Industry focus scales across enterprise and SMB segments

One of the most attractive aspects of the Dynamics 365 platform is the ability for the cloud-based solution to easily scale and grow with a customer’s business. Alterna, a Microsoft partner for more than 20 years, put that into practice for its own consultancy. Starting out with industry-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) services built around the predecessor to Dynamics 365 Business Central for the small and mid-sized business (SMB) market, the partner has extended its expertise to Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management for meeting the needs of enterprise-scale customers. “We now have 80 people focused on Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain, which drives 30 percent of our business today,” said Giuseppe Mascoli, CEO of Alterna. “At the same time, we offer services across the full Microsoft Cloud stack to ensure customers get the end-to-end solutions they need to run their businesses.”

Much of Alterna’s success in both SMB and enterprise markets is driven by a verticalization strategy that ensures customers in the manufacturing, engineering, construction, automotive, medical device, distribution, fashion, retail, services, and energy sectors have the niche features and functions they need to operate their businesses while still taking maximum advantage of the Microsoft Cloud platform. This includes not only having implementation teams built around industry experts, but developing more than 40 IP solutions that cover the last mile of what customers in a specific sector need. “Our most important differentiator is that we speak the language of the customer in our target verticals,” said Mascoli.

“Our IP solutions let us go very deep in the processes of our customers and package up our expertise in a repeatable approach that helps them accelerate deployment and achieve the benefits of Dynamics 365 much quicker.”

Cloud-based ERP brings scale, centralized control for PLC

PLC Group, a market leader in the design, installation, and maintenance of electrical infrastructure and renewable energy power plants across Europe, was looking for a way to modernize its corporate operations. The organization, which consists of various controlled companies, is the first Italian entity to provide solutions for energy production across the entire spectrum of renewable sources including wind, solar PV (photovoltaic), and bioenergy. The group’s legacy ERP system and standalone solutions for field services did not allow for centralized management of all group companies, which was a limiting factor for growth aspirations.

PLC Group turned to Alterna to implement Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management, which offered the scalability, reliability, efficiency, and governance needed. The secure, continuously updated cloud platform, alongside Alterna’s Arxeia 365 IP solution for document management and certified email—fully integrated with Dynamics 365, offered increased administrative, accounting, and project management efficiency. Dynamics 365 Field Service was implemented as well, seamlessly extending operations control of design processes, scheduling, assets, and reporting for field operators, an important part of PLC’s service portfolio.

Since implementing Dynamics 365, PLC Group has seen a 30 percent improvement in operational efficiency. “Consolidating and integrating operations into a single platform allowed us to increase efficiency in managing resources, orders, and projects; enhance control over our group companies; and enable real-time decision making by management. The system especially benefited our Operations and Maintenance division, helping improve integration with our clients,” said Gianluca Di Maio, CIO of PLC Group.

Practice expansion with AI innovation

PLC Group is now working with Alterna on how it can deliver additional return on its Dynamics 365 investment through generative AI. With all data now in the cloud, PLC is in a great position to adopt Copilot for Microsoft 365 to boost individual productivity for workers across the organization, as well as Copilot for business functions to further automate day-to-day operations.

“Customers across the board are very interested in Copilot,” said Paolo De Rossi, Chief Sales Officer at Alterna. “That includes Copilot Studio, which can be used to create custom AI solutions—whether that’s a chatbot or a custom copilot—to address industry-specific scenarios.”

Alterna has already kicked off Copilot webinars and one-day customer workshops to help educate clients on the innovation available to them as part of their existing Microsoft Cloud deployments. The partner is planning to leverage Copilot for its own business growth as well. “Our AI lab is already looking at incorporating Copilot integration with GitHub and Azure DevOps to help speed development of our own applications. This will help us further accelerate time to market for our IP solutions and offer customers even more advanced functionality for their industry needs,” added De Rossi.

“Our IP solutions let us go very deep in the processes of our customers and package up our expertise in a repeatable approach that helps them accelerate deployment and achieve the benefits of Dynamics 365 much quicker.”

--Giuseppe Mascoli, CEO, Alterna

“Consolidating and integrating operations into a single platform allowed us to increase efficiency in managing resources, orders, and projects; enhance control over our group companies; and enable real-time decision making by management.”

--Gianluca Di Maio, CIO, PLC Group

Alterna lights up operational efficiency for renewable energy provider with Dynamics 365