ERP cloud lift in 15 weeks and reduced operating costs by 10 percent
INSULA is a Nordic seafood group with a main focus on the development, processing and sales of fish and seafood products. With a number of seafood companies in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, the group currently employs around 1,100 people.
From Infor M3 on prem to Infor Cloud Suite
Since 2018, Insula had a ERP solution from Infor, M3 Food & Beverage, which has pre-configured settings adapted to the food industry.
– For Insula, it has always been a principle to stick to the standard in the solution and not to make adjustments, says ERP manager Ronny Johnsen in Insula.
Insula, together with Elvenite, has now elevated the business system to Infor Cloud Suite, which is based on a multi-tenant cloud solution.
– The agreement with Elvenite was signed in May 2021 and the cloud solution went live on Monday, October 18 the same year. The operating costs have been reduced by 10 percent compared to the on-premise solution and the entire cloud lift was done remotely due to Covid, so this has literally been a digital project,” says Line Fjeldstad, then CIO at Insula.
Johnsen emphasizes that if the entire business system had been tailored and customized, Insula would have had greater challenges in migrating to a standard cloud solution.
– Together with Elvenite, who are specialists in Infor’s cloud solution for the food industry, we have had a very good team with a clear plan of where we are going, which undoubtedly contributed to us being able to deliver a successful cloud lift in time and cost, says Line.
Reduced operating costs by 10 percent
Insula has reduced operating costs by about 10 percent compared to the previous Infor M3 on-premises 2021 and what the cloud solution will cost Insula 2023, Fjeldstad emphasizes that the cost reduction has been important for the decision to move the business system to the cloud.
– We now have lower ongoing operating costs despite an almost 50% increase in the number of permits. In addition, upgrade costs are virtually eliminated compared to on-prem. In addition, stability and security are better in the cloud solution, in summary, this has been important for the decision to move the ERP solution to the cloud, says Fjeldstad.
‘All in one’ cloud lifting
Insula had a clear strategy to do the migration to the cloud in a “1-1” lift to not make the work more extensive than necessary and to stay on schedule.
– This means that we chose not to make changes to our business processes, the main goal of the lift was stable operation, increased security, reduced costs and continuous access to new functionality,” says Fjeldstad.
– We spent a lot of time drafting a clear and thorough contract to avoid ambiguities and conflicts that could delay progress. In addition, it was crucial to get a team in place with sufficient and correct competence and professional resources that complement each other from both Elvenite and Insula,” says Erik Karlström, ERP Manager at Elvenite.
Decision support from sea to table
The ERP system ensures decision support from the entire value chain, from producer, processing and up to the store. This helps reduce waste, improves production planning and documentation throughout the traceability chain.
– We’ve put in place a flexible ERP platform that will help us collect and customize the data so that we can adapt faster and better to changes in market needs,” says Fjeldstad.
Results and experiences
“Experience shows that some of the risks identified at the beginning of the project did occur,” says Fjeldstad.
– The tight schedule made the project vulnerable to delays and illness. In addition, we experienced unexpected complexity in one of the integrations. More complex integration combined with insufficient time for testing due to illness led to failures after launch on October 18.
– When we chose to run 1-1 cloud lift, it was a wise decision not to run other parallel business projects. That would be too demanding. Furthermore, communication and expectation management is essential for users and especially in relation to what needs they can expect to be solved in the cloud solution,” says Karlström.
– We have achieved all our goals for the ERP cloud lift, and we now have a flexible business platform that is fit for the future,” says Fjeldstad.
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Infor M3 on-prem
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Infor Cloud Suite Food & Beverage |
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cost
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Higher license costs, costs associated with upgrades are higher.
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Lower running costs, reduced license costs.
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Maintenance
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The company itself controls when upgrades are made. There will be a need for major upgrades every few years.
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Regular minor upgrades of the cloud solution are carried out by the provider.
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Functionality
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Follows the upgrades and will thus take time before new functionality is made available to users.
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Follows the upgrades and will thus be made available to users continuously.
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Security
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The company itself is responsible for the security of the solution.
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The supplier is responsible for the security of the solution.
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Stability
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Insula has had significant availability issues due to challenges with the operational provider on servers.
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As long as you have internet access, you will have access to the cloud solution.
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About INSULA
INSULA is a Nordic seafood group with a main focus on the development, processing and sales of fish and seafood products. Their strategy is to be a complete seafood supplier to the retail and food service markets, with the Nordic region as their home market.
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