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Lumon | Europe's most extensive Dynamics 365 implementation supports international growth

Lumonin toimitusjohtaja Jussi Kinnunen yrityksen valmistamien terassilasien edessä Jussi Kinnunen, CEO, Lumon Group
↑ Jussi Kinnunen, CEO, Lumon Group

Efima showed the right kind of entrepreneurial spirit and will to succeed.

Lumon, a company known for its balcony glazings, terrace glass walls, blinds and balcony facades, has grown from a small, family-owned business in Finland into a globally recognized brand. Ever since they launched the very first balcony glazings in the world, this pioneering company has been pushing the development envelope in its industry. Thanks to Lumon's innovations, over a million customers around the world have had the chance to experience a better home.

In the midst of internationalization, Lumon's antiquated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that had been in use since 2005 was becoming an obstacle to growth. After a thorough consideration, Lumon decided to become a pioneer in ERPs as well and selected the modern, cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 to be the driving force behind its operations. Efima was chosen as the implementation partner due to the company's desire to achieve the ambitious goals that had been set for the project.

 

Conscious risk, recognized opportunity

CEO of Lumon, Jussi Kinnunen, says that the company did its due diligence when it comes to the ERP project; the new, extensive system would be extremely critical for Lumon's operations. "We basically had 10 different ERPs within the company because of all the regional and other modifications that had been done over the years", Kinnunen tells. The desire to combine all the legacy systems and unify all the processes into a single "Lumon way of working" was one the factors that had an impact on which ERP technology the company would choose. "This certainly wasn't any typical system upgrade", he continues.

After a careful consideration of all the different ERP options, Lumon decided that Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) would be the most appropriate choice. "We decided to go with the modern D365 because we could see that it was the direction in which the world was going", Kinnunen describes the reasons behind the choice. It was also a conscious risk to select a relatively new cloud-ERP: " The risk was that implementations of similar scale had never really been done before with D365. We would also act as a pilot project for the product", he states.

Selecting the right partner was also crucial

Due to the critical nature of the project, Lumon wanted to pay special attention to finding the right partner for the project. "We selected Efima because of their entrepreneurial spirit and hunger for success. It was an important project and a possible risk for both parties", Kinnunen tells. At Lumon the feeling was that Efima's entrepreneurial spirit brought in agility and dedication that were required to solve the problems that came up along the way. "Deployment at our production site in Kouvola was a critical phase during which we worked long hours and sometimes during the weekends to get everything up and running", Kinnunen reminisces.

Lumon also made sure that its internal resourcing for the project was more than adequate. "From the very beginning the idea was that the worst mistake we could make would be to allocate too few resources for the project. That is why we had as many people as we possibly could working on getting it done", Kinnunen states. Lumon's own investment in the project proved to be one of the factors behind the project's success. "This was a big undertaking that required a lot from many people, but their dedication was also the reason why we succeeded", he continues.

Lumon has already enjoyed the fruits of their labor

Instead of just replacing an aging ERP system, Lumon took the project as a chance to go fully digital and get rid of paper, increase the level of automation and develop its processes throughout the company. And all the hard work paid off: nowadays the entire manufacturing process from a sales order to production and delivery runs smoothly through the new Dynamics 365. A D365 as comprehensive and seamless as this had not been seen anywhere in Europe before. 

The company was also successful in unifying its processes. "Now we have a single, common way of working here at Lumon", Kinnunen tells proudly. And development hasn't stopped after the implementation. The continuously developing Dynamics 365 offers a tremendous amount of potential that the internationalizing company is eager to tap into. "Our ERP and production investments are the basis for our global growth and profitability", Kinnunen describes what the future holds for Lumon.

At the very core of everything at Lumon, according to Kinnunen, is customer satisfaction. Despite the amount of resources and attention the project took, Lumon was able to increase its customer satisfaction even during the ERP implementation. The new system allows Lumon to gain visibility throughout the manufacturing process, which in turn is realized as faster, more cost-effective and more timely deliveries for the customers. "From the customer's point of view we've done an even better job than before. Our common 'playbook' helps us to fulfill our customers' needs, and our people have started to adopt a more customer-centric way of thinking", Kinnunen concludes. 



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