Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP Implementation project at Kasha Global, Inc

In Detail

1) Business Problem: In 2021, Kasha Global expanded into Kenya, creating immediate scale and operational complexity across supply chain, order management, finance, and fulfillment. However, the company’s existing OMS/ERP (TradeGecko) was failing due to:

• Chronic system issues and downtime.

• Unreliable and slow vendor support.

• Acquisition by Intuit and eventual end-of-life of the platform.

• Complexities in scaling with multi-country operations and integrations (USSD, e-commerce, payments, etc.).

These constraints affected operations, cross-border stock visibility, regulatory compliance, and customer fulfillment experience, making a new enterprise-grade ERP an urgent necessity.

2) Objective / Success Criteria: We defined success through the following measurable goals:

• Deploy a scalable ERP backbone that supports multi-country operations.

• Integrate ERP with existing business-critical systems (e-commerce, USSD, payments, QuickBooks, Freshworks CRM, Office 365, Google Workspace, PowerBI, etc.).

• Migrate order management, inventory, supply chain and finance to a unified system with zero data loss.

• Standardize core processes to allow fast country replication (create > configure > go-live).

• Train cross-functional teams across multiple geographies including remote teams.

• Improve operational stability, reduce downtime, and improve investor confidence ahead of fundraising.

3) My Role & Ownership: As Regional IT Manager, I led the implementation end-to-end:

• Owned the process mapping effort across all departments (IT, Sales, Supply Chain, Pharmacy, Finance, Customer service and experience).

• Managed vendor selection, onboarding, scope definition, and managed daily coordination.

• Directed system administration: user roles, license management, environment setup, instance configuration, SSO implementation, and access security.

• Designed integration architecture and coordinated API development with internal and external teams.

• Planned & executed the multi-country rollout with the Product and Data teams.

• Led training for managers and team leads across Rwanda, Kenya and remote staff scattered across the world.

• Oversaw cutover planning, hypercare, and stabilization post go-live.

4) What I Did: 

• Platform selection & scope definition: Led evaluation of alternatives and selected Business Central due to scalability, extensibility, support ecosystem, and API maturity.

• Process mapping: Captured As-Is workflows and worked with relevant function heads to redesign the To-Be processes across order management, inventory, fulfillment, and finance.

• System configuration: Set up environments, user roles, granular permissions, and coordinated with the vendor on workflow automation for approvals and stock movement.

• Integrations (REST APIs):

  • E-commerce website (order sync + fulfillment updates)

  • USSD platform (real-time order and payment capture)

  • Payment gateways (Direct Pay Online, M-Pesa, Cards)

  • Microsoft 365 (document automation + identity)

  • QuickBooks (financial posting)

  • Freshworks (CX & ticketing)

  • PowerBI (analytics layer)

• Training & change enablement: Delivered training to department heads who cascaded to operational teams across multiple locations.

• Vendor management: Split between myself and the Product manager to enforce timelines, managed escalations, and ensured customization aligned with Kasha workflows.

• Cutover leadership: Occasionally shadowed the Director of Engineering to Coordinate data migration by the Data team, validations, test cycles and UAT sessions by the Vendor team, Product team, and IT team, and final go-live.

• Scalability architecture: Built a template deployment model: easily spin up new country instances with ready workflows, permissions, reports, and integrations.

5) Technical Depth;

• Platform: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

• Modules used: Inventory, Sales, Purchasing, Finance, Warehouse, Supply Chain

• Integrations: REST APIs with e-commerce, USSD, QuickBooks, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Freshworks CRM, PowerBI, and payment providers

• Architecture: Multi-environment (Dev/Test/Prod) with multiple country-specific instances

• Security: Azure AD identity, role-based permissions, activity logs, segregation of duties

• Customization: Light customizations for fulfillment workflows, approval hierarchies, and regional tax rules

• Hosting: Microsoft cloud infrastructure (Dynamics 365 SaaS) with disaster recovery handled through Microsoft DC redundancy

6) Results & Impact 

• Operational improvements

  • Eliminated legacy system downtime and instability affecting order fulfillment.

  • Unified order management, stock control, procurement, and finance into one scalable system.

  • Improved stock visibility across Rwanda and Kenya, reducing stockouts and emergency purchases.

  • Enabled better financial accuracy and faster reporting cycles via standardized workflows.

• Strategic & scalability impact

  • Achieved a repeatable deployment model, spinning up a new market instance rapidly with minimal rework.

  • Strengthened governance and internal controls, improving auditability.

  • Provided real-time insights via PowerBI dashboards across regions.

  • Investor & growth impact

  • The stability and scalability of the new ERP significantly strengthened Kasha’s operational narrative during fundraising.

  • Directly contributed to building investor confidence that supported closing the $21M Series B round.

7) Challenges & How I Solved Them

• Knowledge gaps: Teams initially lacked understanding of Business Central. My approach was coordinating with the vendor to first implement a structured train-the-trainer model with guided sessions, sandbox access, demos, and documentation with function heads that later cascaded this information to their respective teams.

• Change resistance: Some stakeholders were hesitant about replacing familiar processes. Here, I demonstrated quick wins, showed efficiency improvements, and encouraged department champions to drive adoption.

• Data migration complexity: Mapping errors and inconsistent legacy data from TradeGecko. Luckily, these were not big and the Data team created some data-cleaning protocol, multiple validation passes, and parallel UAT cycles before final cutover.

• Downtime from Microsoft DC issues: Unplanned outages slowed implementation. For this, I procured dedicated Microsoft support, escalated incidents quickly, and adjusted timelines communicated to stakeholders with appropriate buffers.

• Customization alignment: Vendor initially misinterpreted parts of the workflow. Here, I tightened documentation, redesigned acceptance tests, and held daily reviews with Product and Vendor teams.

8) What I’d Do Differently Next Time

• Start departmental onboarding earlier to reduce the learning curve before configuration begins.

• Introduce a pre-go-live data cleansing sprint to minimize migration surprises.

• Build a pilot country rollout before scaling to a second region.

• Include automated regression testing for integrations to catch failures faster.