--- title: "ERP Managed Services for DuBois Chemicals | Smart Data" url: https://www.smartdata.net/case-studies/erp-managed-services-dubois-chemicals description: "Smart Data runs DuBois Chemicals' custom Workspace ERP and customer portal as embedded managed services, with tiered SLA support across four priority levels." source: "Smart Data (smartdata.net). Markdown copy of the page; the HTML page is canonical." --- # Embedded ERP managed services for DuBois Chemicals' custom workspace platform Smart Data took over operational ownership of DuBois Chemicals' "Workspace" custom-built ERP and customer portal, with tiered SLA support across four priority levels. Embedded managed services engagement since November 2023, with hybrid onshore and offshore coverage. Industry Specialty industrial chemicals Engagement Managed Services DuBois Chemicals runs day-to-day order entry, pricing, customer self-service and eCommerce through a custom-built application called Workspace. The platform handles the operational connective tissue between customer-facing portals and the internal pricing and order management that runs the business. It was developed in-house by the DuBois IT team and grew over years into a system the business depends on. Smart Data is the embedded managed services team that took over operational ownership of Workspace from DuBois’ internal IT in November 2023. The engagement covers development, test and production environment management; code and configuration changes; deployment workflows; and tiered incident response across all four SLA priority levels. The work runs on hybrid onshore and Smart Data Global Center coverage, with extended-hours offshore availability for P1 issues. ## The challenge Custom ERP platforms carry institutional knowledge that doesn’t transfer in a runbook. Four operational realities shaped the transfer: - Workspace was developed in-house and depended on a small internal team that needed to be relieved of day-to-day operational ownership without losing platform knowledge - The application spans multiple subsystems (Order Entry, Pricing, Customer Portal, eCommerce) where issues can surface in any of them but root cause often crosses two or more - SLA-bound response required tiered incident handling rather than generic break-fix, with measurable response and resolution targets - Workspace is the system DuBois’ customers and internal teams rely on to transact, which puts the response window for a P1 incident under one business day, not several The transfer needed to feel transparent to the DuBois business. Customers placing orders shouldn’t see any difference. Internal teams should know who to escalate to. The new operational model had to land without any visible service disruption during cut-over. ## The solution Smart Data took over operational ownership of Workspace through a phased transfer from DuBois’ internal IT team. The engagement is embedded managed services rather than vendor support: the team operates inside DuBois’ operational structure with direct access to systems, defined contact persons and a defined SLA. The model uses hybrid onshore and Smart Data Global Center coverage. ### Engagement delivery elements - Tiered SLA across four priority levels, from P1 (failure of a main feature, 1-business-day first response, 3-business-day temporary resolution) through P4 (functional extensions, 1-week first response, 1-month qualified response) - Multi-environment management across development, test and production - Code and configuration changes against the working Workspace platform, with deployment workflows defined for each change - Tiered incident response scaled to issue severity rather than treated uniformly - Workspace ecosystem coverage spanning Order Entry, Customer Portal, Pricing, customer-facing eCommerce and the supporting subsystems - Hybrid onshore and offshore coverage with extended Smart Data Global Center hours (2:30 AM to 11:30 AM EST) covering P1 emergencies that arrive outside US business hours - Designated contact persons on both sides, keeping issue routing fast and predictable ERP managed services done well isn’t about ticket volume. It’s about whether the team genuinely owns the application: the codebase, the deployments, the data flows, the failure patterns, the customer impact. The DuBois engagement was scoped from day one for operational ownership, not transactional support. ## The results The transfer landed cleanly, and the embedded managed services model has been running for the DuBois Workspace platform since November 2023: DuBois’ internal IT team is relieved of day-to-day Workspace operational ownership Tiered SLA response runs across all four priority levels, with P1 issues resolved against a one-business-day first response and three-business-day temporary resolution window Multi-environment changes ship through a defined deployment workflow against dev, test and production P1 emergencies arriving outside US business hours are covered by Smart Data Global Center availability, removing the gap a US-hours-only model would leave The engagement runs through its second year as an embedded managed services line, not a project that ended The DuBois engagement is the second flagship example of specialized managed services at Smart Data, alongside the Nuvei payments-to-ERP managed services line. Different ERP, different industry, same operational pattern: deep specialization, embedded ownership, tiered response across priority levels. Client Manufacturing and industrial Platform and technology - MySQL ## Working on something similar? Tell us what you are building and what it has to connect to. Here is what happens after you reach out. ### A short call about the work What runs today, what needs to change and the date you are working toward. ### An engineer looks at what’s running Scope comes from your systems as they are, before anything is priced. ### You get a written proposal Covering scope, team, approach and price. [info@smartdata.net](mailto:info@smartdata.net)[(937) 886-9166](tel:+19378869166)