UK locations. The new system has allowed Ellison to leverage its past and present in order to make educated and creative decisions for the future.

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Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software, such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success. For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to: www.microsoft.com/dynamics.

For more information about Ellison, call +1-800-253-2238 or visit the Web site at: www.ellison.com or www.sizzix.com.

Ignify is a technology provider of ERP , CRM , POS , and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public-sector organizations. Ignify is a Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner and selected as the Microsoft Partner of the Year Finalist in 2010. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 4 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine. For more information about Ignify products and services, call +1-888- IGNIFY5 or e-mail dynamics@ignify.com or visit the Web site at: www.ignify.com.