Microsoft Dynamics AX-GP-NAV-CRM: Trends and International Recommendations

Microsoft Dynamics project ? or formerly referred as Project Green should unify and modulate all Microsoft Business Solutions ERP applications: Microsoft Great Plains/Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Navision (former Attain) Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft (Navision) Axapta/Microsoft Dynamics AX. The challenge of unification probably will result in quality change for the unified interface, such as Web/Business portal/Microsoft Outlook & MS Office integration, Deployment of new technologies, such as Microsoft Sharepoint with workflow automation. Plus the development platform for Microsoft Dynamics products should shift from proprietary tools, such as Microsoft Dexterity, C/SIDE, MorphX (no confirmation for Axapta yet ? but we guess it should follow) to C# and VB.Net with VisualStudio. In this small article we will try to orient IT managers in Microsoft Business Solutions MRP products selection for international and regional markets.

? Microsoft Dynamics GP. The regional markets for Great Plains 9.0 and following Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 version will narrow: United States, United Kingdom, Canada: both English and French speaking, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other English speaking countries in Asia, Africa and Worldwide, plus Spanish Speaking Latin America. Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 will not be available for Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland ? the last version localized for these European countries will be 9.0 ? June 2006

? Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Currently Navision has very good presence in Europe, including East Europe: Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia. Microsoft also localized Navision for new markets, where it just moved in: Brazil for example ? it was interesting development in Brazil ? first Microsoft probed Solomon, then Microsoft Great Plains 7.5 and in 2004 replaced it with localized Navision

? Microsoft Dynamics AX. Microsoft Axapta, opposite to Navision or Great Plains where market shares are gained/divided and competition is based on renovations and product improvements, Axapta has great potential yet to be deployed, coming from its modern and very futuristic system design and architecture. Being targeted to upper mid-market and corporate clients Axapta shows very good progress on emerging markets: in Russia for example the number of Axapta installation is similar and comparable with the number of Navision installations. Plus, in 2005 large number of Microsoft Business Solutions gold certified partners rushed into Axapta consulting arena ? this is seen in the USA, UK, Australia and continental Europe. In Brazil currently MBS in local Portuguese Axapta launching mode ? localized for Brazilian tax code

? Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Is planned as front CRM solution for the majority of Microsoft Dynamics ERP system: integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP is available for GP 7.5, 8.0, 9.0 and CRM 1.2 and 3.0, Microsoft Navision ? through third party integrations, Axapta integration is planned. Microsoft has Microsoft CRM as worldwide product, so you should not have any doubts regarding your regional market.

? Competition. Oracle is on the way with Oracle Fusion project, aiming on Oracle Financials/Applications/E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards and potentially Siebel integration. SAP with the purchase of new mid and small market ERP: SAP Business One and Mendocino ? for SAP R/3 is catching up

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.greatplains.com.mx http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner. Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Microsoft Dynamics GP/NAV/CRM implementation in South East Asia ? highlights

In this small article we will give you highlights on Microsoft Dynamics family of products implementation, customization, user training in South East Asia: Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines as well as in China and Taiwan.

Microsoft renamed its ERPs: Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, Solomon and MS CRM and now new names start with Microsoft Dynamics: Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  In this small article we will give you highlights on Microsoft Dynamics family of products implementation, customization, user training in South East Asia: Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines as well as in China and Taiwan.

• English Language.  Considering such country as Philippines, where English is commonly used in business documentation, Microsoft Dynamics GP, or former Microsoft Great Plains/eEnterprise is a good choice.  At the same time Microsoft Dynamics NAV or former Microsoft Navision is also excellent option.  The situation is similar to what we have on the US ERP market, when Navision vs. Great Plains selection is based on the functionality comparison between GP and NAV.
• Chinese Language.  Microsoft Dynamics GP doesn?t support Unicode characters in its native interface ? Microsoft Dexterity (former Great Plains Software Dexterity).  If you are looking at the Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal ? you are free to customize it and have it support Chinese.  There is special utility, which allows you to intercept Chinese characters and enter them in Great Plains fat client/Dexterity forms.  The functionality is very popular among Chinese food distributors in the USA ? Chicago and Houston areas
• Taxes.  Both Great Plains and Navision support both tax systems: Sale Tax based and VAT (Value Added Tax)
• Manufacturing.  This is where you should compare two systems: Great Plains and Navision manufacturing module/granule.  Great Plains Manufacturing is good choice for Discrete Manufacturing type, if you have process manufacturing ? you should verify functionality and third party add-ons features.
• Localization.  If the conditions of your local country require localization (tax and language specifics ? very good example would be India), you should check with Microsoft Business Solutions in your country on the positioning of Microsoft ERPs.  In general, when localization requires non-English/Spanish/French Canadian language ? Navision is the recommended and usually localized.  Axapta also is very adaptable and localizable and you will see Axapta as the option in the majority of cases.
• Non-Microsoft ERPs.  In some cases and we know real life stories/examples international company, having Microsoft Great Plains implemented in the headquarters in the USA, decided to implement SAP Business One for its overseas manufacturing facility.
• Software Licenses Sale only.  In South East Asia we see very strong IT departments and IT consulting market.  When company is required to implement Microsoft Dynamics ? it can do it in-house and all you need is software licenses sale.
• Local ERP Solutions.  On the local markets, especially where government regulation takes place you can find local or regional ERP vendors.  There are pluses and minuses of such systems: plus would be government reporting side.  Minuses are from the control side ? international company should have ERP reasonably controllable and the option to rely on local specialists only is risky.

You can always have us help you with the implementation & customization.  Call us in US: 1-866-528-0577, internationally: 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) ? Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials, SAP Business One  and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing.
We serve international clients Worldwide.

Microsoft CRM messaging through Lotus Domino email server - balanced solution

Microsoft CRM and IBM Lotus Notes Domino seem to be taking completely different paths and if company is Microsoft oriented - we see MS CRM, MS Exchange, MS SQL Server, SharePoint, etc. In the case of Lotus Domino - it is opposite - Lotus is corporate Information Media and could technically play CRM role with internal messaging coming through Lotus Domino server. However realities of modern corporation give us multiple examples when Microsoft CRM and Lotus Domino should coexist in compromise. There are several reasons why corporation doesn't like to stick to one platform:
1. Balancing several platforms not to be trapped to the one-vendor solution. Imagine, that you placed all the eggs into one basket and then this basket went into the trouble (lawsuit, bankruptcy, mismanagement, hostile takeover - to name a few in the life of the modern American corporation)
2. Legacy-dependence. If your corporation uses such product as Lotus Notes/Domino for 10 plus years - you can expect that majority of documents are stored in the Lotus databases. Just conversion of this legacy database is multi-million dollars project. And again - we could not predict the future accurately - who will win or lose - IBM or Microsoft - or maybe they will merge
3. Procedures and flowcharts. Nowadays corporation works and builds its business model around computer business system, consider things like users training, functional flowcharts/diagrams, reporting to investors, IDE with company vendors and customer. And we'd dare to say that these things are computer application platform dependent (even being designed in the heads of corporation founding leaders as abstract business processes - then they were placed into the computer platform and had to fit to its pluses and minuses)
Considering these arguments and having multiple requests from Microsoft Business Solutions and directly from our prospects and customer, we have realized the connector, which allows Microsoft CRM use Lotus Domino email server with similar messaging functionality as Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000
Microsoft CRM Exchange connector needs to be installed and its DLL based functionality is superceded by our own DLL, which communicates with Lotus Domino server via Java Agents
You can always have us help you with the integration and customization. Call us: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918.

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana, Michigan, Florida, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

Microsoft CRM USA Nationwide Remote Support

 

Remember old good days when your company probably had Great Plains Dynamics? If you are in San Francisco Bay Area you had local Great Plains Software partner consulting company, who served you basically coming onsite and charging you four hours minimum, even if the problem deserved 5-min fix? This was at the end of 20th century and remote support technologies were not very advanced Citrix was making good progress and taking market over from Symantec PCAnywhere. Today, when Microsoft Terminal Server and Citrix are remote support standards and IT department uses them to host application server for nation-wide and world-wide users, you should probably be thinking of getting remote support for your ERP and CRM systems. In this small article well take a look at Microsoft CRM remote support, customization, reporting, implementation and integration.

• Why Microsoft CRM Remote Support? Microsoft CRM market niche is still narrow and MS CRM consulting companies do not have enough clientele in their respected locals markets: Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York even in these hypermarkets. In order to survive Microsoft CRM VAR went to nationwide and even international markets to get clients base.

• Technology-driven consulting companies. Microsoft CRM has web and MS Outlook clients and so by its nature it is web application. When you are considering hosting your web site you typically do not care where hosting company is located you consider price and quality. Microsoft CRM could be hosted with .Net hosting companies and implementation could be done remotely with web-session-based training.

• Customization. Today, even if Microsoft Business Solutions has open technology Microsoft CRM SDK the complexity of the specific tasks (messaging through Lotus Notes Domino, generic MAPI, advanced MS CRM Exchange connector) requires precision programming, which should be outsourced to nationwide development centers. As our experience indicates clients are demanding the expertise, not just cheap generic developers. Whoever comes for the cheap price they usually get poor results.

• Large Business ERP. Microsoft CRM proved its market strength and ability to automate large publicly traded corporation. It sits in Microsoft SQL Server and uses all the spectrum of Microsoft technologies: .Net, Active Directories, MS Exchange, Full-Text Search, Crystal Reports Enterprise. We are confident in Microsoft CRM ability to automate Aerospace & Defense, Pharmaceutical, Supply Chain Management, Medical & Hospitals, Distribution & Logistics, Oil & Gas, Wholesale & Retail, Education, Non-for-profit

• Integration. Microsoft CRM has standard integration tool with Microsoft Great Plains, Navision and Axapta integrations are on the way. However you can integrate Microsoft CRM with heterogeneous databases, such as Oracle, DB2, Lotus Notes Domino, Sybase, Pervasive SQL or Ctree/Faircomm.

• Web-Sessions and Skype training. Web Seminars are normal these days and you should be OK with the idea of remote web training. This will allow you to get the best expertise with moderate price.

You can always have us help you, give us a call: 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is consultant and CTO in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) Microsoft Business Solutions partner, serving clients in Illinois, New York, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Minnesota, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, Asia, Russia. He is Microsoft Great Plains certified master, Great Plains Dexterity, Microsoft CRM SDK C#.Net, Crystal Repots developer.

help@albaspectrum.com