Headquartered in New Hampton, New York, Balchem delivers solutions to the nutrition, health, and food markets with three business segments: Human Nutrition & Health, Animal Nutrition & Health, and Specialty Products. Balchem was founded in 1967 and employs over 1,400 people across sales offices, manufacturing sites, and R&D centers located throughout the US and Europe.
As Balchem has grown over the years, it has acquired many companies (currently 22 plants in 4 countries.) Each acquisition typically had its own ERP instance with varying ages, some running towards end of life. Balchem had four major legacy systems: Chempax, Deacom, SAP, and Syspro. In the interest of running more efficiently and avoiding investment into revitalizing aging and/or unsupported systems, Balchem decided to consolidate the various systems and standardize processes across the company. With Alithya’s help, Balchem deployed one global ERP – Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.
Balchem selected D365 as it felt it was a solid product that allowed for Balchem to handle continuous go-lives for future acquisitions and would not require many customizations to fit its needs. With a standard set of processes across the company and an “out-of-the-box” solution, Balchem can deploy its new ERP system quickly and efficiently in acquisitions. (Read about the benefits of “vanilla deployments” for Dynamics 365 in this blog post.)
Since implementing D365, Balchem has experienced meaningful positive effects. Data consolidation and streamlined processes have resulted in easier and more effective training and onboarding initiatives. According to Bill Backus, Chief Financial Officer, “The ROI is really about the control and efficiencies from having one robust ERP system, along with the ability to quickly integrate acquisitions. We have also experienced a return through our ability to close month ends faster and provide more timely information to decision makers.”
Balchem selected Alithya to implement based on industry expertise, best practices, and methodology. When asked about the partnership with Alithya, Backus says, “The Alithya team might as well be employed at Balchem based on their vested interest in our success, the insight and concern they showed, and the cultural fit. The team has a high level of integrity and said what we needed to hear, not what we wanted to hear, which was a great contributor to the success of our implementation.”