Two weeks ago,\u00a0Fortude’s\u00a0team was\u00a0at the M3 User Association UK Annual\u00a0Conference\u00a02026\u00a0as a Diamond Sponsor. This gave us the opportunity to take to the keynote stage to share something rare in the world of ERP transformation: an honest, in-progress story. Not a polished case study with hindsight smoothed over the rough edges, but a live account of a multi-site Infor\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0implementation.<\/p>\n
Fortude’s\u00a0Poshitha Ratnayake, Head of Consulting for EU & UK, led the conversation with\u00a0Ines Ashton, Digital & AI Strategy Director (CIO), of The Compleat Food Group. Together, they uncovered what it takes for a business on an ambitious acquisition mission to scale CloudSuite across multiple sites without losing momentum, quality, or business continuity.<\/p>\n
Here’s\u00a0a summary of that conversation, structured around five pillars that define a successful multi-site\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0rollout.<\/p>\n
The most\u00a0important\u00a0decision\u00a0in any multi-site ERP project\u00a0happens before a single site goes live:\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0whether to build a shared blueprint or let each site define its own configuration.\u00a0With nine legacy systems and no way to compare site performance, a unified template was essential for this customer.<\/p>\n
In practice, that meant starting with Infor\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0Food & Beverage\u00a0and anchoring it around core manufacturing, supply chain, and finance. Fortude worked alongside the central business team to evolve that blueprint through the early rollout phases, building a solution that could be confidently reused.<\/p>\n
The rule became simple: design once, reuse everywhere, unless there is a business-critical, proven reason not to. The result was a dramatic reduction in implementation costs and a significant increase in rollout speed. After the second site went live, the team knew the blueprint worked. Everything that followed was about\u00a0optimizing\u00a0the process of deploying it.<\/p>\n
If the blueprint is the foundation, data is the material you build it with. And in a multi-legacy environment, it is also the\u00a0most likely point\u00a0of failure.<\/p>\n
The customer\u00a0understood\u00a0the importance of data migration\u00a0early\u00a0on in the\u00a0implementation. With two decades of unmanaged data across some systems, the team knew that if a go-live struggled, it would be because of data,\u00a0not the blueprint, not the system configuration. That clarity shaped everything.<\/p>\n
Fortude\u00a0treated data migration as a repeatable, business-owned process,\u00a0not a one-off technical task handed off to IT at the last moment. That meant early mock conversions, rigorous validation led by business users (not just technical teams), and multiple dry runs leading up to each\u00a0go-live.<\/p>\n
The business benefit was tangible: each site went live with a high degree of trust in the system.\u00a0The\u00a0Fortude\u00a0data migration toolkit, refined across each deployment, became a key enabler of the repeatability that made scaling possible.<\/p>\n
One of the clearest themes from the keynote was that a project of this complexity\u00a0does not succeed\u00a0on\u00a0partner\u00a0capability alone. It requires the right people, in the right roles, on the client side and a partnership model that treats the implementation partner as a genuine collaborator, not an order-taker.<\/p>\n
The central business team was built with purpose: fifteen individuals who owned decisions on behalf of the whole company, consulted the sites, but were\u00a0ultimately accountable\u00a0for the outcome. Critically, this team included strong representation in areas like EDI\u00a0–\u00a0the integration layer that connects the business to its customers and suppliers\u00a0–\u00a0people who understood day-to-day operations, not just program\u00a0management.<\/p>\n
On\u00a0Fortude’s\u00a0side, the governance model was structured but not bureaucratic. It included weekly joint tracking sessions, clear ownership of delivery versus business decisions, and a culture of surfacing concerns early rather than hoping problems would resolve themselves.<\/p>\n
Empowerment mattered too. When a site requested\u00a0customization\u00a0that did not serve the broader business, the answer was no,\u00a0and it\u00a0held. That same discipline is what gave the global template described\u00a0at the start of the\u00a0blog\u00a0its standing.<\/p>\n
In a 24×7 manufacturing environment, change management cannot be an afterthought. Operators running production lines at midnight need the same confidence in the system as those on the day\u00a0shift\u00a0and that confidence only comes from proper,\u00a0timely\u00a0training.<\/p>\n
The target was 80% training completion across all departments before go-live. Not approximately 80%. Not 80% with the intention of catching stragglers afterwards.\u00a080%\u00a0and it was non-negotiable.<\/p>\n
Training was role-based and pragmatic,\u00a0focused on what each person needed to do on day one, not an exhaustive tour of system features.\u00a0Fortude\u00a0supplemented this with a blended delivery model, combining key user enablement close to go-live with offshore support for extended coverage.<\/p>\n
What the team learned after the first site\u00a0go-live\u00a0shaped every\u00a0subsequent\u00a0deployment: even well-attended training does not guarantee retention.\u00a0Night shifts in particular were prone to gaps.\u00a0The response was to treat every first shift on a newly live system as a mini go-live with the full central team present and\u00a0hypercare\u00a0support extending two weeks beyond the cutover date. Fortude’s team\u00a0participated\u00a0in\u00a0hypercare\u00a0not just to support the site, but to understand the operational context firsthand, so that when business-as-usual support began, nothing came as a surprise.<\/p>\n
Go-live is not the finish line. In a project that spans multiple sites over multiple years, the ability to sustain momentum and to keep learning is what separates implementations that deliver long-term value from those that gradually lose pace.<\/p>\n
Fortude’s ongoing support relationship means that the same team that supported\u00a0hypercare\u00a0transitions into business-as-usual support. Beyond individual site support, the implementation was designed from the outset to keep improving. Governance and provisioning structures have been built to accommodate ongoing feedback, monitoring, and refinement. This also means continuously aligning system and technology changes with evolving business goals,\u00a0so the ERP grows with the business, not behind it.<\/p>\n
Another important aspect of managed services is system updates and the testing that follows. With\u00a0Fortest\u00a0\u2014 AI-powered automated regression testing, we\u00a0maintain\u00a090% reduction in test cycle time and 100% accuracy across cycles. The product’s AI capabilities also help detect broken scripts, automate\u00a0script generation based on real user workflows, and\u00a0provide\u00a0security for your system data throughout.<\/p>\n
So, if you are at the point at which you are considering a multi-site\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0rollout, take a step back and ground your implementation on these five pillars. Because scaling\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0across multiple sites is not about perfection at site one. It is about putting the right foundations in place: a disciplined blueprint, rigorous data processes, the right people, genuine change management, and a support model built for the long term, so that every site that follows can be onboarded faster, more confidently, and at lower cost.<\/p>\n
Talk to our team about building a blueprint for success for your multi-site cloud migration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15906,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":""},"industry":[14,13,11,16,12,15],"service":[],"class_list":["post-15902","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"blog_render_type":"legacy_acf","sections":[{"section_title":"","section_content":"Two weeks ago,\u00a0Fortude's\u00a0team was\u00a0at the M3 User Association UK Annual\u00a0Conference\u00a02026\u00a0as a Diamond Sponsor. This gave us the opportunity to take to the keynote stage to share something rare in the world of ERP transformation: an honest, in-progress story. Not a polished case study with hindsight smoothed over the rough edges, but a live account of a multi-site Infor\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0implementation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nFortude's\u00a0<\/span>Poshitha Ratnayake<\/span><\/a>, Head of Consulting for EU & UK, led the conversation with\u00a0<\/span>Ines Ashton<\/span><\/a>, Digital & AI Strategy Director (CIO), of The Compleat Food Group. Together, they uncovered what it takes for a business on an ambitious acquisition mission to scale CloudSuite across multiple sites without losing momentum, quality, or business continuity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nHere's\u00a0a summary of that conversation, structured around five pillars that define a successful multi-site\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0rollout.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>","section_image":"","table_rows":null,"pro-tip":""},{"section_title":"1. Build a global template ","section_content":"The most\u00a0important\u00a0decision\u00a0in any multi-site ERP project\u00a0happens before a single site goes live:\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0whether to build a shared blueprint or let each site define its own configuration.\u00a0With nine legacy systems and no way to compare site performance, a unified template was essential for this customer.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nIn practice, that meant starting with Infor\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0Food & Beverage\u00a0and anchoring it around core manufacturing, supply chain, and finance. Fortude worked alongside the central business team to evolve that blueprint through the early rollout phases, building a solution that could be confidently reused.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe rule became simple: design once, reuse everywhere, unless there is a business-critical, proven reason not to. The result was a dramatic reduction in implementation costs and a significant increase in rollout speed. After the second site went live, the team knew the blueprint worked. Everything that followed was about\u00a0optimizing\u00a0the process of deploying it.<\/span>","section_image":"","table_rows":null,"pro-tip":""},{"section_title":"2. Prioritize data migration ","section_content":"If the blueprint is the foundation, data is the material you build it with. And in a multi-legacy environment, it is also the\u00a0most likely point\u00a0of failure.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe customer\u00a0understood\u00a0the importance of data migration\u00a0early\u00a0on in the\u00a0implementation. With two decades of unmanaged data across some systems, the team knew that if a go-live struggled, it would be because of data,\u00a0not the blueprint, not the system configuration. That clarity shaped everything.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nFortude\u00a0treated data migration as a repeatable, business-owned process,\u00a0not a one-off technical task handed off to IT at the last moment. That meant early mock conversions, rigorous validation led by business users (not just technical teams), and multiple dry runs leading up to each\u00a0go-live.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe business benefit was tangible: each site went live with a high degree of trust in the system.\u00a0The\u00a0Fortude\u00a0data migration toolkit, refined across each deployment, became a key enabler of the repeatability that made scaling possible.<\/span>","section_image":"","table_rows":null,"pro-tip":""},{"section_title":"3. Build partnerships, not just project teams ","section_content":"One of the clearest themes from the keynote was that a project of this complexity\u00a0does not succeed\u00a0on\u00a0partner\u00a0capability alone. It requires the right people, in the right roles, on the client side and a partnership model that treats the implementation partner as a genuine collaborator, not an order-taker.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe central business team was built with purpose: fifteen individuals who owned decisions on behalf of the whole company, consulted the sites, but were\u00a0ultimately accountable\u00a0for the outcome. Critically, this team included strong representation in areas like EDI\u00a0-\u00a0the integration layer that connects the business to its customers and suppliers\u00a0-\u00a0people who understood day-to-day operations, not just program\u00a0management.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nOn\u00a0Fortude's\u00a0side, the governance model was structured but not bureaucratic. It included weekly joint tracking sessions, clear ownership of delivery versus business decisions, and a culture of surfacing concerns early rather than hoping problems would resolve themselves.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nEmpowerment mattered too. When a site requested\u00a0customization\u00a0that did not serve the broader business, the answer was no,\u00a0and it\u00a0held. That same discipline is what gave the global template described\u00a0at the start of the\u00a0blog\u00a0its standing.<\/span>","section_image":"","table_rows":null,"pro-tip":""},{"section_title":"4. Train teams for change ","section_content":"In a 24x7 manufacturing environment, change management cannot be an afterthought. Operators running production lines at midnight need the same confidence in the system as those on the day\u00a0shift\u00a0and that confidence only comes from proper,\u00a0timely\u00a0training.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe target was 80% training completion across all departments before go-live. Not approximately 80%. Not 80% with the intention of catching stragglers afterwards.\u00a080%\u00a0and it was non-negotiable.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nTraining was role-based and pragmatic,\u00a0focused on what each person needed to do on day one, not an exhaustive tour of system features.\u00a0Fortude\u00a0supplemented this with a blended delivery model, combining key user enablement close to go-live with offshore support for extended coverage.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nWhat the team learned after the first site\u00a0go-live\u00a0shaped every\u00a0subsequent\u00a0deployment: even well-attended training does not guarantee retention.\u00a0Night shifts in particular were prone to gaps.\u00a0The response was to treat every first shift on a newly live system as a mini go-live with the full central team present and\u00a0hypercare\u00a0support extending two weeks beyond the cutover date. Fortude's team\u00a0participated\u00a0in\u00a0hypercare\u00a0not just to support the site, but to understand the operational context firsthand, so that when business-as-usual support began, nothing came as a surprise.<\/span>","section_image":"","table_rows":null,"pro-tip":""},{"section_title":"5. Focus on post go-live support ","section_content":"Go-live is not the finish line. In a project that spans multiple sites over multiple years, the ability to sustain momentum and to keep learning is what separates implementations that deliver long-term value from those that gradually lose pace.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nFortude's ongoing support relationship means that the same team that supported\u00a0hypercare\u00a0transitions into business-as-usual support. Beyond individual site support, the implementation was designed from the outset to keep improving. Governance and provisioning structures have been built to accommodate ongoing feedback, monitoring, and refinement. This also means continuously aligning system and technology changes with evolving business goals,\u00a0so the ERP grows with the business, not behind it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nAnother important aspect of managed services is system updates and the testing that follows. With\u00a0<\/span>Fortest<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 AI-powered automated regression testing, we\u00a0maintain\u00a090% reduction in test cycle time and 100% accuracy across cycles. The product's AI capabilities also help detect broken scripts, automate\u00a0script generation based on real user workflows, and\u00a0provide\u00a0security for your system data throughout.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>","section_image":"","table_rows":null,"pro-tip":""}],"bottom_sections":[{"section_title":"Next steps for multi-site cloud migration ","section_content":"So, if you are at the point at which you are considering a multi-site\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0rollout, take a step back and ground your implementation on these five pillars. Because scaling\u00a0CloudSuite\u00a0across multiple sites is not about perfection at site one. It is about putting the right foundations in place: a disciplined blueprint, rigorous data processes, the right people, genuine change management, and a support model built for the long term, so that every site that follows can be onboarded faster, more confidently, and at lower cost.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nTalk to our team about building a blueprint for success for your multi-site cloud migration.\u00a0<\/strong>","section_image":"","table_rows":null,"faq":[{"question":"What complexities do multi-site CloudSuite migrations bring?","answer":"Multi-site migrations mean dealing with multiple legacy systems, inconsistent data, varying ways of working across sites, and the pressure of keeping operations running throughout. Add an acquisition-driven growth agenda and the complexity compounds quickly. Without a shared blueprint, centralized governance, and disciplined data processes, each site risks becoming its own project, driving up cost, time, and inconsistency across the business."},{"question":"What should you look for in a partner for a multi-site CloudSuite rollout?","answer":"Look for a partner who challenges you, not just agrees with you. They should bring hands-on experience of multi-site programs, a proven implementation methodology, and the ability to distinguish between genuine business requirements and legacy habits. Equally important is continuity, a partner who stays with you through hypercare and into ongoing support, not one who disappears after go-live."},{"question":"Why is data such a critical consideration in projects of this nature?","answer":"In a multi-site environment, data is where implementations quietly fail. Differing legacy systems mean inconsistent formats, poor quality, and unclear ownership. Without early mock conversions, rigorous validation, and clear business accountability for data quality, you risk going live with a system nobody trusts. Getting data right before go-live is what builds confidence and confidence is what drives adoption."},{"question":"What are the benefits of a successful multi-site CloudSuite migration?","answer":"A well-executed multi-site rollout delivers group-wide visibility, standardized processes, and a single source of truth across the business. It accelerates the onboarding of newly acquired sites, reduces operational complexity, and lowers the cost of each subsequent deployment. Beyond the immediate gains, it creates the data foundation needed for analytics, AI initiatives, and smarter decision-making at scale."},{"question":"How long does a multi-site CloudSuite rollout typically take?","answer":"Timelines vary depending on the number of sites, legacy system complexity, and data readiness. However, the right foundations, a reusable blueprint, templated data assets, and a trained central team significantly reduce time per site after the first deployment. Organizations that invest in governance and repeatability early consistently see faster, lower-cost rollouts as the program scales. "}],"pro-tip":""}]},"yoast_head":"\n