The Sarens Group is an international company of Belgian origin. It specializes in crane rental and engineering projects for lifting and moving loads of exceptional size and weight. Through the efforts of no fewer than four successive generations, the Sarens Group has carved out a place for itself in the global market. Today, the group is a holding company comprising some thirty companies operating worldwide. The entire group generates revenue of €300 million and employs more than 1,800 people. Alistar partners with them on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Why Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?
“When it comes to IT, Sarens has traditionally been cautious with its investments, which is fairly typical for our industry,” says Steve Vossen, ICT coordinator at the Sarens Group. “The engineers had computers for their drafting programs, and our planners worked with a scheduling system on a UNIX platform. That system worked adequately, but it couldn’t generate enough reports and wasn’t able to keep up with our rapid growth.”
Sarens decided to look for an IT provider that could quickly come up with a practical standard package. While there were separate software packages available on the market for each application (such as scheduling, inventory management, and accounting), the biggest challenge was finding an integrated solution that met all our requirements. “We ultimately chose Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central because it is a software package that offers the necessary core functionality, is multilingual by default, yet highly customizable to meet company-specific needs. ”It also seemed to us to be the best solution for bringing together the various silos of information within the different departments and locations of the Sarens Group,” adds Steve Vossen.
The Sarens Group is centralizing the administrative functions of 22 subsidiaries using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Alistar.
Steve Vossen, IT Coordinator, Sarens Group
Manage scheduling, projects, and fleet-related documents
To describe the specific services offered by Sarens To automate the process, a company from Lokeren made a few custom adjustments.
In particular, the package had to include A very comprehensive suite of tools for planning and project management.
“All of our activities are based on ‘projects.’ The project contains all basic information, such as customer details, project description, billing method, etc. Once this project is underway, it serves as the basis for scheduling the use of, for example, cranes and additional equipment in a workable plan. From there, work orders are issued to the workers. After the work is completed, the actual work performed is recorded, and this, in turn, forms the basis for billing and payroll processing.
Also, the Fleet and Equipment Management It happens on its own, starting from the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central application. All relevant data related to the fleet vehicles is stored in a single database. This includes everything from purchase invoices, depreciation, insurance, and scheduling to maintenance and refueling. This allows the company to track a fleet vehicle from start to finish and generate a comprehensive analysis or report.
To complete the centralization of all business administration, other Dynamics 365 modules are also being used, such as, among others,. human resources management, expanded to include thetime tracking, in accordance with the sector-specific collective bargaining agreement, as well as all information regarding the security policy which is highly valued at Sarens. Through the moduleanalytical management Sarens can, among other things, quickly calculate the operating results for each business unit and department, as well as analyze other management data from the database from various perspectives.
Once the data has been entered, all departments can access the same database to generate a variety of reports. This allows us to work faster and more efficiently.
The entire application is managed centrally at the headquarters in Wolvertem. A Citrix server is set up there that already provides various Sarens subsidiaries with access to the Business Central application via Belgacom’s BILAN telecommunications network. Specifically, this currently involves locations in Belgium and the Netherlands, and more than 40 users with the system. “We’re especially pleased that, thanks to Dynamics 365 Business Central, we no longer enter or store hidden duplicate data. Once the data is entered, all departments can access the same database to generate a wide range of reports. This allows us to work faster and more efficiently. Alistar implemented everything in a very short time, approximately 6 months, can develop and implement,” says Steve Vossen. The people who work with the system have, of course, gone through a period of adjustment, but they are largely satisfied.
“Alistar, for his part, is proud of the quality and level of specialization of the add-on module developed for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. It’s a very useful application for companies that—like Sarens—operate on a project- and service-based model,” said Alistar.
