Digital transformation using Microsoft Dynamics 365 fuels 20 percent business growth with greater simplicity and optimization of business processes for BSi Steel

Executive Summary

BSi Steel Pty Ltd, a South Africa’s leading steel merchant and steel supplier with multiple entities across African continent was looking to adopt modern business applications and BI solution to enhance and optimize its various business processes, formalize consistent master data particularly item master, improve sales process productivity, standardize item costing etc. — all while keeping the entities and reporting separate. Andrew Wood, Group IT Executive, BSi Steel, engaged KAISPE LLC, a Microsoft partner that provides solutions and services to enterprise customers to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain and Power BI solutions. KAISPE with its years of consulting experience helped out BSi Steel in implementing these solutions while taking care of all the functionality gaps in these business applications to address Steel Distribution industry.

Customer Background

Started in 1988, BSi Steel’s primary product range are different forms of mild steel. The products include: steel pipe, square tubing, round tubing, rectangular tubing, rebar, round bar, square bar, tube pipe, hot rolled coil, cold rolled coil, galvanised coil, cold formed section & lipped channels. The company stands to remain the premium Steel Supplier in Africa and ensure that it remains the top steel merchant in Africa.

BSi Steel’s SA Operation’s focus aims at servicing the Structural, Mining, Engineering, Manufacturing and Automotive Industries within South Africa. BSi Steel Exports LTD coordinates external business direct from our facility in Johannesburg. Their highly experienced Gauteng team is well placed to process and expedite small and large-volume exports of a wide range of steel products to most African markets including, Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania.

Problem Statement and Solution

Due to constant fluctuation of Steel Prices, BSi Steel sales personnel were always in need of timely information about current market prices to better negotiate the profitability of the deal, this was cumbersome and inaccurate for them as they needed to quote in timely manner in a extremely competitive market. To address this issue, KAISPE provided replacement cost functionality on business documents like sales quotation, sales order and purchase order in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O. This particularly helped the sales personnel with easy access of up to date and accurate information with approximately 40 percent improvement in overall sales process.

“Our costing issues are now greatly resolved. We are glad that we adopt Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O as our ERP application and appreciate KAISPE how they helped us resolving this problem.” Andrew Wood, Group IT Executive, BSi Steel

Another related problem area for BSi Steel due to constant fluctuation of steel prices was the inability to accurately track the differences occurring between Purchase Order Receipt and Invoice. In the legacy application, they did very complex customizations to handle such variance but still constantly getting inaccurate results from time to time, especially when those items were consumed or sold during the Receipt and Invoice period. KAISPE proposed and implemented the costing method Moving Average available in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O that helped them to record the price difference correctly and only when it was required.

In their Production process, BSi Steel was facing restriction on the Production Orders for the De-coil and Re-coil process because Raw Material and Finished Good cannot be same in normal Discrete Manufacturing Process. KAISPE provided input functionality on production order where BSi production users can now enter the number of cuts required for the coil, this helped the production team to know how many small coils are required. KAISPE also provided an option to select the same finished goods and raw material in the BOM that allowed them to select same product as finished goods in production order for de-coil and re-coil production process.

“It’s good to see how Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O along with other Microsoft technologies helped out BSi Steel in achieving their Digital Transformation goals. We are committed to add more value to BSi business using our skill set and industry knowledge.” Imran Mahmood, CEO, KAISPE LLC

BSi Steel executives were looking for a simple yet powerful reporting platform that help them gaining more insights into the business to make accurate and timely decision. Microsoft Power BI along with Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O, SQL Server Analysis Services and SQL Server Integration Services provided them the reports and dashboards to get a consolidated view of the business. Reports like Sales Performance, Inventory Aging, Gross Profit etc. helped them make future decision precisely.

In addition to Microsoft Power BI, BSi Steel also adopted Microsoft Power Apps, Power Automate and SharePoint Online to develop productivity apps like Purchase Requisition app for their employees. KAISPE developed these apps and get them integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O to make real time data available at both ends.

KAISPE team has a full grip on Microsoft technologies and how they work together to generate value for customer. Andrew Wood, Group IT Executive, BSi Steel

Conclusion

As their future roadmap, BSi Steel is exploring other modules and features in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O along with building additional Power BI reports and dashboards with productivity apps using Microsoft Power Platform and has engaged KAISPE in driving success.