Woking, 7 November 2022 – TVision Technology are delighted to announce that their existing client, Watco UK Ltd, has successfully moved from its outdated NAV system to Business Central, Microsoft’s cloud-based business management solution.
Watco UK Ltd. is part of a large US-based business. It provides industry-leading, high-performance repair and coatings products. The vast majority of the products Watco sell are manufactured to their unique patented formulas by a sister company in the North East of England. They are then shipped direct to customers, or to Watco Germany’s warehouse for Europe-wide distribution.
Watco UK Ltd. is based in Guildford, UK and this is the HQ of the Watco Group. About 40 people work for the UK operation (most based in Guildford, apart from the finance team which is based in the North East) with a further 10 employees in France, and 20 in Germany.
Moving to a modern SaaS solution
Prior to their move to Business Central, Watco UK (along with Watco France and Watco Germany) were using an ageing NAV system, NAV 2017. NAV 2017 went out of mainstream Microsoft support in January 2022 and Watco were keen to upgrade this on prem system to a cloud-based one. Alex Shannon, Watco’s Group IT Director, felt that Business Central was NAV’s natural successor and that its SaaS version ticked all the boxes. As Watco also use both Microsoft 365 and Azure, a move to Business Central would allow them to seamlessly integrate with the Microsoft stack.
Alex Shannon said: “At Watco, we have a long-established ethos of in-house bespoking and tailoring of systems to strive for any competitive edge. This includes our CRM system which used to interface with NAV and now does so with Business Central.
“We also use SaaS-based reporting services, have high levels of task and process automation, and integrate with multiple 3rd party systems via EDI, APIs and data exchanges. Moving to a cloud-based ERP system like Business Central was an obvious choice for Watco as it allows for easy system integration through its extensive list of built-in APIs. Where there are gaps, TVision helped fill.”
Successful UK move to Business Central
Watco UK went live with Business Central (BC) in August. The main challenge for the company was to carry out the NAV to BC migration at the same time as re-integrating their front and back-end systems with BC. Watco has relatively large data sets (100,000s of customers and millions of rows of transactional data). They needed to carry out the UK migration over a weekend without the business experiencing a single day of downtime.
Alex added “It was with great pride that the IT team with departmental champions and fantastic hands-on support from TVT managed to achieve our migration on time and with no business downtime, at the same time satisfying the many financial and IT related audit requirements that come with being part of a large, US-based company.”
Future plans for Watco France and Watco Germany
Watco France is pencilled in for a move to Business Central early next year. While the BC side is relatively straightforward for Watco, they have additional challenges with their inhouse developed requirements around methods of working, language, remote working and a different set of data integrations. Watco Germany is pencilled in for go-live later in the year. Again, there are some unique challenges in achieving this move which go beyond the scope of Business Central.
ENDS
About TVision Technology Ltd
TVision delivers efficiency, control and growth by having one of the largest and most experienced Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central teams in the UK. In addition to deep technical know-how, every member of the team takes real pleasure in implementing solutions that are just the right fit for your business – no matter what industry you are in. That’s why our customers stay with us for the long term, whether they are implementing a new system, enhancing their existing deployment or looking for an outstanding support partner.
For more information about TVision Technology and Business Central, contact us.
