Liftstar automates central workflows with the agilesWorkflow add-on for Dynamics 365

How it all started

The roots of the Liftstar Group GmbH stretch back to the end of the nineteenth century, when the company was developing sack hoists and elevators in Cologne, Germany, in 1883. A key turning point in Liftstar‘s history came almost 100 years later, when founder Wolfgang Seick developed the first stair lift prototype for private households in 1977. This niche market brought rapid expansion to the family company. There are now more than 200 Liftstar service and sales locations in Germany alone, enabling senior citizens and others to continue living at home thanks to stair lifts.

“We don’t build the lifts ourselves but source the technology from Great Britain and the Netherlands. That means our core competence is design, installation, and customer service. If anything gets jammed, we are on hand to help within 24 hours,” explains Michael Meyer, Project Manager at Liftstar. 

A Microsoft Gold ERP Partner headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, agiles Group uses the latest Microsoft technologies to help customers overcome the challenges of digital transformation. The company's services range from independent, individual consulting to system implementation and subsequent support.

A need for increased automation

Liftstar has used Microsoft Dynamics business solutions for over 20 years. When the company moved from Dynamics NAV to Dynamics 365, it took advantage of the opportunity to examine its central business processes.

“In principle, we were already satisfied with our organization, but the level of digitization was too low. This meant our employees were spending far too much time on routine tasks,” Meyer said. This was especially evident in two labor-intensive areas: manual deadline management using resubmission folders, and sales management work.

While researching improved automation opportunities, Liftstar discovered agiles Group’s workflow management add-on for Dynamics 365. Liftstar’s project team recognized the add-on would help significantly reduce administration work. Additionally, agilesWorkflow is intuitive and easy to use, enabling employees to create their own workflows.

Reducing workloads while improving communication

While implementing agilesWorkflow, Liftstar’s project team focused on reshaping central processes to be more efficient. For example, communication with suppliers is now almost completely automated, and agilesWorkflow automatically updates order status. This helps improve commercial standards, such as dispatch notifications.

The easy-to-understand traffic-light system in agilesWorkflow ensures the status of each process can be recognized quickly. And response times are dramatically reduced since the related documentation is already attached to each process. “The resubmission function and rule-based escalation management agilesWorkflow provides are particularly helpful for us. Our employees are notified as soon as a process stalls. Instead of taking care of to-do lists manually, they have more time for our clients,” Meyer said. 

Driving digital transformation with efficient processes and seamless updates

The agilesWorkflow add-on for Dynamics 365 is easy to update and has helped Liftstar introduce more efficient business processes. Meyer explains, “agilesWorkflow and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central make it possible to implement future program updates in a much simpler manner.”

Meyer is certain Liftstar would require a lot more employees without the use of agilesWorkflow. He sees Liftstar’s collaboration with agiles as overwhelmingly positive. “We are completely innovative and are happy to try out new ideas. In order for this to work, we require flexible, reliable software and a partner that we can depend on. We have the best possible framework conditions with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and our other two software partners,” he said.