Halwani Brothers Egypt brings internal processes into a well-oiled machine with Dynamics 365

Founded in 1952 as a family business in Saudi Arabia, Halwani Brothers Company has grown into one of the most famous food manufacturers and distributors in the Middle East. Since 2008, its branch in Egypt has been relying on Microsoft Dynamics 365 on-premises to manage the supply chain, commerce, human resources, and finance. To fully streamline its internal processes and integrate them with other systems, Halwani Brothers Egypt decided to move to the cloud.

“We have been growing aggressively in the past years,” explains Khaled Akl, CEO at Halwani Brothers Egypt. “We were slowly outgrowing our legacy systems and it became clear that a fully cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution was a key strategic requirement.” 

Halwani Brothers Egypt deployed Microsoft Dynamics 365 on the cloud to catalyze its growth. “Microsoft provided the speed, flexibility, and customization that other ERP platforms couldn’t deliver,” shares Akl. “Dynamics 365 became our hub for financial reporting and inventory, enabling us to manage everything from the procurement of raw materials to delivery to our warehouses.”

Connecting the dots

The beauty of a cloud-based solution was more automation and integration. “We have automated processes like production orders,” says Mohamed Sapet, IT Manager at Halwani Brothers Egypt. “With Microsoft’s APIs, we can automatically send our invoices, taxes, and other financial documents to the government tax portal. Our human resources management system, our payroll, and our banking are also integrated with Dynamics 365. Such smooth, flexible integrations enable us to control anything from our ERP environment.” According to Akl, the results were “immediate and impressive—the most significant business impacts came from adding master planning, quality assurance and budgeting capabilities. Halwani Brothers Egypt significantly improved efficiencies and automated most of processes across our factories.”

The company has also started relying on Power BI to foster a data-driven culture and empower employees to make informed decisions. “Power BI has helped us create interactive reports integrated with our third-party systems and transform raw business data into actionable insights, providing a holistic view of our key business operations,” notes Sapet. 

Since the transition, Halwani Brothers Egypt has been managing every aspect of its business with increased efficiency. “With automated processes, more accuracy, and more visibility, we have reduced our costs and risks and saved time,” says Akl. “From cutting-edge artificial intelligence to the latest cloud computing solutions, Microsoft technology has enabled us to stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional results to our Company.”

With a streamlined ERP solution in place, the company is able to quickly respond to changes in its environment. “The government of Egypt issued a new rule that every invoice needs to be uploaded onto the tax server. Microsoft Dynamics supports e-invoice feature and localization which made it easy for us to integrate our ERP system with the tax portal and comply,” says Sapet.

High-risk, high reward

“The infrastructure in the Middle East is not the best and we were worried about having connectivity issues,” recalls Sapet. “We were surprised to learn just how much we can depend on Microsoft’s servers. It seemed like a risky big step back then but it turned out to be very fruitful.” The team’s initial concerns about the cloud have been resolved. 

The team is also happy to have cemented its partnership with Microsoft. “Initially, we considered other solutions, but we chose Microsoft because of its many advantages,” says Sapet. “We were already accustomed to the Microsoft environment and our staff found the ERP solution very user-friendly. We also received outstanding support from Microsoft’s team in Egypt. They helped us solve potential issues, and Microsoft always implements updates to comply with new government requirements.” Akl agrees. “I want to recognize the hard work and dedication of the Microsoft team who have been instrumental in helping us integrate these technologies into our operations.”

“Moving forward, we would like start using Power Automate and Power Apps to automate recurring tasks, and certain reports through Power BI,” says Akl. “Our partnership with Microsoft has been the cornerstone of our success, and I am confident that together with the latest technology, we will continue to deliver great results in the years to come.”