Seeking a Growth Partner
The Business Solutions division includes a large team focused on selling Microsoft ERP and CRM systems as well as business intelligence. In early 2018, Cegeka needed a way to rapidly scale the development team for multiple Dynamics 365 ERP implementations.
“In our line of business, we have to be very flexible when it comes to planning,” says Jo Neetesonne, Development & Technology Manager, Business Solutions at Cegeka.
Iurii Glozhyk, Business Pod MeisterTM for Enavate, adds that “Cegeka was rapidly growing their Dynamics practice, but they didn’t have enough people to support their sales success, especially technical people.”
Glozhyk says that Cegeka could not hire locally quickly enough. “Belgium is a pretty small country with a very long hiring cycle,” he says. “They had a big demand for the work, but not enough people to deliver it.”
Cegeka found Enavate after learning about their partnership with local HR software company SD Worx. “Bringing that project to life was remarkable,” Neetesonne says.
Finding a Cultural Fit
The implementations required a strong technical team, and Enavate fit the bill. In fact, the two companies saw right away that there was a cultural fit simply in how they approached their customer interactions — that is, through relationship building.
“In Dutch, we have a saying,” Neetesonne says. “It goes, ‘We stand in the mud with our boots together with our customer.’ Some companies talk the talk, but we also walk the walk.”
The fact that Cegeka’s Business Solutions division is only about 250 people lent a like-minded business mentality to the relationship. “We’re one team in which everybody knows everybody. We can join forces and help our customers better,” Neetesonne says.
“Both Cegeka and Enavate have a very open, transparent approach. It was always a collaboration, and all our wins were joint wins and all our failures were joint failures,” Glozhyk says
Enhancing ERP Expertise
Although Cegeka has extensive experience, their development team relished the support on ERP implementation for their customers.
“It was very welcome that we could rely on Enavate to provide us with additional resources,” Neetesonne says. “It’s hard to keep up if you have to onboard new people, and meanwhile, start a new project. It’s not very easy. It comes in quite handy to have someone to work alongside you who knows your line of business.”
.png?width=564&height=724&name=Finding%20a%20Cultural%20Fit%20(2).png "Finding a Cultural Fit")
Establishing Strong Connections
In addition to online meetings, members of the Enavate team traveled to Belgium and the Netherlands to meet with the Cegeka Business Solutions team. “That way, they got to know the project and each other, and that made it easier to communicate once they traveled back home,” Neetesonne says. “If you know someone, it’s easier to pick up your phone and call them.”
Members of the Cegeka team were also able to visit Enavate’s Kyiv, Ukraine headquarters — three hours away by air — to meet and speak with developers there.
“They made us feel welcome there,” Neetesonne says. “It could have been a meeting of a few hours in Kyiv and me traveling back home then. But no, we stayed for two days and they showed us around. We talked a lot. We went for lunch, we went for dinner. They took the time to make us feel at home. And that shows a bit how Enavate works.”
From there, the teams developed regular meetings to discuss progress. They all used English as a common language to collaborate cross-culturally.
.png "img (1)")
Results
Over the past two years, Enavate has helped Cegeka with more than 10 projects related to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
While difficult to put into hard numbers, Neetesonne says that Enavate helped complete some very difficult projects. “They helped us grow to be the European Microsoft Dynamics 365 player we are today,” Neetesonne says.
Faster, More Efficient Scalability The biggest benefit for Cegeka is flexibility, as well as the ability to scale up and down on projects much more easily
Technical Support The Enavate team’s solid technical knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP functionality meant they were able to meet the Cegeka team on the same level and execute projects immediately. “We can easily add [the Enavate team] to our team and have the same results for our customers,” Neetesonne says. “They have the same ‘getting things done’ mentality that Cegeka does ... so, whether these developers are people from my team or from Enavate’s team, the customers don’t see a difference.”
A Partnership they can count on
“I think our biggest result is a successful partnership for two and half years and counting. We created a strategic partnership, not a one-off scenario.”
Iurii Glozhyk
Business Pod MeisterTM
Visit Enavate.com/talk-to-an-expert to learn more