Data first approach enables future analytics capabilities for ERP implementation 

Client background

This mining company engages in the extraction, management and processing of naturally occurring solid minerals from the earth's surface.

The business challenge

This multi-site mining company was undergoing a major enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformation and sought to consolidate four legacy systems into a single, unified platform. They faced several common ERP challenges including: 

• Fragmented data ownership across business units 
• Inconsistent data quality and lack of trust in legacy systems 
• Limited visibility into historical data and transformation logic 
• Manual, error-prone migration processes 
• No foundation for post-go-live analytics 

The company needed a structured and scalable approach to data governance and migration that would ensure a smooth ERP rollout and support their long-term data strategy. Recognizing that data quality, governance and integration would be critical to the project’s success, they engaged Baker Tilly to provide implementation support.

Strategy and solution

Baker Tilly supported the company’s ERP implementation using our three-part data first approach. 

Part 1: Strategy and governance 

We began by working collaboratively with the company to define guiding principles and clear outcomes aligned with their ERP goals before establishing a comprehensive data governance framework with defined roles and responsibilities across IT and the business. 

Given the complexity of the company’s operations and the need to combine four legacy systems into one unified ERP, Baker Tilly worked closely with company leadership to: 

• Identify data owners and stewards for each major business area/data domain (finance, operations, manufacturing, inventory tools, etc.) 
• Form a data governance committee responsible for defining the standards and guiding principles while overseeing decision-making and stakeholder alignment 
• Develop rules and standards for critical data domains to ensure reliable, useable data in the new system 
• Align on long-term data objectives, particularly around master data management and data quality, before establishing best practices to achieve them 
• Empower business owners to maintain accountability through clearly defined data stewardship roles 
• Deliver data governance training to increase data literacy among data stewards and ensure consideration of downstream data impacts when making decisions for the ERP 

Design documents were used to evaluate key choices, outline challenges, positions and recommendations. These documents were reviewed by the governance committee to ensure decisions were aligned with long-term data and analytics goals. This framework enabled clear communication and efficient coordination across locations, allowing the team to quickly assemble the right individuals and ensure all perspectives were considered throughout the decision-making process.   

Part 2: Extract and transform 

As part of the equity protocol, Baker Tilly developed a detailed test plan for data migration which outlined checkpoints for validating duplicates, business rule compliance and record consistency, which would allow for transparent communication to the company and proof of data quality throughout the migration process. 

To ensure a smooth and accurate data migration, Baker Tilly initiated early and iterative mapping of legacy data to the new ERP structures. Before any data was migrated, the team facilitated detailed discussions to identify which data sets were required in the new system, their sources and how they should be mapped. These conversations helped define the business logic that would guide the transformation process.  

Part 3: Migration 

Baker Tilly utilized the Microsoft Fabric platform to automate the data migration process. This included: 

• Ingesting data from disparate legacy systems 
• Applying business logic for curation and transformation 
• Loading clean, validated data into the ERP 
• Automating data quality checks and fixes 

This process also allowed data stewards to easily review and refine data mappings, allowing for updates to be quickly implemented by the development team.   

Results 

Through this structured, collaborative and forward-looking approach, Baker Tilly helped the company: 

• Reduce manual work, delays and rework during migration and testing, ultimately saving time and minimizing long-term technical debt 
• Increase confidence and trust in ERP outputs by creating a curated, trusted data layer from day one 
• Deliver a smoother change management experience and increase the level of high-quality data at go-live 
• Establish a scalable foundation for cloud analytics by enabling seamless integration of ERP data into the analytics platform post-go-live 
• Preserve transformation logic and historical mappings for future reporting, planning and artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives 

By centralizing data governance and analytics readiness from the onset of the ERP implementation, the company not only is executing a successful ERP implementation but also building the foundation for long-term data governance and analytics maturity.