Inetum a key partner of Bordeaux Métropole Energies for the Migration of its Microsoft AX 2012 ERP to the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Platform

The Bordeaux Métropole Energies (BME) group is a national energy player that has been offering production, distribution, and supply of renewable gas and electricity, as well as district heating and cooling networks, and energy renovation services through all its group companies since 1875. More than 540 people work on a day-to-day basis to operate its services for residential and professional customers.

Since 2013, BME has equipped its three main subsidiaries (Gaz de Bordeaux, RéGaz, and MixÉner) with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 implemented across finance, accounting, purchasing management, and customer billing management. BME sought to upgrade the solution in view of the end of Dynamics AX support by the publisher, the need to add new features, and the creation of new entities (Néomix). "Although AX was well-liked and the business users were able to use it, the purchasing process remained somewhat cumbersome," commented Christophe Allemand, BME's CIO. Moreover, managing the many custom developments made in-house, particularly to integrate regulatory changes, became problematic with the on-premises configuration of the ERP. "Every change made for one company had an impact on all the others, particularly in the billing area," added the manager. 

A Genuine Migration 

The decision to migrate to Dynamics 365 quickly became apparent after studying the market offers. "We preferred to stay on Dynamics for usability reasons," explained Christophe Allemand. “With the aim of simplifying the purchase request process and adapting customizations to product standards.”

After consulting the market, BME maintained its trust in Inetum, which had deployed Dynamics AX. But beyond its historical advantage, Inetum was chosen for its differentiating offer. "Inetum proposed a product migration where other providers preferred to start from scratch with a standard Dynamics 365, which amounted to initiating a new project," said Christophe Allemand. Admittedly, the migration imposed a delay to convert the customizations to Dynamics 365 standards, but it had the advantage of retaining all the configured processes in AX and all the data of the energy group. "This spared us from wondering what historical data to keep and thus relieved the financial department," noted the manager.

Despite the magnitude of the task, which also included revising the 45 interfaces interconnected with BME's IS, the provider was able to adhere to the one-year timeline set by BME. "Inetum demonstrated agility by strengthening teams at the right times to avoid the risk of over running," testified Christophe Allemand. He also praises the effective management of the changeover, supported by regular meetings between domain managers and key users right up to the day before the switchover. Dynamics 365 went live on October 1, 2023, as planned. While some adjustments were needed at the start, "operations have been normal since February 2024," confirmed the manager.

Inetum valued for its Agility

The new platform has facilitated the overhaul of many operational processes, particularly invoicing and purchasing. Interactions with peripheral products such as automatic character recognition (OCR) of invoices and business intelligence analysis have also been optimized. "With Dynamics 365, it is much simpler to retrieve data for analysis," confirmed Christophe Allemand. The CIO also benefits from the new functionalities regularly added with the ERP cloud version updates. “We have chosen to update every six months.”

Valued for its agility, adherence to the schedule, and "the people we know and who know our processes," Inetum remains the preferred partner of the Bordeaux energy company on the Dynamics platform. A partnership illustrated by the continuation of projects. Thus, BME has just selected Inetum to integrate the InVoice Capture tool into Dynamics 365 to prepare for the dematerialization of supplier invoices in anticipation of new dematerialization obligations.

A Dynamics 365 project? Contact inetum-dynamics@inetum.com