Pacific Asia Express

“We formed a really good partnership with PA. It has been a great team effort, and we have seen excellent collaboration across the project team. We are really happy with the whole experience.”

Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

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The Organisation

Pacific Asia Express (PAE) acts as an agent for several international shipping lines operating mainly containerised vessels, carrying sea cargoes around the world. Their primary function is to service these vessels and the trade lanes operated by international shipping lines that visit the various ports across Australia. PAE have approximately 200 employees at their offices located in all the major port cities across the country, with their head office based in Melbourne.

PAE has been partnering with Professional Advantage (PA) for almost 25 years, and when PAE developed their strategy to move their IT infrastructure towards cloud-based technology, they utilised the knowledge and advice of PA to take the step towards implementing Dynamics 365 Business Central.

The Need

PAE had been using Infor SunSystems as their ERP system for over two decades, and whilst it was a capable solution for their finance needs, to align with the broader decision to move their IT infrastructure to the cloud, PAE needed to consider an alternative solution.

“When it came to considering the future of our ERP system, our IT strategy for managing cybersecurity and infrastructure by ultimately moving to the cloud was at the forefront of our decision.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

PA suggested Business Central as an option and, after PAE’s own research, it was determined that the solution met PAE’s key requirements: it was a Microsoft product that aligned with other functionality in use, delivered a cloud-based solution, provided online web support, and it didn’t mean any degradation in functionality, procedures, or control from the model enjoyed with SunSystems.

“The honesty of PA was very refreshing. Rather than pushing one way or another, they played an advisory role in understanding our objectives and providing options, the pros and cons of other systems, and broke down the jargon for us. This meant we ended up with enough information to make this considerable decision on our own.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

The Solution

PAE’s business was, understandably, very ingrained within Infor SunSystems. This meant that they had certain customised requirements for the transition to Business Central including ensuring that the functionality that had been tried and tested in the past was maintained, and that no processes were adversely impacted. To combat this, meetings were held with PA consultants from both Business Central and SunSystems to demonstrate Business Central capability and ensure that all the features and bespoke modules that PAE relied upon within SunSystems would be mirrored within their solution upgrade.

“This exercise was key in helping with the change management of the project. It meant our people were able to experience the look and feel of what they would be working with before the conclusion of the project.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

By utilising experts from both solutions, PAE were able to visualise the transition and the new working environment, subsequently breaking down any barriers or resistance and encouraging user buy-in early on.

The Results

One of the main project objectives, and a key reason for the migration to Business Central, was the move to a cloud hosted environment.

“The biggest win is definitely that we are now all online, cloud hosted. We have increased security and are experiencing cost savings by not having to maintain servers.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

PAE have been able to reduce risk exposure of their IT infrastructure considerably by moving to the cloud, putting them in a better place to manage their overall infrastructure. Integration with Operations systems have also enabled greater efficiencies.

“It has been a very successful implementation. We are extremely pleased with the solution and how it is working.”
- Athithan Theivendran, Finance Manager, Pacific Asia Express.

Another key area for the business was related to the collections function. The solution used within SunSystems didn’t completely exist within Business Central, so PA and PAE worked together to create a customisation module with the same level of functionality as the previous system.

“PA distinguished themselves by having a senior business analyst assigned to understand our business needs. Our industry is different to many others, so having someone who understood what we wanted to achieve from an early stage, was invaluable.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

When PAE initially engaged PA, meetings were happening on-site. However, as lockdowns and restrictions came into force in early 2020, the entire project ended up online. Whilst there were early concerns about how an online project may run, it ended up being incredibly successful.

“We found the online meetings to be more engaging and productive. Everyone was online at the same time, we could deal with questions and brainstorm resolutions, and generally work in a more focussed manner.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

The teamwork between PA and PAE along with the project management has been noted as being key factors in the success of the project.

“We had really good communication and project methodology, and the governance structure was strong. PA delivered a truly agile project so we could work on changes to components early if desired. This was very powerful and broke down barriers from an adoption perspective.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

This project methodology ensured that any issues or questions were logged so they would be suitably and promptly addressed. The governance meant that the project team stayed focussed and didn’t deviate too far from the objectives and tasks at hand. Also, the budget was monitored regularly allowing the team to move resources to other areas when required.

“The project came in on time and under budget. The timeline of the project meant we could invest time early on into training and onboarding the team, and subsequently were left with minimal training to complete upon go-live.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

As PAE work on a calendar year financial year end, to facilitate a clear transition they made the decision to go-live on 1^st January. To ensure this date was met with as little stress as possible, the teams worked with a long project timeline. As the project progressed, the team reallocated funds from areas where spend had been low. They had planned for more time to be spent in testing and training, but these areas could be brought forward and done during the project. They had also made allowances for issues that never materialised.

It’s never easy to transition from one system to another, and even harder when there are more than two decades of use ingrained within the organisation and the people.

“It is not an insignificant migration to move from a system that has been in place for 25 years, and this project has been a success thanks to the specialist expertise and experience of all involved.”
- Business Development Manager, Professional Advantage.

The Future

PAE have expressed their interest in enhanced reporting through Power BI and what this can do for their organisation in the future.

“We have had some initial discussions and a demonstration of the capability, and this may be a future project for which we will reach out to PA.”
- Jason Pretorius, Group CFO, Pacific Asia Express.

PAE are also interested in further system integration to enable invoicing directly out of Business Central as their current invoicing module sits outside of the solution.