A new skillset
For the past 30 years, Scitech has offered experiences that foster a lifelong curiosity and positive attitude towards STEM. Scitech directly engages more than 500,000 Western Australians in STEM every year, including visitors to its Discovery Centre in West Perth or through learning programmes run across the state.

Scitech’s vision is to offer STEM programs that inspire, engage and develop citizens for Western Australia’s social well-being, economic prosperity and sustainability.

As such, in today’s rapidly changing environment, Scitech must continually adapt what its mission means, to ensure the business remains innovative and dynamic, is customer-centric and engaging, and that it provides an efficient return for its stakeholders.

A key element of the New Scitech strategy, Scitech’s transformational change plan, is the development of digital capability, including investment in an enterprise grade technology platform which can meet the needs of Scitech’s current and future stakeholders.

Looking to the bottom line
Crucial to that was the replacement of a nearly 15-year-old financial system that employed an outdated coding language that meant upgrades and integration with other systems was not possible.

As a budget-conscious not-for-profit organisation with government funding and managing numerous projects at any one time, Scitech needed the management tools and insights that would allow it to execute its strategy of increasing digital delivery of STEM education and awareness.

Managing contracts for its many programmes, as well as exhibitions that are displayed all over the world, needed a greater level of sophistication in a financial management system. At the time, Scitech was using a budgeting system that revolved around Excel spreadsheets and manual entry of data.

As Scitech admitted itself, it needed to transform the “DNA of the organisation” to build the platform to execute on its ambitious plans.

A powerful suite
The search for practical answers led Scitech to Empired, and to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. This powerful software suite offers accurate data-driven decision-making, budgeting, profit and loss and accounts control and compliance management.

The aim with Dynamics 365 was to streamline Scitech’s financial processes and allow finance staff to handle everything in one place with the minimum duplication of effort.

The project initially focused on delivering the financial basics – the general ledger for financial records, debit and credit entries and management of accounts. Dynamics 365 also allowed Scitech to more effectively implement and track projects, something that was typically done previously in document form.
The granularity of control in Dynamics gave the organisation much better oversight of budget control, so that project overspend could be identified and eliminated.

Delivering insights
As a not for profit with annual turnover of around $20 million, Scitech could have opted for a more standardised finance and operations package. But Scitech’s Chief Financial Officer, Chris Shirley, says the scale and scope of Dynamics appealed to an organisation running well over 100 projects at any one time, with dozens of associated contracts and deliverables to track.

While Dynamics reinvented Scitech’s approach to project accounting, it also now had an asset management system which, for the first time, tracked every single asset in the organisation. “That’s huge for us. It’s much better from a governance perspective,” says Chris.

“Within 6–12 months, we’ll have gone from having four or five legacy systems to having one centralised system.”
Chris Shirley, Scitech CFO

Committed to change
For Empired, the implementation of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations was one of the smoothest projects completed in the last decade. That had a lot to do with the strong project governance established by Scitech’s Project Manager and commitment to change from the executive level at Scitech. Empired took a ‘minimum viable product’ approach in employing Dynamics, using the finance component largely off the shelf. The results were felt very quickly. Financial reports that typically took two to three hours to complete could now be populated in five minutes.

Scitech now enjoys greater visibility into its finances and information is no longer siloed in parts of the business. From initial discussions to implementation and training in the system, the project took less than nine months.

“When you start talking about using financial and non-financial customer data and insights to shape how you design products and services, you need quite an advanced system for it,” says Chris. Most importantly, the use of Dynamics 365 gives Scitech a wide range of options for future upgrades and expanded uses.

Point of sale data from terminals in its Perth Discovery Centre and from online sales can be integrated and Dynamics can gather and analyse data, such as foot traffic through exhibitions, ticket sales and inventory management, to deliver greater insights for Scitech. If there were lessons learned during Scitech’s digital transformation they came in the area of change management and user acceptance testing (UAT).

“The challenge was getting these changes into an environment where people could actually interact with them,” Chris says. “In reality it took longer than we expected.”

But the system had so far exceeded Scitech’s phase 1 expectations. Eventually, real-time information from sensors that monitor Scitech’s exhibitions wherever they are in the world, could be integrated into Dynamics, using its Internet of Things compatibility.

“We are now looking forward to phase 2,” says Chris. “That’s when we’ll implement customer engagement solutions, which is when the return on investment for this project will really kick-in.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

Working with Empired, PYBAR migrated to Microsoft Azure, which delivered the vastly improved redundancy and reliability that the business required.

About PYBAR
PYBAR was founded in 1993 and is now the third-largest underground hard rock mining contractor in Australia. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, the PYBAR group provides a comprehensive service to the mining sector, including underground mining, exploration drilling, mining electrical, and mine equipment maintenance. PYBAR has resources based in all major mining centres in Australia and employs more than 1,000 staff to deliver exceptional standards in underground mining.

Disruption in one location affected all others
PYBAR operates as a fast, efficient, and responsive organisation. This means the business’s IT capabilities must be agile, robust, and reliable. The company’s key infrastructure was located in its head office, in Orange, New South Wales. This created a potential issue for the organisation since any disruption in Orange would ultimately affect every other office throughout Australia, compromising PYBAR’s ability to operate seamlessly.

Troy Grey, ICT superintendent, PYBAR, said, “Disruptions as simple as a power outage in Orange would put a stop to work for all the other offices throughout the country. This was too risky for the business and it was important to find a solution that would guarantee availability and uptime.

“Furthermore, some of the on-premises kit in Orange was starting to get dated and it was time to upgrade. This need for a comprehensive overhaul created the perfect opportunity to explore a move to the cloud, as this would help deliver better redundancy and reliability.”

Azure chosen for ease of use and functionality
The PYBAR team began evaluating the options and processes involved in shifting the organisation’s infrastructure to the cloud. Various providers were considered before the team settled on Microsoft Azure.

Troy Grey said, “The team considered other cloud vendors but they didn’t have the same ‘lift and shift’ capability that Azure demonstrated. Azure was plug-and-play, as well as being very intuitive. Azure was also the best fit to integrate with PYBAR’s on-premises infrastructure such as SQL. PYBAR was already a Microsoft shop so it made sense to stick with one vendor, making Azure the obvious solution.”

The PYBAR team had previous relationships with Microsoft partners including Empired, so the team approached Empired to run a test project with a view to engaging Empired for the Azure project.

Troy Grey said, “The moment we spoke with the team at Empired we were taken aback at just how on-the-ball they were. The Empired team was on board and ready to get things happening quickly.”

The team proceeded with a proof of concept to migrate an on-premises version of Microsoft Dynamics AX2009 to the cloud. This was to prove challenging, since PYBAR’s version of Dynamics AX2009 was heavily customised and not originally intended for cloud use.

Troy Grey said, “Migrating such a heavily modified version of AX2009 was a challenge because it didn’t meet Microsoft best practice. However, working together with Empired we found a way to make it work. The proof of concept was accepted and it was full steam ahead for the Azure project.”

Redundancy and connectivity were vastly improved
The PYBAR team in charge of the Azure migration was very lean, so it required significant support from Empired to manage the implementation process. The Empired team worked seamlessly with PYBAR to get the Azure solution up and running.

Troy Grey said, “All the Empired team members on this project were very responsive and knowledgeable so, when the Azure solution was implemented and tested, it just worked. The team overcame a lot of hurdles in a short space of time, and the result was a smooth transition to Azure for PYBAR.”

Once the Azure platform was up and running, the key benefit for PYBAR was increased reliability and availability. Rather than using the business’s head office as its central IT hub, Azure has taken on that role. That means head office operates the same way as any other office, with all locations dialling into Azure.

Furthermore, giving all other sites access to the business apps they needed via the cloud overcame low connectivity issues that had been experienced by remote sites. Better connectivity has resulted in improved app performance, making life easier for PYBAR employees across the country.

“Empired had no hesitation in bringing in people with new skill sets to find a way to get things done. Even when the odds seemed insurmountable, Empired found a way to get it done, which was very refreshing.”
Troy Grey ICT Superintendent, PYBAR

Troy Grey said, “All IT is still in a central location, which was important for consistency, but now it doesn’t matter if there’s a minor power outage or a major issue in Orange; all offices can remain up and running. PYBAR can now safely guarantee a high availability of its systems to both metro offices and remote mining operations. Since moving to Azure, Orange has already had one power outage and the rest of the business was able to carry on as usual without interruption.

“An important benefit of this project is that PYBAR now has flexibility to spin up servers and shut them down, expand or remove performance as required, and guarantee redundancy. As part of this project, the team cleaned up PYBAR’s SQL infrastructure, making it more stable and secure.”

Now that PYBAR has standardised on Azure, the business will be able to move more apps into the cloud in the future.

Working with Empired
Empired provided the resources and support that PYBAR required to facilitate its move to Azure.

Troy Grey said, “The best part of working with Empired was that, when the project required additional resources, Empired had no hesitation in bringing in people with new skill sets to find a way to get things done. Even when the odds seemed insurmountable, Empired found a way to get it done, which was very refreshing.

The Empired team can actually do what it says it can do, with all the knowledge and power it needs in house. The team was always generous with advice and assistance, which really helped on this journey because the PYBAR team was very lean and needed to rely on Empired.

The Empired team was on hand during the weekend that the Azure solution went live, so we had the help we needed to ensure it happened smoothly. The team continued to provide support for the first week, responding urgently to any requests we had. This was exceptional and PYBAR is already looking at engaging Empired for future work such as a planned Microsoft Teams migration and SharePoint Online migration in the future.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

GMHBA’s focus is on their customers
GMHBA is an Australian not-for-profit health fund with more than 80 years’ experience. It puts members before profit to provide great value health cover and work together to build stronger and healthier communities. It prides itself on its personalised approach and exceptional customer service.

Improving content management and personalisation
GMHBA was looking to upgrade its existing content management system (CMS) to a more enterprise-level system with extended capabilities such as advanced editing functionality. This would let its marketing team make changes to online content instead of pulling in developers when changes were needed.

Furthermore, GMHBA was looking to improve the user experience of its site through personalisation and a better user interface. The team did extensive work on persona development to provide a new health insurance quoting process for customers.

Health insurance has become incredibly complex, so it’s not useful to have a website that puts the same information in front of every customer.

Guy Moodie, Digital Customer Experience Lead, GMHBA, said, “GMHBA was also keen to move from on-premises to a cloud solution to reduce the maintenance and support required from the internal IT team and offer cleaner deployments in the future.

“Personalisation was a key aspect of the project since it is becoming increasingly important in the health insurance industry. If GMHBA was unable to improve its personalisation, it would have been difficult to compete effectively in a crowded market.”

Episerver provides right fit
Following a comprehensive market scan, GMHBA identified Episerver as a strong solution and Empired as the ideal partner to implement Episerver. GMHBA chose Episerver because it was the closest fit for the organisation’s requirement with features such as strong automation, content management, and personalisation all in one solution.

Empired was already a preferred partner for GMHBA, so it made sense to work together on this project.

Guy Moodie said, “Clearly GMHBA knew Empired could do the work, however the cultural fit was also really important. Our team was impressed with Empired’s strong customer experience lens as well as the team’s ability to go very deep technically.”

Collaborative approach led to project success
The GMHBA and Empired teams gelled quickly and worked successfully to co-build the solution. This was the first time GMHBA had gone all-in with an agile approach, which helped ensure the project stayed on track.

Guy Moodie said, “Using the solution before it was live and having training processes in place were critical to success. Change management was also important. Because the two teams worked closely together, the end result was a successful project.”

Currently, GMHBA has the personalisation building blocks in place and will continue building on those as time goes by. The solution is working as expected and the team has received positive feedback from users.

Guy Moodie said, “We received really positive feedback after launching the site from within the company. In user experience feedback sessions, we’ve been able to see how people are navigating and moving through the site, and we’ve seen an uplift in engagement, which is great. It’s also helped identify areas for improvement, particularly when it comes to the sales funnel. That’s a very complex piece, so work will likely be ongoing around that.” Due to the government’s reform regarding health insurance product classifications, GMHBA needed to understand what this meant for customers so it could determine how to deploy personalisation for maximum benefit.

Guy Moodie said, “Health insurance has become incredibly complex, so it’s not useful to have a website that puts the same information in front of every customer. Personalisation will be crucial as GMHBA refines the site to a more individualised experience for each user.”

Now that the Empired solution has been trialled on selected products, GMHBA will look to do a full-scale rollout across all products and create seamless integrations with third parties that provide health and wellbeing services.

Guy Moodie said, “It’s important to offer value-adds to customers to build brand loyalty and differentiate GMHBA. This should help with customer retention as well as acquisition. The signs are promising that the new solution will deliver this.

“In the next six to 12 months, GMHBA will focus on increasing personalisation, improving customer communications through targeted campaigns, and continuing to manage customer data effectively to provide superior experiences.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

Force Technology International Pty Ltd (Force) needed to update and improve its website user experience and offer improved e-commerce functionality for its B2B customers. A key strategic focus for Force was to be customer-led and maintain a leadership position in its space. Working with Empired, Force used the Microsoft stack to upgrade its website and deliver a more responsive, user-friendly e-commerce experience for its customers. The team anticipates this will result in a significant uplift in sales.

About Force Technology
Force was established more than 25 years ago as a wholesaler of mobile lifestyle brand products. Force supplies to a substantial reseller network for more than 3,000 outlets throughout Australia and New Zealand. This includes specialty communication retailers, major retail groups, service providers, and network carriers. Its distribution centre is recognised as a world-class enterprise hub with the power to facilitate a technologically-advanced supply chain.

Existing website needed to be improved
As a full-service supplier, Force is always looking for innovative solutions to enhance its total product offering. This includes making it easier for customers to see Force’s extensive product range and service offering, order without friction, and rely on on-time delivery of products.

Force had an existing website with strong functionality but it wasn’t mobile-responsive and the team recognised that it could do an even better job of presenting options to B2B customers. Force had invested a significant amount of resources in becoming a market leader and wanted to further enhance the functionality it offered customers to cement that leading position.

“Using improved notifications and extended layout functionality, we’ll experiment to see how we can increase orders and value.”

Chris Sciortino, Chief Marketing Officer, Force Technology, said, “The existing website had become slightly dated in terms of the user experience and it needed to become mobile-responsive. The main goal was to improve the overall customer experience for the retailers that order from us. It was important to make it the best in the sector. “Furthermore, Force is committed to being customer-led and the website update was a great opportunity to do that. This was a transformation opportunity that would set us apart from the competition.”

Customer feedback highlighted areas for improvement
The team started by gaining functional feedback from customers. Through telephone surveys, Force uncovered its customers’ pain points and wish list, identifying areas for improvement especially around search and ordering functionality. As part of its work with Empired, the team collated this feedback and prioritised the pain points to turn them into functional elements that could be included in the new site.

Chris Sciortino said, “In this way, the scoping process was very customer-led. Engaging with key active, engaged power users, we were able to get a real sense of what was needed and how to proceed.”

Once it was clear what elements needed to be addressed, the Force team began searching for a solution. It started with considering off-the-shelf solutions to upgrade the existing site structure. However, on further investigation it became clear that the opportunity was about more than just upgrading the existing site; it was about creating an entirely new site with modern functionality.

Chris Sciortino said, “To maximise functionality and have development flexibility, we needed to work with a partner that would offer a collaborative experience while providing strategic advice and best practice. Empired shared our goal of having the best e-commerce site recognised within our industry. While we considered other options, it was clear that the best path was to engage with Empired.”

Three key pain points dictated requirements
Empired took Force on a journey from understanding its customers’ requirements to putting those requirements into a solution. Both the Empired and Force teams understood the absolute necessity of keeping every activity customer focused.

Together, Empired and Force identified three key pain points that needed to be addressed. The first was the site’s look and feel, and its ability to provide clear information on each of the thousands of product lines offered by Force. Collating the information on screen to showcase that information in a clean, simple way was important to help customers visualise the products.

The second pain point was around search. The previous functionality was augmented by a Google-style search box that let users search more generally for products, in addition to the traditional searches by category or brand, which is an industry standard. The additional functionality helps customers who aren’t sure what they’re looking for, creating a better user experience. The final pain point was around responsiveness. Customers using tablets and smartphones for ordering were frustrated by the site’s non-responsive design, so it was imperative to ensure the new site would be fully responsive to cater to customers’ device preferences. Empired developed a bespoke solution based on JavaScript, .NET, and NAV integration to solve each of these pain points comprehensively.

Seamless implementation due to collaboration
The implementation process was professional and seamless. Sprint sessions kept the agile project on track with plenty of flexibility for feedback and changes.

Chris Sciortino said, “The management of the sprints was extremely well-executed by Empired. It was a collaborative and enjoyable experience with feedback taken on board and actioned quickly. This helped us get to the key functionality we were looking for.” The solution included integrating the website functionality with Force’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which had created challenges in the past. However, the integration with the new system has been smooth.

The messaging engine has also improved with better tools to communicate with customers. Force no longer relies on simple email marketing; the team can now communicate through text messages and more sophisticated emails regarding order receipt and processing.

Chris Sciortino said, “Being able to keep customers informed at each stage of the buying process is a big benefit. It adds to the transparency and visibility that customers prefer, delivering on our promise to be customer-focused.”

Force elected to keep both the old website and the new one operating in parallel while customers switched over to the new one. Eventually, the old site will be phased out as customers transition completely to the new site.

Anticipated benefits include incremental order increases
The project was scoped to deliver incremental extra orders through the improved user experience. This included functionality like suggestive ordering, the ability to add extra items into the basket, and so on. These functions are in the early stages of deployment and Force anticipates that cumulative orders and total value of orders will increase as customers become more used to using the new site. From there, the team will look to further enhance those tools to work out the key triggers that lead to incremental basket share. Chris Sciortino said, “Now that both sites are up, Force will run a promotion to establish some benchmark numbers for both sites. Then, we’ll add a further promotion to that to see what uplift it generates. Using improved notifications and extended layout functionality, we’ll experiment to see how we can increase orders and value.”

Working with Empired
Empired and Force created a strong, collaborative relationship in which the Empired team felt like part of the Force team. This unified partnership was well-received by the Force team. Chris Sciortino said, “Working with Empired was a great experience. Having the right team in place meant we could deliver according to the timeline. Although the Force team had an understanding of customer requirements, Empired was very much an expert partner that provided significant value around the knowledge base and recommendations.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) has provided insurance and workers compensation for more than 100 years, making it one of the oldest insurance companies in Australia. It puts church interests before company profits and develops specialist products and services that meet the needs of the church to control insurance costs and retain any surplus within the church. CCI operates under not-for-profit principles and returns profits to its clients by way of dividends, distributions, and grants.

Expansion plans created transformation needs
CCI was looking to attract new clients outside the Catholic church. As part of this, CCI realised that it would need to transform its organisation to digitalise manual processes and deliver an online presence to its clients. The business is in the third year of a five-year plan to completely transform its systems and processes to help it attract a new demographic of client.

One of CCI’s most important products is workers’ compensation, especially in New South Wales. With most of its larger competitors offering a portal experience to manage workers’ compensation claims, CCI knew it had to follow suit. While it had a solution in place, it offered a clunky, ineffective user experience and was rarely used by clients. Consequently, CCI identified a risk of important clients defecting to other providers who could provide a better user experience.

“The solution involved a lot of moving parts and Empired was able to deliver a
streamlined, slick solution that outstripped anything CCI’s competition was doing.”

Trevor Walter, Manager – Corporate Services & Enterprise Architecture, Catholic Church Insurance

CCI needed to address this risk and position itself as a provider of choice, offering smart solutions to help manage workers’ compensation claims.

Trevor Walter, Manager, Corporate Services and Enterprise Architecture, Catholic Church Insurance, said, “Customers were familiar with more traditional technologies once used. However, in a digital era and with many of CCI’s customers now fitting into a much younger demographic, there is an increased need for speed and responsiveness. CCI has therefore invested in transforming its technology and developing a user-friendly workers’ compensation portal needed to be a key part of that program of work.”

Strategic partnering delivers a successful project
CCI had worked with Empired on previous projects so the team contacted Empired to discuss developing a workers’ compensation portal. As an existing Microsoft customer, CCI saw value in building a solution based on the Microsoft stack and knew that Empired could deliver.

Trevor said, “Too many vendors creates a complex environment that’s hard to manage and doesn’t deliver efficiencies. Partnering with Empired was therefore a strategic choice as it helped CCI leverage new and existing investments in Microsoft technology.”

In building the portal, Empired and CCI created strong building blocks for future projects. By using reusable technology, the team was able to mature the existing data warehouse, solve complex issues around identity management, and embed business analytics into processes.

“Some have said they’ve never seen a portal as good as this one even at the larger insurance companies.”

“The solution involved a lot of moving parts and Empired was able to deliver a streamlined, slick solution that outstripped anything CCI’s competition was doing,” Trevor said.

Portal offers better reporting and risk management
Clients now have a portal they can log into immediately and see their claims data. Each Catholic Archdiocese may underwrite hundreds of schools or aged care facilities, for example, which means managers need a holistic view across all of these organisations.

The solution lets users see claims reporting dashboards that deliver information around parameters such as common injuries, trends, and risk factors. They can drill down to see whether certain types of injuries are more likely based on gender or age group.

Trevor said, “In the past, each client had a different reporting requirement and, often, wanted data dumps so they could export it into Excel and do their own graphs and charting. Because they wanted to use the data in different ways, it wasn’t possible for CCI to create a single type of report and replicate it quickly. Instead, the CCI team would receive ad hoc requests for reports, then manually generate those reports and send them back. It was very time consuming for CCI and could take weeks to get something back to the client.

“Furthermore, the previous system struggled to deliver accurate data because there was no validation or quality assurance. It was important to deliver accurate, comprehensive data to clients quickly and smoothly.”

The new solution, based on a combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Power BI, Sitecore, RealSoft, and more, solves these issues. Clients can self-serve to get the reports they want via the portal in seconds rather than weeks. The data is validated so clients can be confident that they’re using accurate information to make decisions.

CCI began by piloting the solution to 30 clients and, based on excellent feedback, expanded to 61 clients before planning to roll the solution out to the entire client base.

Trevor said, “The feedback has been great and it’s so fast to build reports that it’s no problem when clients request a new one. Some have said they’ve never seen a portal as good as this one even at the larger insurance companies.

“Clients gain strong business benefits from the portal because it lets them see how they’re tracking in terms of managing their risk and keeping claims to a minimum. They can use that information to negotiate lower premiums but, more importantly, they can use it to take more control over their own performance.”

Using Power BI has delivered strong analytics capabilities that provide insights to let clients make better decisions regarding risk management.

What’s more, the solution has made life easier for CCI’s customers who no longer have to undertake lengthy and inconvenient processes to maintain their cover.

Working with Empired
The key to the success of this project was creating a team with the right mix of people and skills.

Trevor said, “Too often, vendors either don’t listen to the customer or else they just agree with whatever the customer asks for. This rarely makes for a successful project. Empired will challenge assumptions and provide advice, which was important to this relationship. CCI needed a strategic partner, not an order taker, and Empired fit the bill, providing lots of advice around future-proofing the solution and understanding which direction to take.

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

Needing to streamline its rebate program and provide a portal for users that was intuitive and responsive, CPS engaged Empired to deliver a solution that will pay for itself within three years.

About Central Purchasing Services
Central Purchasing Services (CPS) is a buying group that brings together members and suppliers to deliver better business outcomes for all. This member-owned organisation helps its member’s access competitive deals from a diverse range of suppliers with central billing through CPS. It offers a chargeback facility so a single credit application unlocks more than 200 supplier accounts. CPS also provides marketing services to its members. For suppliers, CPS offers a debt guarantee, increased sales opportunities, and innovative business and marketing solutions.

“It was essential to the portal a positive value-added experience.”

Member portal was hard to use and potentially unstable
CPS generates revenue by administering rebates that are paid by suppliers. It offers members a single, consolidated bill, which they access, along with their rebates, via a member portal. However, members found the portal difficult to use, it wasn’t responsive so it didn’t work on mobile devices and there was no single sign-on capability.

Stephen Wren, general manager, Central Purchasing Services, said, “CPS provides a digital, paperless invoice process. It’s therefore essential that the portal be easy to use and completely reliable, since CPS members depend on it for their business success. If any of the software underpinning the portal solution became unstable or stopped working, the entire solution would collapse, leaving CPS members unable to transact.

“The portal used a version of software that was no longer supported, and the rebate system was supported out of Canada. This created a risky situation for the business and it was important to move to a new solution that would be well-supported in Australia.”

“We worked with people with different skill sets in the Empired team and each of them was impressive and easy to work with. That’s what helped us achieve a successful project.”

Longevity and support were key
CPS scoured the world looking for a solution and considered developing its own bespoke software solution, working with other buying groups to create a solution, and purchasing a commercial platform from a recognised vendor. After 18 months of searching, CPS chose Empired to develop the Portal solution coupled with Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Stephen said, “We did some background checking with other customers and, consequently, we had faith in Empired and in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. We were confident that it was a modern platform supported by one of the largest software companies in the world, and that we’d receive outstanding support from both Empired and Microsoft for the foreseeable future.”

Dynamics NAV was recognised as being able to deliver business advantage by automating the supplier invoice processes; member on-charge invoicing processes; intercompany and consolidations as well as management and financial reporting outputs.

User-friendly portal delivers real-time information reliably
The new member portal provides real-time information so members can track their rebates, see their latest deals, check their account balances, and view and pay invoices. The portal is easy to use and delivers the single source of truth that the business required. It’s secure with a single sign-on to the member’s area and the clean, efficient interface is responsive for use on mobile devices.

The immediate savings have been in the reduction in staff hours required to process invoices and rebates. The solution has also given CPS greater visibility into and control over its business.

Stephen said, “The previous portal was convoluted and hard to navigate. As our main point of contact with customers, it was essential to turn that experience around, making the portal a positive value-added experience. That objective was achieved and there were zero faults when it went live. Members have found it easy to use and we haven’t had to provide support beyond a few phone calls, which is great.”

The portal provides data directly from Dynamics NAV for users so they can see the information they need – track their rebates, see their latest deals, check their account balances and view and pay invoices – in real time. This has let CPS offer a far more transparent view into activities than any other buying group. At the same time, that information isn’t editable, so the integrity remains assured.

CPS now has a solution that is fully supported and integrated, and will remain supported well into the future, minimising business risk. Empired designed the solution so that it can integrate simply and easily with other products without requiring a whole new slew of coding.

This means CPS can plan for the future as it continues to focus on growth by acquisition. The scalability of the Dynamics NAV solution will be critical to this growth, since the business can simply continue to expand its use of Dynamics NAV at a very low cost.

Working with Empired
CPS and Empired worked together collaboratively, which resulted in a successful project. The exceptional quality of the Empired team was a key ingredient in that success, according to CPS.

Stephen said, “I’d find it hard to work with any partner other than Empired at this point. The team is technically competent and responsive, always getting back to us and keeping us in the loop. Having a partner that answers the phone and gets right back to you is incredibly important and having Empired on our doorstep was great.

“This project also brought home the importance of planning. All the upfront work Empired did meant that, when it was time to code, test, and deploy the Dynamics NAV-based solution, it all worked seamlessly and according to our expectations. Businesses can get Dynamics NAV from anywhere; it’s the implementation partner that makes the difference.

“In the early stages of the project we were slightly concerned about all the work that was going into documentation and information-gathering. However, that provided an excellent foundation as we stepped through the implementation process. As a result of that upfront work, Empired was able to deliver on this complex and time-critical project with virtually no issues. The project went live on the agreed date and the budget balanced to the cent.” says Stephen Wren, GM – Central Purchasing Services

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

Volunteer Marine Rescue Queensland (VMRAQ) provides volunteer marine search and rescue services to the boating public across 2,700km of Queensland coast, with 25 affiliated squadrons located throughout the State of Queensland.

Mayday, mayday
Keith Williams, General Manager of Marine Rescue Queensland says, ”With only three and a half paid staff, two of whom are dedicated trainers, there are only one and a half people to manage an enterprise that consists of 25 locations, 50 vessels, 1460 volunteers, over 2500 rescues and more than 6000 rescue vessel operations a year. Add to that the burden of running a registered training organisation that is compliant to volunteers operating in a high risk environment and you can imagine that business processes, in particular the way they manage data, all have to be pretty spot on.”

VMRAQ had many challenges – disparate systems across squadrons which meant collaboration was non-existent, different logon practices, users from remote areas with marginal internet access, no backup files and users all across Queensland who specialise in marine rescue vessel operations, not in technology.

“What the community will see out of that is safer operations and better risk management.”

These challenges resulted in each squadron having no idea what was going on in the field and it being near impossible to ensure everyone across each squadron had up to date training when an outdated database system managed their training records. Add to that the reality that several volunteers across the region were writing the same procedure and another volunteer was modifying technology from another organisation to use at VMRAQ – whilst drowning in other roles within the organisation – and this technology was still not coping with a major change in the training package, released by the Commonwealth Government.

They needed an intuitive, easy to use technology solution so their staff and volunteers could focus on what was important – keeping Queenslanders safe on the water.

Keith also wanted more for VMRAQ. He says, “I wanted statistics, I wanted data and I wanted business intelligence. I need this for funding applications and indeed I need this to justify our very existence. I needed a top-level integrated product with single sign on to access everything from email, to documents to training records and vessel activity.”

Bailing out
Empired’s Dave Paylor, who is an integral member of VMRAQ, proposed a solution to Keith when they finally met.

Managing documents across their disparate systems was the top priority for VMRAQ. The solution was to use a hub design, providing each squadron a new, simple portal that lets skippers share content. Built on SharePoint, running on Office 365, this lets VMRAQ share knowledge amongst squadrons. Along with other Empired employees, who donated work, Dave and Empired built an Azure based system for VMRAQ’s email, website, administration records, training records and activity records so they are now fully integrated, with single sign-on.

“It is an innovative way of getting a job done that we are compelled to do. What the community will see out of that is safer operations and better risk management. We need to know our volunteers are safe as well, so it’s helping us meet that goal.”
Keith Williams, General Manager, Volunteer Marine Rescue Queensland

Keith says, “We can see what other squadrons are doing and implement best practice procedures. This type of knowledge sharing can literally save lives.”

This system also displays incidents on maps and shows how much fuel squadrons have so they can always ensure they have the resources and safety measures in place to save lives. Squadron’s headquarters have immediate access to information and visuals so they can see what is happening in real-time, discuss it and provide input and feedback immediately. The learnings that come from these are then built into trainings to be learnt from around the region.

Data capture was next on the priority list for VMRAQ. Now, every time a rescue vessel is launched details are captured in the new portal including, how much fuel was used, how many people were assisted and how long the vessel was at sea. It also keeps track of all volunteers and their training records.

As most crew members are more interested in being out on the water than behind a keyboard, data capture was always a challenge. Too often organisations demand people to provide data, only for it to disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again. Now, every page in the new portal contains statistics from the database relevant to that page of information. If someone adds new information they can see the statistics change instantly, knowing they are making a difference.

Plain sailing
Keith says, “Acceptance has been universal. Users are loving the fact that they now only need to remember one username and password. Everything is in one place. Forms to enter data are simple, fast and intuitive. The rollover happened in mid-January 2018. In terms of providing technical support, the workload is now as low as it has ever been. Data is easy to enter, easy to access and in a word is a manager’s dream”.

“What Office 365 has given us is the ability to put everybody on the same page, for starters,” Keith said. “But it also enables us to create group-based aliases, so I can just send an email to all volunteers in a region now, rather having to remember each individual person.”

The new system is enabling volunteers to keep on top of the latest legislative changes from anywhere, at any time, on any device. Volunteers use their own devices and now can access all the same information. They are also able to collaborate from different locations like never before. This was proven when new legislation was released that VMRAQ now needs to maintain a risk register as well as having standard policies. They can’t gather a thousand volunteers in one location to write and re-write these but they can now share and edit documents online easily with a single source of truth.

On the horizon
Keith says, “What will happen is that we’ll end up with a system where people will be able to do completely self-based learning. They’ll get the training material, they’ll be able to sign in and perhaps have a co-ordinator sign off that they’ve done practical training skills in that area. Then they’ll be able to do that exam in their own time at their own location, so SharePoint is bringing massive benefits to us.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

The situation
The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) vision is to deliver energy security for all Australians. It administers and operates the country’s wholesale national energy markets, with around 18 terabyte of data stored across a myriad of different on-premises systems, including some high-volume transactional systems.

With energy consumption on the rise around the world, recent heatwaves saw Australians use more electricity than ever before. This anomaly highlighted how difficult it is to gain insights into how electricity grids cope with the ebb and flow of energy consumption across all consumer and commercial meters.

The opportunity
Historically, AEMO’s data was used in isolation across its many systems. Different business units acted in silos, generating their own reports without a consolidated, single source of truth, meaning energy grids couldn’t be compared and increases or declines were not noticed. An internal initiative to aggregate data in a pseudo data warehouse was carried out, however the volume of data proved too much as certain queries were taking days to execute and ministerials were taking weeks or even months to answer.

Empired helped AEMO use big data to drive smarter ways to save energy consumption and improve forecasting accuracy across Australia. This solution is key to planning how the network will look in the future and the infrastructure required to ensure continued high levels of service to energy consumers.

The technology
Using Microsoft Azure’s best-of-breed data platform with rich ecosystems of data components, catering for AEMO’s evolving needs, Empired assisted AEMO in tapping into their energy consumption data. This data intelligence solution allows data to be analysed right across the country and across grids every two minutes in a flexible way.

Energy data, population data and weather data can all be factored in and assessed to forecast a future approximate for the next 20 years in 30 minute intervals. Furthermore, Azure provides the elasticity to be scalable depending on AEMO’s needs, achieving cost savings by scaling up only when required, then pausing or powering down when not in use, such as weekends. This is one of the most complicated and sophisticated uses of data intelligence in the world.

Empired designed and built big data warehouses using Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Azure Data Lake, Power BI, machine learning, Python, Spark, R and Spark-R, Data Factory and HDInsight. The data flows were designed to load data from AEMO’s on-premises systems to the Azure-based data warehouses, automating the build of the data flows from more than 700 tables (some larger than one terabyte) from onpremises systems in Azure. Australian-based data centres ensured all information was stored in-country.

“It is magic. But it is a true story and an enormous success story.”
Ben Johnson, National Business Manager, Data Insights & Integration, Empired

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

Aussie was founded on the premise of finding a better way for every Australian to get the right home loan for their dream home. They challenged the banks to give Australians a better deal, and the home lending landscape in the country changed forever. Today, more than 1,000 talented, experienced and passionate brokers stand by Aussie’s side, sharing their collective wisdom and drive to secure the right deal for their customers.

Difficult data impacts business insights
The company had an ageing reporting platform with multiple data sources and various reporting tools, which ultimately meant the data was difficult to access and verify.

 “There was little to no room for actionable insight from the data due to a lack of trust in where it was coming from.”
Richard Hilliard, Head of Digital Transformation, Aussie

The main impact was the lack of transparency for sales leaders and brokers. For the 30 sales leaders, whose role is predominately to meet with and coach brokers, both mobile and in-store, the ageing systems and tools were time consuming.

“To prepare for meetings it would take too much time just to pull the data together. A lot of time at the meetings was then spent talking about whether the data was right when it should have been about strategic coaching for the broker,” says Hilliard.

As a result, there was an opportunity for us to provide a more comprehensive view of what was happening in their businesses.

Transforming data accuracy across the business
Aussie started on the path to clean up the data and discovered that it didn’t have a suitable platform to move forward. In addition, it had on-premises infrastructure that was reaching end of life. Aussie was already using Office 365 so looking at Microsoft solutions just made sense. There was also a genuine desire to make the shift to the cloud.

“We were already in the process of moving SQL Servers and other applications to the cloud,” says Hilliard. “This led us to Microsoft Azure and Power BI, which we believed could really bring us up to date.”

“We reached out to Microsoft, and Empired was recommended. Empired evaluated our needs, embarked on a proof of concept to demonstrate that Power BI was capable of being the single tool for the entire business, and showed us what was possible.”

Access to accurate data across the business
Empired has helped Aussie deliver accurate, intuitive and easy to use business information. “The project has been transformative in the way sales leaders and brokers can now interact, and in increasing the overall productivity of the team,” says Hilliard. “Now everyone is looking at the same data straight away and there is no debate over its accuracy.”

“The solution has meant that we can cut through the unproductiveness of unreliable data and spend valuable time on what is important. For the IT team it has meant a significant reduction in investigating ad hoc data queries”.

“Now the IT team can spend time focusing on coming up with new reports and insights that will help the business,” he says. “The feedback and adoption of the solution has been unprecedented.”

“With so many stakeholders with different levels of technical expertise it really is a top to bottom solution for the business, and has been one of the smoothest transitions I’ve ever worked on.”

The immediate goal for Aussie was rear window reporting; giving brokers accurate information about what happened in their business yesterday or last week. With this now in place, the company can look to the future.

“The project was a real game changer for us,” says Hilliard. “Once we had selected Power BI as our reporting platform, Empired was the logical choice to assist with the implementation. Empired has successfully helped us deliver analytics and reporting to our sales team and brokers across Australia.”

Key to the ongoing success of Aussie’s data and AI platform is the fact that Empired helped to upskill the Aussie team so they could take full ownership of the solution going forward. “Our team now has the skills and experience to drive the platform forward and our brokers have the insights into their pipeline, customers and portfolio to take their businesses to new heights.”

The importance of user experience
Rather than relying on traditional techniques to understand Aussie’s requirements, Empired used UX techniques to understand the types of users that would be operating the solution, what they needed to do and most importantly how a positive change in the way they do their jobs could be made.

Working with Empired
Empired took the time to understand Aussie’s business challenges, data and requirements.

“Key for us is having a partner that blends with the team and will integrate and work with us. Aussie was also looking for a partner that could upskill IT to be self-sufficient in Power BI. The engagement was short, sharp and extremely valuable. I am very happy with where the team is now having taken the foundation Empired gave us and extending it,” says Hilliard.

“The project was a real game changer for us. Our team now has the skills and experience to drive the platform forward and our brokers have the insights into their pipeline, customers and portfolio to take their businesses to new heights.”

Richard Hilliard,  Head of Digital Transformation, Aussie

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired

Perth-based Senses Foundation provides specialist care and support services to people suffering from dual loss of both sight and hearing, along with other disabilities.

The not-for-profit and National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provider looked to Microsoft partner Empired for the introduction of a modern solution to improve information accessibility and visibility of financial information.

With the implementation of Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV enterprise resource planning software, Senses Foundation today has a system which provides accurate, up to date insights, while providing a solution for managing the organisation for ongoing success.

With an accelerated project methodology, Empired had the company running on its new system in less than eight weeks.

Situation
One of Senses Foundation’s strategic goals is to grow and develop resources to best meet the disability service needs of their clients.

To help reach this goal, Senses Foundation needed to update its finance system to clearly see where and how organisational resources were being used.

“Shedding more light on our financial activities is key, especially so our management team and stakeholders can make the best business decisions for our clients. We needed a system that could automatically drill down on data and connect the dots freely without any technological hitches. The system had to manage all financial activities (general ledger, chart of accounts, importing journals, running reports, analysing data) in an effective and efficient manner,” explains Darren Munday, General Manager Finance and Risk at Senses Foundation.

He says Senses Foundation’s old financial system was outdated and lacked the financial capability required to make the best resourcing and financial decisions. “Our system needed to capture a greater level of detail across a range of attributes so that we could slice and dice that information for better decision making,” Munday explains.

“There was no flexibility when it came to reporting and we needed to drill down on certain areas of the business; our financial system would corrupt when uploading journals and would require a re-boot; and analysing figures was laborious and required many workarounds. These things made our jobs frustrating.”

Solution
Senses Foundation had an external IT review to help select the best solution for its needs. Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV was recommended as an ideal solution capable of showing the Senses Foundation team where resources were going, and providing the reporting capability to accurately track and manage financial activity.

And with Senses Foundation in growth mode, it needed a system which would provide the headroom for future business expansion.

Not only did it meet these requirements, but as a Microsoft product, Dynamics NAV has a familiar, user-friendly interface which was a priority for users.

Empired employed its Rapid Results methodology to deliver the project in less than eight weeks.

Results
With a much improved picture of financial activity, Senses Foundation can optimise resourcing decisions for the organisation. “We can now focus on the task at hand – providing our clients with the right resources and making sure we’re using our resources wisely,” says Munday.

“We can easily track and report on how dollars are spent and it’s all accountable. This is vital information for the management team and stakeholders supporting our organisation”

And on top of that, things happen faster, too. “We’ve also saved about three to four days in our end-of-month financial processes. Implementation happened pretty quickly and the Microsoft system is familiar and easy to use,” Munday explains.

With the success of the implementation behind it, Senses Foundation is now working with Empired to implement Dynamics CRM. This will give a further boost to the business, delivering the capability to effectively manage the client database, while taking resourcing knowledge a step further.

“Having clearer insight into our clients’ progress and activity is important to ensure we are providing them with the best service and allocating the right resources, with the lowest possible overhead,” Munday notes.

Source: This article was originally sourced from Empired