Hastings Deering drives growth with Dynamics AX

Hastings Deering, a part of the Malaysian Sime Darby Group, is deploying the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 solution to support business growth. Microsoft's consulting services division will roll out the system in phases over the next 28 months.

The enteprise resource planning (ERP) system will support 10,000 users when fully implemented. Xapt Corporation, a specialist Dynamics partner, will provide Caterpillar-specific Dynamics modules and heavy equipment domain knowledge.

Hastings Deering is the principal Australian subsidiary of Sime Darby Industrial, operating Caterpillar dealerships in Queensland and the Northern Territory of Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia. Sime Darby's industrial division is one of the six core divisions of Malaysia-based Sime Darby Group, the world's fifth largest Caterpillar dealer with dealerships across more than 100 branches in 10 countries throughout Asia Pacific.

The company, in conjunction with its sister dealerships in Asia, is expecting substantial growth in the next 18 months to reach its goal of becoming a US$3 billion business, and plans to double its workforce within the next two to three years. The company's previous core business system only covered 40% of their processes and was supported by a number of additional applications.  As a result, Hastings Deering needed to determine how to scale and handle its growth.

Unified solution
"We counted on our business project teams to find a unified solution that was innovative and easy for our employees to use," said John Birch, CIO at Hastings Deering. "The solution needed to transform IT into a genuine asset for our company, as a way of managing equipment sale and rentals, parts sales, inventory and workshop services; as well as the specifics related to all of our lines of business. The choice of Dynamics AX 2012 is part of a comprehensive strategic vision for our company, which sees Microsoft as a key partner for stability, trust and innovation."

With over 23 branches, 26 sub-branches and more than 4,000 employees, Hastings Deering's ERP system "runs the processes that the entire company uses every day," said Birch. "Dynamics AX 2012 will empower ouremployees to be more productive while enabling us to derive the insights necessary to respond quickly in an ever-changing world of business."

"Dynamics AX 2012 will help Hasting Deering to simplify decision-making, be more agile and succeed in any environment," said Thomas Gudman, Director of Dynamics, Microsoft Australia.

Earlier this year, the software vendor reiterated its commitment that the next major release of Microsoft Dynamics AX will evolve as an enterprise cloud service offering running on the Windows Azure platform. It is expected to "disclose Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 in full detail" in the US late October.

Microsoft officials have claimed that the new release will feature enhancements such as multichannel retailcapabilities with web storefronts and in-context business intelligence using Microsoft SQL Server technologies. For now, the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 solution interoperates with Microsoft Office, SharePoint, and Lync, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

This first appeared in Asia Cloud Forum.