Building a world without waste
Viridor, a UK resource recovery and recycling management services provider, prides itself on making landfill a last resort, with a mission to ‘build a world where nothing goes to waste’. After reducing, reusing and recycling as much as possible, Viridor’s Energy Recovery Facilities (ERFs) across the UK combust non-recyclable waste to generate energy, while keeping all emissions in line with the European Industrial Emissions Directive.
Combusting silos out-of-the-box
Building a new digital platform became essential when the business was sold by Pennon Group to KKR in 2020, and the new parent company recognized the strategic value to be had in Viridor’s services and expected growth opportunities.
The Viridor team hoped to eliminate silos to unify the company’s operations and, therein, achieve greater control and risk management in reporting and governance across the financial, HR and procurement functions.
“We needed to move swiftly, so we needed an out-of-the-box solution that would meet the needs of our business,” said Bryan Howarth, head of business solutions at Viridor. “Comparing different vendors and solutions against our need to get an ERP system in place quickly and at the right cost, it became clear Microsoft Dynamics 365 was the best fit for our needs.”
A dynamic solution for Viridor with Microsoft
Along with Dynamics 365, Viridor chose to implement a Data Lake on Microsoft Azure and was also drawn to the Microsoft Power Platform, especially Power BI and Power Apps. Particularly, Viridor was impressed by Dynamics 365’s integration with the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem.
The Viridor team began the ERP project in January 2021, working to a tight timeline to get the Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution in place before the end of the transitional service agreement (TSA) with Pennon in January 2022.
Microsoft energizes Viridor under budget and ahead of time
Delivered ten percent under budget and a month ahead of time, the team implemented Dynamics 365 across the whole of its finance, HR and procurement operations, going live in November 2021.
Since then, Viridor has seen 25 percent saving on running costs, 30 percent reduction in reporting effort, 50 percent reduction in legacy apps for lower IT support costs and has saved 400 hours through streamlined account processes with the additional help of the Microsoft ecosystem and Power Platform.
Across the business, teams have used the adoption of Microsoft Dynamics 365 to drive process improvements, better communication and unified information and reporting – breaking down silos as they do so. As a result, Viridor is proactively planning system and organizational controls and reporting ahead of forthcoming regulatory compliance demands.
“It’s not just about the technology – although that helped,” Howarth explained. “Our success was built on the team we had, the sponsors we had internally, the governance we put in place and the support we had from Microsoft. It felt like our project was more of a collaboration rather than us simply buying a product.”
Viridor plans to drive additional value by bringing further processes into Dynamics 365, including plant engineering maintenance, stores management and employee performance reviews, amongst others.
“This is just the start,” said Howarth. “With Dynamics 365, we have an efficient platform we can grow as our organization develops.”
