Dynamics 365 drives Cat® dealership into the 21st century

Growth reveals the need for transformation

For decades, Foley’s operations ran on disparate systems. After steady business growth year-over-year, including some acquisitions, the legacy systems were showing strain. By 2019, Foley leadership determined the organization needed to invest in a unified, modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to do the “heavy lifting” for business operations and sales. Says Danielle Papenberg, Director of Organizational Development, “We had over 70 apps developed in-house just to make our day run. We needed one localized system that employees could use across the organization.”

The key factor driving the timing of Foley’s decision was that its primary software and hardware solution was not advancing with changes in technology. Not only would a modern ERP solution streamline daily workflows, making every department more efficient, but a cloud solution would reduce IT costs over the long run, since the company would no longer need to own, maintain, and secure its own servers and software.

After researching several options, Foley selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 and XAPT’s solution for heavy equipment dealers, NAXT365. NAXT365 is a dealership management solution that integrates seamlessly with Dynamics 365 to provide a complete ERP and customer relationship management system and integrates directly with many Caterpillar® interfaces. The solution includes Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, Sales, Field Service, and Customer Insights, plus more than 700 predefined business processes that are specific to equipment dealerships. As Jim Kolakowski, Executive VP & CFO at Foley, Inc. explains, “After our executives visited Microsoft headquarters in 2019, followed by exposing our heavy system users to Dynamics 365, the selection of Microsoft’s ERP was an easy decision for Foley.”

Taking Foley from entrenched legacy processes and tools that employees had used for many years wasn’t just a technological challenge. It represented a change management journey, too. Undeterred, Foley leadership was all in, and planning for their digital transformation got underway. To ensure a successful transition, they selected top-performing employees from each department to help translate existing processes to the Dynamics 365 solution. This phase also presented an opportunity to reassess operational steps that seemed to be set in stone but were no longer serving the company well.

Everyone had an important role to play, from cleaning up decades of data to preparing Caterpillar integrations, to developing new workflows and testing. Most of the Foley staff had never worked in an integrated software environment like Dynamics 365 so a robust training program was planned to cover new processes and protocols in the new browser-based system was developed.

ERP transition is a journey that impacts all employees

Foley went live on Dynamics 365 in February 2023. “The goal was to operate, then improve” says Fran Policastro, ERP Release Manager. “The transition was a challenge for employees, but a necessary one to prepare us for advances in technology. The change ensures we will not be outpaced by our competitors and prepares us for future growth.”

As Foley continues their modernization journey, today they have an ERP Department in place that continues to evaluate and improve all operations of the business by leveraging the many robust functions available in Dynamics 365. The benefits, such as periodic updates delivering new features and enhanced security, are starting to manifest to their employees. Now, Foley has new ways to better serve customers and provide company leadership with insights and accountability into the day-to-day business. Kolakowski sums us their success this way: “Foley’s implementation success can be attributed to how we approached the project–business-led and IT-enabled. We invested in a highly talented group of employees to lead the implementation, dedicated them 100% to the project, and removed them from their day-to-day responsibilities.”

Finance

Working with one source of data has improved all aspects of finance and operations. For example, the new purchasing system is integrated with approved vendor sites for seamless ordering, with configurable rules for approvals available when needed. This feature eliminates manual work, delays in approvals, and drives a consistent purchasing process across the organization.

Parts department

Project Management

The Power Systems department has seen a significant improvement in their project accuracy after switching to Dynamics 365. Required fields help reduce missing information, and errors are swiftly identified. The system simplifies project forecasting, eliminating the need for manual Excel spreadsheets and enabling easy tracking and updates. Managing the project invoices is seamless, and all purchase orders are accessible to the team. Foley is also able to import quotes directly from Caterpillar interfaces, saving time and reducing reentry of information.

Additionally, Dynamics 365 safeguards against tax manipulation on invoices which enhances compliance and prevents potential issues arising from manual changes to tax rates. Budget control enforces pre-approval when posting expenses exceed project budgets, a function which was absent from the previous system. Overall, the flow of information and customer experiences has been streamlined and improved.

Service

Prior to implementation, employees had to navigate multiple legacy systems for critical information such as warranty status and preventative maintenance being due or overdue. Now, the system provides automated alerts about these and other relevant statuses, saving 15-20 minutes when preparing a service call for repair or maintenance. There are also controls in place to ensure all necessary information is collected from customers when they call in, such as job site and contact information. This drives accountability and reduces duplication of efforts.

In addition, the service department frequently discounts customers by account or service job. Prior to Dynamics 365, this was institutional knowledge and a manual step to take when creating a work order. Today, configurations allow Foley to set up customer account parameters, and discounts are automatically applied.

Security

Training and onboarding

Although creating training documentation was a major undertaking, it has reduced the company’s reliance on institutional knowledge and greatly improved the onboarding process for new employees. In the past, new hires learned by shadowing a seasoned team member. Now, they get up to speed quicker using Dynamics 365 documentation and hands-on experiences, allowing them to add value to the team faster.

An added bonus, for the company has been joining a dealer community of other NAXT365 users. Everyone shares tips and insights about Dynamics 365 and representatives from Caterpillar attend many meetings, adding additional value to members.

Foley continues to pave the way for future growth

Foley is continuing to settle into its new, robust solution and regularly activates new features. For example, Sales and Rental departments will soon roll out more advanced features such as:

• Same-day financing approval versus the previous three-day turnaround. This will be made possible via integration with Cat Financial.
• System-wide visibility into equipment availability between locations will replace the need for multiple phone calls or emails to confirm a rental’s status and eliminate double-booking a piece of equipment.