Case Study
Case Study
About the Client
Aareon is Europe's largest provider of software for commercial and social real estate companies, as well as outsourcing and consultancy. Aareon has 36 locations in 7 European countries and 1,500 employees who serve over 3,000 real estate companies that manage 10 million VHEs. Aareon solutions are now used by approximately 50,000 people in Europe.
Problem Statement
The vision of Aareon is to be the most innovative solution provider in the property industry by enabling Digital Transformation.
- Stay more relevant to the needs of the real estate market for Tenant satisfaction, Sustainability, Anywhere / anywhere, anytime
- Lead the market with simplified and easy-to-manage systems, cost optimization, and leveraging new business models
Solution
Sonata assisted Aareon NL in its digital transformation journey. Sonata upgraded Aareon ERP from on-premise AX 2012 to the cloud-based Dynamics 365 platform. The design and execution of the test programme were aligned to the single commercial version of Microsoft, allowing for faster and more robust deployments to production while adhering to the vision of evergreen ERP through automation.
Key highlights of the existing AX2012 solution:
- Huge codebase with intrusive customizations: 27,000+ customised Objects
- Total functional modules – 20, 30+ integrations
- Limited documentation in Dutch language
- Best practices deviations in legacy solutions
Implementation approach for Dynamics 365 F&O
- Upgrade: Created a native Cloud platform in record time by implementing an extensibility framework and redesigning 5000+ objects.
- Based on the Microsoft CAR report, we ensured compliance by resolving 5,000+ errors and warnings from existing AX2012 solutions.
- Improved the product by incorporating some of the key features. Workspace and Power BI were implemented to improve user experiences and flexibility.
- To ensure test coverage, 1800+ test scenarios and test cases have been documented.
- RSAT-based automated regression test scenarios that would save up to 80% of manual testing time.
- Benchmarked system performance with 100,000 transactions per hour at peak with 150+ concurrent users on a tier 4 environment.
- Data migration for the first existing customer. Automation was implemented, which reduced technical migration time from four weeks to one week.
Benefits
- Successful cloud solution upgrade in record time, with high quality, and within budget.
- Ready to go to market for new customer onboarding Flexible cloud-based environment at a low cost.
- Future preparedness for the next stage of digital transformation.
- Ever Green ERP is distinguished by its robust build, deployment, and automation processes.
Alexander Zaal Director Wonen, Aareon NL
Aareon’s vision is to be most innovative solution provider in Property industry, by enabling Digital Transformation. Aareon NL envisaged to modernise its flagship product, Tobias, an on-premise ERP solution for the property market. Sonata, with their deep expertise in Dynamics 365 platform, collaborated with Aareon team and leveraged strong Microsoft connections every step of the journey, in delivering the next generation Tobias 365 platform. Sonata has been our trusted and committed partner in the journey of achieving our digital vision, from upgrading the solution to Cloud, arriving at a common template, leveraging the strength of Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, and migrating one of Aareon’s largest and first customer to Tobias 365 platform.
Rudy Hoving Project Manager Dynamics 365, Aareon NL
A big Thank You to all people at Sonata. Some of us have spent months (some years) trying to achieve certain goals. One of those goals was to bring our 1st pilot-customer live with Tobias 365. Last week we succeeded in this together with Sonata. That is why I am taking this moment to let you know how much the people of Aareon appreciate how you have supported us towards this goal, and you have also worked very hard to get it done. We are very proud and happy to announce that Habion has been live with Tobias 365 and that we at Aareon can use this as a springboard to transfer our other customers in the coming years. Thank you very much for the cooperation, and your hard work. We could not have done this without you. Greatly appreciate your commitment to it. Let’s celebrate this milestone.
About the Company
The client is Denmark's largest cooperative farm supply company, owned by 12,000 Danish farmers. They sell feedstuff mixes, ingredients and vitamin mixes, fertilizer, crop protection, seed, and energy, as well as crops purchased from farmers. The client also sells well-known brands of farm equipment and runs a large network of hobby and leisure stores.
Problem Statement
The client was looking for a partner to help them implement their digital vision, which maximizes value growth for individual farmers. They required visibility and certainty into complex contracts that specified weight and other product quality parameters such as moisture and protein content, as well as the ability to quickly and accurately calculate quality adjustments and charges. Due to acquisitions, business units had different systems, which made it hard to see how things were running as a whole.
Solution
We assisted the client in implementing Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, as well as Talent (Attract), and Sonata's CTRM, an ERP-integrated CTRM solution. The solution was implemented in multi-national operations to meet various fiscal and currency requirements while ensuring standardization across business units.
It provided visibility to all contracts, orders, and settlement details on a single platform, as well as powerful tools for automatically adjusting contract pricing in response to changes in any or all quality parameters as crops, were harvested and test results became available. The client was able to provide a sustainable program to train their employees for them to upload master data and implement Attract (recruitment module).
Benefits
- With a single source of data, it provides a 360-degree view of the business
- Because of the shared database, the group's fiscal reporting is simplified
- Increased sourcing and trading function operational efficiency because CTRM is integrated into ERP functions
- Better cost control as a result of visibility into contracts, pricing, positions, forex, and inventory
- Increased assistance to farmers and growers to ensure higher quality products through the use of digital capabilities such as IoT and Azure ML
About the Company
The client is a Danish-based farmers' co-operative owned by 12,000+ member farmers rolled out Dynamics 365 & Sonata’s CTRM across multinational operations, satisfying different fiscal and currency requirements while ensuring systems are standardized, efficient and geared towards maximizing profits.
The client is a cooperative farm supply company selling feedstuff mixes, ingredients and vitamin mixes, fertilizer, crop protection,, seed and energy. It also purchases crops from farmers.
Problem Statement
The company’s goal was to streamline solutions to have one platform for day-to-day ERP across its agribusiness divisions, and to modernise and standardise back-office functions such as financial reporting and sales and purchase orders. However, it was the company’s need for a robust commodity trading solution that drove their choice of ERP.
Solution
Sonata Software’s Commodity CTRM is Microsoft certified for the cloud-based Dynamics 365 platform and dovetails seamlessly with the Microsoft Finance Operations ERP. The solution has been rolled out across clients’ multinational operations, satisfying different fiscal and currency requirements while ensuring systems are standardized, efficient, and geared towards maximizing profits.
Sonata Software’s Commodity CTRM puts contracts at the center of operations. It provides powerful tools for automatically adjusting contract pricing, and responding to changes in any or all quality parameters as crops are harvested and test results become available. Once adjustments are recorded in the contract they are automatically reflected in inventory (warehousing) and invoices (financials).
Benefits
Sonata implemented a retail commerce solution to manage sales of food for livestock and pets, work clothes, fertilizer, tools, and equipment (farm and domestic) across 21 stores (29 registers).
Sonata Software took the client further along their digital journey, implementing a retail commerce solution to manage sales of food for livestock and pets, work clothes, fertilizer, tools, and equipment (farm and domestic) across 21 stores (29 registers).
About the Client
The client is a leading manufacturer of all kinds of animal feeds and related products in the ANZ Region. They are also into the distribution business of various kinds of superior-grade animal feeds. It supports major food producers in the beef, dairy, poultry, pig, sheep, and aquaculture industries, laboratory animals, and the equine and canine recreational sector. It’s also one of the largest domestic consumers of locally grown cereal grains, putting commodity trading at the epicenter of its operations.
Problem Statement
With plants and warehouses located across Australia and Thailand, the client often tailors products for buyers based on the nutrition needs of their animals. Some of their facilities operate with a limited number of products and can take advantage of manufacturing runs of up to 100 tons. Other plants specialize in shorter runs, stopping to change formulas and creating a new batch with different ingredients more frequently.
The demand to purchase and supply inventory for production locations across Australia and to track and manage manufacturing processes of thousands of unique product formulas called for a solution that could execute contracts, manage risk and fully track financials.
Solution
After extensive research and analysis of available ERP systems, the client determined that Microsoft Dynamics offered a flexible, robust ERP system that could drive considerable long-term savings through a lower total cost of ownership.
To tailor Microsoft Dynamics AX to meet the unique needs of its process-manufacturing operation, the client engaged Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Scalable Data Systems (now Sonata Scalable), a company with deep industry expertise in enterprise resource solutions. Scalable implemented Microsoft Dynamics to manage and track the costs of batch-manufacturing processes, and its Commodity Procurement solution to manage the purchase of bulk products on the commodities market.
Benefits
- Information now flows automatically—from purchasing agricultural commodities in global marketplaces to providing batches of customized products in multiple locations.
- In addition, the company has achieved a much lower cost of operation.
- The client can manage complex commodity purchasing operations according to the company’s established business processes, managing, and hedging commodity contracts with its vendors while maintaining visibility of contracts and inventories across the entire organization at all times.
- Production has the flexibility to include its unique way of linking batching systems to inventories.
About the Client
The client is a ferry operating firm situated in the United Kingdom that is a subsidiary of a significant Middle Eastern water transport company with a presence in Central Europe. The client owns and manages a number of subsidiary ferry companies in various parts of the world.
Problem Statement
The client wanted to move their B2C ecommerce platform to the cloud while also integrating their web and mobile applications with historical on-premises applications. Sonata Software collaborated with the multinational corporation to provide digital assurance services as part of our Azure package.
The client desired to restructure their sales process and operations in order to provide a better customer experience and higher levels of customer engagement. The old booking application system was on-premises and was not very quick or flexible in adapting to the dynamic market requirements. The old application was difficult to maintain and could not communicate with third-party applications.
Solution
Sonata proposed delivering a multi-cloud solution on Azure and building a SAP Hybris while providing assurance for functional testing-UI and API (through Postman), enabling test automation, and utilising Rest Assured for API test automation.
Our team performed the testing, which included functional testing, mobile web responsiveness testing, and cross-browser testing. API testing was carried out for the integration of front-end and back-end layers in multiple cloud environments. It also included third-party integration API testing, performance testing, and application security testing.
For regression and cross-browser testing, UI-based Functional Test Automation with Selenium was performed, as well as Performance Testing with JMeter and Azure Application Insights. Burp Suite Pro was used for application security testing, and the team verified that automated tests were run every day and that the test environment was deployed.
Benefits
Without having to wait for end-to-end testing, the API test automation helped give immediate assurance of its quality and discover errors early. End-to-end flow test automation aided in running all tests on daily builds as part of regression testing. Following build and deployment to the test environment, functional and API tests were automated and conducted on a daily basis.
About the Client
The client is a multinational technology firm based in the United States that manufactures computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. The client is one of the "Big Five" firms in the information technology industry in the United States. Since 2014, the company's focus has been on cloud computing, which has helped the company's stock achieve its highest value since December 1999.
Problem Statement
The client was looking for a partner to test the implementation of a complicated cloud-native corporate software. It necessitated the establishment of a test factory in order to deliver test as a service to their numerous customers. Functional tests, API tests, system integration tests, compatibility tests, and product upgrade testing were all part of the test service.
The client's corporate product line was well-known to Sonata Software, which aided in providing confidence on product deployment.
Solution
More than 50,000 scenarios with complicated functionality had to be tested. Finance, SCM, Project operations, Trade & Logistics, Warehouse Management, HRM, Sales & Marketing, and other elements were tested, and we also tested for multiple partners.
Sonata delivered Test as a Service (TAS) to a number of the client's clients. Functional tests, test automation, API tests, system integration tests, compatibility tests, and product upgrade testing are among the services provided. To meet the client's needs, we leveraged Azure services such as DevOps, Logic Apps, Data, Power Automate, and others.
Benefits
With 90 percent test coverage, 95 percent of these tests were automated and executed daily as part of the CI/CD pipeline. It aided in the stabilisation of tests, resulting in a 99 percent pass rate.
About the Client
Our client, a mobile technology leader, specializes in providing transformational technologies to the wireless and video space. They also have expertise in mobile technology research and development.
Problem statement
The organisation had implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365, as well as a number of other enterprise applications in the data ecosystem. Furthermore, it was a complex web due to nearly 50 data entities, 54 legal entities, and a transactional volume of up to 32 million records. The incremental growth strategy had become a bottleneck.
Because the underlying platform was limited in its ability to support additional application integrations, data extraction and consolidation from various surround applications was a tedious and time-consuming process. As a result, the customer struggled to obtain data in time for analysis. There was a need to revisit the data processing model and construct a stronger data foundation capable of supporting digital landscape expansion. Sonata helped the client to build a platform to resolve current challenges and meet future business needs in various areas, apart from addressing processing limitations.
Solution
Sonata helped envision an Intelligent Data Platform that would help consolidate the data from varied sources and built intelligent workflows to help orchestrate the data within the ecosystem. The solution design focused on
- Building a data infrastructure for speedy data processing, agile reporting, and insights delivery
- Ensuring speedy data processing for integration use cases
- Developing a scalable report processing model and report business performance
- Unearthing patterns and critical insights
The platform developed by Sonata, leveraged Microsoft Azure Stack capabilities including Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Lake, Azure SQL DB, and Power BI that significantly contributed to a rise in the overall azure consumption. The platform also enabled the customer with real-time data analytics capabilities.
Benefits
- A flexible and scalable data asset platform was developed by incorporating data strategy principles.
- The platform model helped create a detailed implementation roadmap and build the architecture for the enterprise data platform.
- Dispense incremental business value prioritized feature delivery.
- Apply best practices and best-fit tools in evolving business fit data architecture using 18 Point Data Characteristics framework.
- The intelligent data platform developed was equipped with predictive analytical capabilities.
About the Client
Enhancing risk management efficiency with the help of a modern data platform
Our client is an American global energy company in manufacturing, retailing and power generation. The client is one of the largest companies in the world and the second-largest company in the United States. It ranked 27th in 2021 on the Fortune 500 list and 61st in Forbes Global 2000 in 2020.
Problem Statement
The client's HES (Health & Safety Environment) department faced issues with the safeguards. The existing system was not effective in preventing accidents and had large scale implications. There was a need for a system that would create a link between safeguards and incidents. The system would also provide insights into the effectiveness and any likelihood of occurrence of any risks. These insights would help to boost confidence and allow for a more targeted approach to mitigating risks.
Solution
Sonata created a "safeguard system" based on a mesh architecture that consumed data from individual source systems. This system had a single interface that enabled the users to create a link between safeguards and incidents, equipment, and assurance activities. With the safeguard at the heart of the system, the system would link the risk assessment to incidents, equipment, and assurance activities. The unified data platform enabled automated data collection, cleaning, transformation, and storage in a central data warehouse for future use by business groups and systems.
The platform developed made extensive use of Microsoft Azure Stack capabilities such as Azure Data Lake, Azure BLOB Storage, Azure SQL Database, Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Bricks, and Azure Cognitive Search, which increased Azure consumption.
Benefits
- The unified modern data platform enabled the orchestration of critical operational data improving operational and business efficiency.
- Improved responsiveness to environmental impact challenges.
- Timely detection of anomalies in the footprint and operational impact.
- Effective responses enabled users to associate and differentiate a safeguard with one or more events, equipment, and assurance activities.
- Efficient safeguard management improved equipment traceability and searchability.
- Improved risk profile mapping using AI insights and algorithms.
About the Client
The client is a leading claims processing company across the world with experience of over 80 years. With innovative tools to empower people across industries, the client is the largest listed independent claims management provider. They started by making milk truck deliveries more efficient at the beginning, which is now known for solving claims handling challenges for thousands of businesses across the world. The client has nearly 9,000 employees and is spread across 70 countries in the world.
Problem Statement
There was a need to revamp the client's Global Claim Intake system while creating a white-label self-service to enable users to register themselves and engage with its clients, providing an exceptional customer experience.
The requirement for the Claim Intake System came from the Property & Casualty division of the client and they gradually expanded it to other lines of business on a global level. The client wanted us to help them to create a one-stop solution with an engaging user experience and seamless integration with their internal systems, along with supporting the external client APIs.
Solution
Sonata Software partnered with the global company to provide Digital Assurance services as a part of our Azure suite. Our team undertook the testing of the client's cloud-native application, which involved various stages: functional testing, performance testing, and application security testing.
The client wanted us to focus on providing their customers with an exceptional experience on par with the current industry standards, which should ideally attract more usage of the new system and enable higher web traction. The customer site will be client-branded and provide the ability for configuration and customization with respect to look, feel, data model, content, and profile settings. There was a need for a dynamic site with minimal enhancements to seamlessly onboard new clients with new data models and API integrations. Consolidation of multiple systems and processes, which are in use today, into a single application used by clients, customers, and the company's personnel.
Benefits
Sonata proposed building a cloud-native solution on Azure, assuring functional testing for the UI, API (using Postman), and 3rd party system integrations. The testing process was carried out in multiple stages, including test automation (UI-based Functional Test Automation using Selenium), performance testing with JMeter and Azure Application Insights, and application security testing using Burp Suite Pro. Automated tests were integrated with the Azure DevOps pipeline to enable continuous testing and save effort. The focus was on providing smart solutions to the client. The smoke and regression testing were automated and we integrated them with the DevOps pipeline, which resulted in a 50% saving on the testing effort.