Bon Marine Holding optimizes its business with Dynamics Trans

The company

Bon Marine Holding is one of the leading Bulgarian companies in the marine business. It consists of many subsidiary firms, established to service a variety of processes in the holding. The large number of companies, diverse business processes and the need for accurate information are some of the reasons that push the management towards the implementation of an integrated business management system. Bon Marine Holding chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Intelligent Systems, which implemented and modified the solution to fully meet all its specific business needs. Today Bon Marine operates more efficiently and responds accurately to any changes in the dynamic business environment.

Situation

Bon Marine was established in 1990 in Varna as a shipping and brokerage agency. During the years it has grown tremendously and today is one of the leading companies in the marine transport business in Bulgaria. The main activity of Bon Marine Holding is providing services in marine and land transport, complex logistic maintenance of infrastructure projects in Bulgaria and abroad, forwarding, line and ship agency, delivering spare parts, ship rapiers. The holding manages a few ship fleet, has its own  storage and warehouse facilities and a port terminal. The headquarters of the holding is based in Varna but it has offices in Sofia, Shumen, Turgovishte and Belene as well. Bon Marine was established in 1990 in Varna as a shipping and brokerage agency. During the years it has grown tremendously and today is one of the leading companies in the marine transport business in Bulgaria. The main activity of Bon Marine Holding is providing services in marine and land transport, complex logistic maintenance of infrastructure projects in Bulgaria and abroad, forwarding, line and ship agency, delivering spare parts, ship rapiers. The holding manages a few ship fleet, has its own  storage and warehouse facilities and a port terminal. The headquarters of the holding is based in Varna but it has offices in Sofia, Shumen, Turgovishte and Belene as well.
During the years Bon Marine has increased the range of products and services offered and established subsidiary companies to manage specific activities in the marine business. Some of the companies are:

• Bon Marine Shipping Agency – liner and ship agency, chartering, etc.
• Bon Marine Logistics – integrated logistic services to infrastructure projects in Bulgaria and abroad
• Bon Marine Logistics – integrated logistic services to infrastructure projects in Bulgaria and abroad
• Terminal Operator – authorized customs operator, which provides brokerage services including import, transit, export, T2L, bank transactions, etc.
• BM Chart – ship management, chartering, offshore operations, etc.

Managing business with such scope is not an easy task and highly depends on using the right tools to provide effective planning of the activities in all subsidiary companies and excellent coordination between them and inner departments.

Bon Marine worked with several software products that subsequently turned out inefficient to meet the increasing business needs of the holding. “Working with different, not integrated systems, provided us inaccurate and discrepant information. There were a lot of errors and we realized that the operational work has increased. Our accounting program capabilities were limited – it wasn’t able to consolidate and generate the reports that we needed”, says Mariya Vasileva, Project Manager, Bon Marine Holding.

The lack of integration between the different software systems provided inaccurate data and reports. Purchases or sales paperwork was extremely time consuming process. The necessity of using a single software system for managing processes and specific activities in the holding appeared subsequently.

“Our business activity is specific and we really need an end-to-end system to optimize and embed all processes. Also appropriate monitoring and reporting tools are needed to present a view of all activities within the entire holding structure.”

Maria Vasileva, Project Manager, Bon Marine Holding

Solution

The final decision turned out to be between SAP and Microsoft Dynamics NAV. After several detailed presentations of the software systems and putting them in a real business environment, Bon Marine has chosen Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Intelligent Systems has been selected as the partner company to undertake the implementation project.

“After careful evaluation of selected systems, we decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Some of the reasons were its functionalities, modification options, implementation terms and price”, says Mariya Vasileva

The following modules were deployed within all Bon Marine companies: Financial Management, Sales, Purchases, and Warehouse. The implementation took about 4 months during which additional functionalities were developed too, required for some particular business processes within the holding. Some of the modifications were: integration with the internal tracking transport system; integration with human resource and e-banking systems; income reporting and cost reporting to ship agency activity, document printing, etc.

In addition, the specialized add-on solution Dynamics Trans was implemented in three of Bon Marine’s companies, organizing transportation, logistic, and sales activities. Dynamics Trans is developed by Intelligent Systems and provides effective management and tracking of the entire information related to Bon Marin transportation services and requests. Through full integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Dynamics Trans ensures real time data to sales and accounting employees to track every transaction’s detail, status and result. It also allows for accurate statistics reporting and analyses.

Before deployment of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics Trans, employees in both deparments used to work with a several software applications – MS Word, Excel, Outlook, keeping information in text, table, mail, even in a hard copy. It was nearly impossible for Bon Marin to operate effectively in this information chaos, as there was lack of request tracking, presence of ineffective communication and difficult decision-making.

But Dynamics Trans totally transformed the work process in Bon Marin Holding and the result was more than needed. Using the add-on solution, Bon Marin’s team ensures optimum sales order management, performance management, and relationship management with customers and partners (CRM). Dynamics Trans supports detailed information about requests for transport and freight forwarding – goods, loading and unloading points, pallets, routes registration, courses, shipment data, route, vehicle, driver, fuel, costs, revenues, profitability, and route monitoring, etc.

Intelligent Systems also developed additional functionality for charter tracking of one of the companies in the holding – Bon Marine Shipping Agency Ltd. Dynamics Trans improves reporting tools providing integration with the accounting module of the ERP system. Through Dynamics Trans management has specific reports and analyses regarding all activities in the holding.

“Implementing a project for a large holding structure, such as Bon Marine, always brings many challenges. Some of the companies might have similar businesses, but each of them has its own specifics that have to be correctly reflected in the system. We developed different modifications, which optimized the processes and ensured a fast and effortless access to information for employees and management when they need it. We are glad that we did better than planned in the sense that more companies started operating with the system”, says Hristo Filipov, Project Manager, Intelligent Systems.

Benefits

After Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementation and customization, Bon Marine Holding has overcome many of its main issues. Some of the major benefits for the companies are:

• Unified chart of accounts
• Automated and standard paperwork
• Decreased operational costs through standard and optimized business processes
• Information flow automation
• Enhanced communication among employees, customers, vendors and business partners
• Consolidated reports
• Flexible tools for reporting and analyses
• Integration among Microsoft Dynamics NAV with internal and external applications