Aarhus Harbor is Denmark's largest commercial port. Every day, the port handles thousands of tons of goods, which are of great importance to both businesses and citizens. In fact, Aarhus Harbor  accounts for over 70 percent of Danish container transport, making it part of Denmark's critical infrastructure. This places high demands on operational reliability.

To enable stable and efficient operations, Aarhus Harbor needs a modern, reliable and secure business platform. For many years, the company has used Microsoft Dynamics AX with multiple customizations to handle all data related to the port's total turnover. However, the system is old and no longer supported.

Therefore, the company has decided to upgrade to a future-proof system, says Henrik Munch Jensen, CFO of Aarhus Harbor:

"Our system is very important, both for us and for the companies and citizens who depend on us."

In safe harbor with a future-proof business platform

The end of support for the old ERP system was one issue. Another was that Aarhus Harbor needed to upgrade its system to address technological advancements and meet changing market demands. Based on their own assessment, and advice from IT partner Cepheo, they chose two cloud-based business solutions from Microsoft and a third-party solution that best suited the company's needs.

Henrik Munch Jensen discusses their decision:

"We evaluated our options and decided to use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance because the system matched our needs. Initially, we have chosen the least complicated upgrade to a standardized system, providing us with more opportunities in the future," says the CFO.

With Dynamics 365 Finance, Aarhus Harbor gets an integrated, flexible and scalable solution. The ERP system enables the company to optimize processes, reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction. It can also handle all data in one system and expand with new features as business needs change and new technological possibilities emerge.

Aarhus Harbor also saw great potential in using Microsoft Power Platform, which enables the creation of apps, analysis and visualization of data and automation of tasks. Some of the company's employees have already used Microsoft Power Automate to automate some tasks in the finance department. Now, they plan to expand this use to other areas.

"We believe that Power Platform enables collaboration with new partners with limited coding. We have positive expectations around our continued, broader use of Power Automate. We have automated several processes in the finance department, and now we can also expand automation to the customer area," says Henrik Munch Jensen.

The company also chose the third-party solution, Flexport, which is a port solution developed for Dynamics 365 Finance. The solution helps optimize their supply chain and transportation.

By choosing Dynamics 365 Finance, Power Platform and Flexport, Aarhus Harbor now has a comprehensive solution that can handle all aspects of operations, from finance and logistics to customer service and data analysis. This will help the company become more efficient, modern and competitive in the years to come.

Great expectations and lofty ambitions

Aarhus Harbor's IT partner, Cepheo, is fully engaged in implementing the solutions. Although it's anticipated that the solutions will go live in early 2024, there are both great expectations and high ambitions within the Aarhus-based company.

"We are looking forward to the new system going live at the end of the year. We hope that the solutions will optimize our workflow and increase operational reliability to an even higher level than we are used to. Aarhus Harbor is critical infrastructure, so efficiency and security are absolutely crucial," says CFO Henrik Munch Jensen.

He also explains that there were very clear reasons why they chose Cepheo as a partner.

"During the bidding process, Cepheo quickly became interesting. Their approach was responsive and constructive, and we hope that there is a basis for a long partnership. We feel a great commitment, and the culture at Cepheo suits us well."

Cybersecurity is the next step

The digitization of Aarhus Harbor does not stop here.

Currently, the company has a strong focus on increasing cybersecurity, as ports have unfortunately become a prime target for cyberattacks. Since Aarhus Harbor is Denmark's largest commercial port, the company's systems need to be protected and always functioning as they should.

With the new cloud-based business platform, Aarhus Harbor is better equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future.