Story highlights
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At a glance
- Industry - Manufacturing
- Region - Global
- Company Size - 200+ employees
- Project - Finance transformation, building towards IPO readiness
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Products & Services
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance
- Hitachi Solutions Essentials for Finance accelerator
- Hitachi finance dashboard toolkit
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Results Snapshot
- 9 months to deploy, against a typical twelve to twenty-four
- 10 countries live on one Finance platform
- 1 source a single, standardised source of information
- Real-time data-driven insight and reporting
The Customer
Plastic Energy is a global leader in advanced recycling technologies, specialising in converting end-of-life plastic waste into valuable high-grade resources. Its primary mission is to address the global plastic waste problem with innovative and sustainable solutions.
Plastic Energy uses a patented thermal anaerobic conversion technology, known as TAC, which transforms mixed plastic waste into a valuable feedstock called TACOIL. TACOIL can be used as a raw material in the production of new plastics, a significant step towards a circular economy for plastics that reduces reliance on fossil resources and diverts plastic waste from landfill and incineration. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in London, the company employs around 200 people across several countries.
The Challenge
Plastic Energy’s previous operating model and IT systems did not align with its strategic objectives. The processes were more suited to a start-up than a mature operating business, and a mix of disparate systems across multiple countries limited its ability to scale or maintain a single source of information.
Compounding this, a lack of access to information and insight hindered efficient, data-driven decision-making. This, in turn, led to manual and convoluted processes that required substantial resources and time.
The Solution
Plastic Energy ran a comprehensive tender process to select the partner best placed to meet its requirements. The aim was to establish a unified and standardised set of processes for delivering accurate data in a timely manner, tailored to the future needs of the business. Hitachi Solutions collaborated closely with Plastic Energy’s team to achieve an accelerated implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, deployed within nine months across ten countries, a notable achievement given the standard twelve to twenty-four-month duration for typical Finance implementations.
This accelerated rollout was made possible by Hitachi Solutions’ Essentials for Finance accelerator, a multinational, pre-configured solution designed to maximise productivity and significantly reduce the time and resources required compared with traditional implementations. The accelerator also enabled quick, data-driven insight and reporting through Hitachi’s finance dashboard toolkit. Throughout, both teams worked from a single office, with Hitachi Solutions providing functional and technical excellence alongside support for data migration, testing and post-implementation.
As we’ve pushed forward with this project, I’ve been pleased to say it really has been a true partnership with Hitachi Solutions. We have had a very collaborative and integrated working team, with teams sitting alongside each other in the office most days.
Why Hitachi Solutions
Plastic Energy selected Hitachi Solutions on the strength of the people it met, a clear and structured approach to ERP implementation, and access to the Hitachi Essentials for Finance package, which together gave confidence in an accelerated yet dependable delivery.
We selected Hitachi Solutions based on the quality of people we met, the clear structured approach to the ERP implementation, and access to the Hitachi Essentials for Finance package.
The Benefits
- A future-proofed solution
- Scalability to support growth
- Superior data insight
- Time savings across finance processes
- Easier access to information
- Real-time information for decision-making
What’s Next?
With a solid core foundation in place, Plastic Energy aims to extend its implementation further across the Microsoft stack and to keep improving access to timely, comprehensive operational information for decision-making across the organisation. Having integrated the solution throughout the business, it is now looking to capitalise on the enhanced features of Dynamics 365 across Project Operations, Customer Engagement, Supplier Management, Partner Engagement, HR, Production and Asset Management. This solution, and its planned expansion, will play a pivotal role in readying Plastic Energy for an Initial Public Offering.
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