Conde de Benalúa transforms harvests with Tipsa and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, cutting finance processes from days to minutes

In 2015, Conde de Benalúa realized its business had grown beyond the capabilities of existing accounting systems and decided to undertake a digital transformation with the aim of streamlining business operations and enabling data-driven decisions. What began as a modernization journey turned into a multi-phase project that has transformed business and sales processes, providing the cooperative with a competitive edge.

Siloed on-premises information prevented teams from quickly and effectively serving partners and customers. Conde de Benalúa needed an end-to-end business solution that was able to unify operations across finance, sales, production, and logistics with the ability to expand for future growth. The logical choice was to move to the cloud.

Conde de Benalúa chose Tipsa, a Microsoft gold partner with deep expertise in the food and beverage sector, to migrate processes to an industry-specific solution on Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft Azure, and Power BI.

Tipsa provides expertise in wine, food, and beverage industries, including wineries, canned food production, distilleries, olive oil production, and convenience food. More than 400 companies use its solutions to manage every step of production, from sourcing of raw agricultural products to distribution and financial reporting. Working closely with clients to speed cloud adoption and digital transformation, Tipsa draws on its understanding of organizations’ pains and business ambitions.

“Working on this project, we wanted to generate transparency and confidence within our consumers. This technology guarantees an excellent tracking of our products along all production and selling stages, so they can be closer to our farm. With this new technology, we guarantee traceability and trust," said Josep Palau, International Business Developer, Conde de Benalúa.

Tipsa implemented its Bulk Items Management solution as part of a new ecosystem built on Dynamics 365 Business Central to increase process agility. Linking to IoT devices, Tipsa’s solution tracks labor, machinery, and bulk goods from input to by-products and final products. With the new system, Conde de Benalúa gained thorough control of work and tasks, from crushing olives, to blending through bottling and shipping olive oil.

The integrated, 360-degree system centralized information and gave Conde de Benalúa thorough control over warehouses and the movement of products. In addition to increased efficiency at olive reception, invoicing, and payment processing, the new ERP system connected auxiliary systems such as weighing machines, hold tanks, and lab analyzers, adding pinpoint lab test analysis to the available business intelligence.

Previously, finance staff required hours or days of manual work to respond to members, partners, and customers. Now, finance obtains real-time visual data with a few clicks, thanks to Tipsa’s integration of Dynamics 365 with visualizations built on Power BI.

With Bulk Items Management on Dynamics 365 Business Central and reporting of core KPIs through Power BI, the cooperative has radically transformed administration of harvests, invoicing to farmers, payments, and production operations.

“The implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central allows synchronization of all areas of the company: olive reception, production, administration, accounting, commerce, and quality. This is essential to gain agility in the execution of the process and guarantees greater control of the data and therefore of the information. Our ERP is essential to achieve a coordinated operation of all areas, control and decision, making that become dynamic and much more effective,” said Antonio Morales, Chief Finance Manager, Conde de Benalúa.

As part of the transformation into a data-driven company fueled by IoT, the cooperative has added sensors and smart devices along the production process and connected them to the Tipsa-designed ERP.

Tipsa and Microsoft are helping Conde de Benalúa transform its business, enhance sales negotiations, increase the efficiency of tax reporting, and delight customers and partners through new online portals. Tipsa's Bulk Items Management has enabled easy and reliable management of daily operations for the cooperative.