SynergERP elevates project management delivery and visibility with PPO implementation

SynergERP, a local Sage Platinum reseller and trusted business solutions provider, has taken a strategic step forward in its project execution journey by standardising a project management methodology and implementing Project Portfolio Office’s PPO as its chosen portfolio and project management tool.

Founded in 1993, SynergERP specialises in delivering end-to-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, with a focus on Sage X3 and Sage Intacct. With clients across a broad range of sectors, including manufacturing, distribution, financial services and professional services, the company is well known for its deep industry knowledge, long-term client partnerships and a commitment to driving digital transformation.

According to Wessel Coetzee, joint managing director at SynergERP, as the business has grown – both in terms of client base and larger, more complex projects – the limitations of its informal project management environment began to surface.

Despite having experienced project managers in place, SynergERP needed a consistent, consolidated approach to project execution. Project data was decentralised and managed using different tools, making it difficult to gain oversight and deliver the level of governance and efficiency needed to support ongoing growth.

“While our business is very much project driven, we realised that our project management had become somewhat of an afterthought,” explains Coetzee. “Each project manager had their own way of working, often based on client preferences, and there was no central view or dashboard to see how our projects were tracking overall. Reporting was quite informal, and we relied on checking with each project manager as to the status of their projects.

“We realised this had to change in order to elevate our project management delivery and take the business to the next level.”

In 2024, as part of a broader leadership transition, SynergERP made the decision to formalise its operations and appointed a project management consultant to establish a structured project methodology and best practices. While technology wasn’t the initial focus, it quickly became clear that the methodology would require a fit-for-purpose project management application to embed best practices and scale consistently.

“PPO was recommended to us and, while as a technology company our first instinct is always to build something ourselves, this would have taken hundreds of hours,” he continues. “The more we looked into it, the more it made sense to use PPO to support the roll-out of our new project management methodology and aid in the development of a formal project management office (PMO).

“PPO was already fit-for-purpose and aligned with what we were trying to achieve. It wasn’t just about getting a tool – it was about supporting our broader PMO development and methodology.”

SynergERP’s decision to implement PPO was underpinned by several key goals. Coetzee maintains that, at a management level, the main goal was transparency and centralisation. “We needed one source of truth, somewhere we could see all our projects, track progress and generate consistent reports. PPO gave us that out of the box.

“And at the project manager level, it was about giving the team the right tools. There’s a lot of administration and governance required in project management, and we wanted something that made their jobs easier, not harder. PPO doesn’t just enable processes; it embeds the project management methodology into the tool, making it easier to follow and easier to report on.”

While SynergERP is still in the process of formalising its project management environment, since implementing PPO, the organisation has already seen a significant difference in the way it manages and delivers projects.

“With a single, standardised project management methodology rolled out across all project teams, we’ve definitely seen improvements in visibility, consistency and efficiency. PPO doesn’t just enable our project processes, it reinforces them,” says Coetzee. “The tool makes it easier to follow the methodology and has significantly improved how we manage and track our projects.”

SynergERP is also seeing better project management resource allocation, while still in early stages. “Many of our projects are lengthy and run over several months. PPO has been helpful in allowing us to keep track of budgeted versus actual hours, as well as forecasting remaining effort.”

A major factor in the success of the PPO implementation has been the high level of user adoption among SynergERP’s project managers. According to Coetzee, the team has embraced the project management software enthusiastically.

“We’ve seen a real shift in how our project managers work and think about delivery. The feedback has been very positive, in particular around the quarterly webinars hosted by PPO, which highlight new functionalities and updates. These have been beneficial in instructing the team to understand how to best use the project management application to run projects more effectively and essentially make their lives easier.

“As a business, SynergERP has actually taken some of the practices we’ve seen in PPO’s approach and used them to improve our own Sage Intacct implementations. From the start, everything has been seamless. Whenever we’ve needed support, the PPO team has been quick to respond, very supportive and communicated clearly. It has genuinely been a great experience.”

SynergERP has embraced the use of PPO to assist in turning project management into a core strength, says Guy Jelley, CEO and co-founder of Project Portfolio Office. “By developing a structured project management methodology and implementing PPO to support it, SynergERP has reinforced its commitment to delivering innovative solutions to clients while improving operational efficiencies within the business itself.

“The introduction of PPO marks a strategic step forward in SynergERP’s journey towards continuous improvement and excellence in project execution.”

“Our roll-out of PPO isn’t just a systems implementation,” concludes Coetzee. “It’s part of a broader transformation to improve how we deliver, operate and serve our clients. That said, there’s more we can explore going forward. We’ll continue to evolve our use of PPO, just as the project management tool itself keeps improving.”