Cordy Oilfield Services Inc. is an Alberta-based publicly traded energy and construction services corporation that provides products and services to a range of industries throughout Western Canada. Each of Cordy's 11 entities are responsible for managing finances, and in early 2010, the business units were tracking fixed assets manually which posed a challenge when it came to meeting financial industry standards.

Situation

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Cordy Oilfield Services Inc. is a publicly traded energy and construction services corporation that provides products and services to a range of industries throughout Western Canada. Cordy conducts its business through 11 different business units operating in four diverse industry segments including, pipeline, manufacturing, environmental and heavy construction.

The company provides corporate management and financial expertise, capital resources, and strategic planning for all of its subsidiaries. Each one of Cordy's business units is considered a separate legal entity and until recently, Cordy was utilizing various types of accounting software throughout the organization which posed to be a challenge when it came to meeting financial industry standards.

Cordy found that they weren't able to easily track projects and data, and customer and vendor information was often duplicated. The leadership team also found that training for new employees had to be conducted for each financial system, which proved to be a challenge when it came to creating centralized accounting support. According to Matt Braaten, Cordy's Chief Financial Officer, the company was looking to streamline this process and set a common business practice throughout the organization.

In order to properly track fixed assets and view information across the different companies in a timely manner, Cordy required a single scalable platform to meet the unique business requirements of its four differing operating segments. The company was looking for a way to consolidate its business units to achieve corporate standardization, timely financial consolidation and provide management with added visibility into the detailed operations of each company.

"We were finding that our employees were spending a disproportionate amount of time manually compiling and consolidating financial information rather than analyzing it, and this needed to change," said Matt Braaten, Cordy's Chief Financial Officer. "We were looking for an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform that could implement standardized processes across the entire organization so that all of Cordy's financial information could be centralized and available right when our teams need it."

Solution

When choosing an ERP platform, Cordy looked at a range of software before deciding that Microsoft Dynamics™ AX was the best fit. When it came time to deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX, Cordy turned to Coastal Range Systems Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. The determining factor for Cordy in selecting Microsoft Dynamics AX, said Craig Simmons, director of enablement at Coastal Range Systems Inc., was that the solution could meet the needs of Cordy's four differing operating segments in a single solution and was scalable enough to grow with the organization.

In late 2010, Cordy's IT team began to deploy the Microsoft Dynamics AX solution across its 11 different companies. To date, nine of the 11 companies are running Microsoft Dynamics AX and three others are in the process of being tested and rolled out. Coastal Range is well-versed with Microsoft Dynamics AX which helped Cordy implement the solution effectively. With their help Cordy has been able to roll out the new system to the majority of its companies in under a year.

Previous to the implementation, each business unit tracked fixed assets manually. Microsoft Dynamics AX has centralized and automated the fixed asset accounting process, resulting in significant time savings. By implementing a single financial reporting platform Cordy has been able consolidate data more efficiently, reach a higher level of corporate standardization, and obtain better insight into the financial results of its companies.

"Dynamics AX performs multi-location consolidation accounting very well and the fact that Cordy is able to use the solution across multiple locations in such a diverse set of operating segments allows the company to work more efficiently to access comparable financial information in real-time," adds Braaten.

Cordy has been able to eliminate the manual intercompany consolidation system and amalgamate customer and vendor information at a single location. This enables Cordy to see into the details of its companies and allows the team to analyze financial information more accurately across the entire organization.

Benefits

Cordy is benefiting from having stronger internal control as a result of deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX as its standard business management solution. Using the solution has helped the organization implement more effective internal control, improve staff collaboration, provide greater flexibility and plan for future growth.

Enhanced business processes

Cordy can now access real-time data and reports with up-to-date information from all of its finance teams. The company is able to compile information and reports faster as a result of centralizing customer and vendor information, and precise fixed asset tracking is now being performed easily and within financial industry standards. This has not only helped enhance Cordy's decision-making process, but it has improved the day-to-day operations of all of its finance departments.

"Before now, obtaining financial information from each business unit was a time consuming, manual process. Compared to the previous set of accounting systems employed within the organization, the Dynamics AX platform provides access to relevant financial information in a timely manner. Dynamics AX has provided a platform for our geographically dispersed finance departments to operate as one integrated unit while seamlessly allowing for the business units to continue operating independently" says Braaten. "Today, our management teams are able to access consolidated financial information sooner, which helps them make more accurate and effective business decisions."

Improved staff collaboration

The Microsoft Dynamics AX platform has allowed Cordy's finance staff to collaborate much more easily and effectively. Rather than having a disparate set of accounting systems, training staff on a single system allows Cordy to provide more effective support to its finance staff.

Deploying an integrated ERP system throughout the organization has set a common business practice in place for Cordy's accountants and finance teams at various levels. Now, there is a single software application allowing staff to obtain assistance and resources from each other. Now that Cordy is able to access information on a common platform not only saves the company time but allows finance staff to have the information they need when they need it.

Greater flexibility

The flexibility of Microsoft Dynamics AX has allowed Cordy to be more versatile, enabling them to tailor the software to meet the needs of each of its four differing operating segments.

Microsoft Dynamics AX provides the flexibility to create a product that works best for Cordy's business situation and adapt to the changing business requirements of the organization. Cordy's four operating segments are quite dissimilar from each other and there were few ERP applications that had the flexibility to tailor to each segments' needs with minimal configuration changes and do so in a cost-effective manner.

Opportunity for growth

Once the solution is deployed to all of its business units, Cordy is planning to implement the operational capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX, beyond the accounting and finance.

"Our plan for future implementation is to take full advantage of all aspects of the ERP solution. The second phase of the implementation will utilize the advanced features of Dynamics AX to assist with asset maintenance and utilization, field services, CRM, work-flow, human resource management, and advanced manufacturing capability," says Braaten.

Transitioning from a retail accounting system to an integrated ERP system such as Microsoft Dynamics AX, provides Cordy's differing companies with advanced operational capabilities and as a result, the company's financial function has become more integrated. Cordy anticipates that as it continues to further integrate the solution within the organization it will continue to receive positive feedback and the operational benefits of Microsoft Dynamics AX will continue to be realized.

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what's most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.

For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to:

www.microsoft.com/dynamics

For More Information

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www.microsoft.com

For more information about Cordy Oilfield Services Inc. products and services, visit the website at: www.cordy.ca

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