Microsoft Dynamics NAV Case Studies. Canari Cyclewear

Canari Cyclewear

Cycling-Gear Manufacturer Improves Operations and Planning with New Business Software

Canari Cyclewear is a fast-growing manufacturer of cycling gear based in San Diego, California. The company needed a flexible and full-featured enterprise resource planning system to efficiently handle double-digit annual growth, especially in the area of inventory management and forecasting. After consultation with Microsoft Certified Partner OfficeOps, Canari Cyclewear chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV because of the solution's ability to streamline processes within the company and with supply chain partners. Canari Cyclewear can now more reliably plan future inventory requirements and has cut lead times for customer orders by as much as 60 percent.

“Whereas our planning process previously involved a lot of guesswork, we now have instant insight into what is available and can investigate historical trends to better gauge demand.“

Chris Robinson, Chief Operating Officer, Canari Cyclewear

Business Needs
Canari Cyclewear manufactures top-of-the-line cycling gear that is resold by independent bike shops and large sporting-goods retailers around the world. The company also sells custom gear to professional and semiprofessional cycling teams. From 2005 to 2008, the company saw sustained double-digit growth in sales, which put pressure on the company to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its inventory management and reporting systems.

“We were using a DOS-based system and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to keep track of orders and roughly $5 million worth of inventory and to try and forecast demand,” explains Chris Robinson, Chief Operating Officer at Canari Cyclewear. “This method required us to manually collect and enter data. Overall, the process was tedious and prone to error, especially because some part numbers exceeded 50 characters.”

As Canari Cyclewear grew its sales, the company struggled to stay responsive to customer demands. “Our larger competitors can ask customers to prebook their orders, which gives them greater visibility into future production requirements,” explains Robinson. “We don’t have that luxury, and it puts pressure on us to manage our inventory well. We need to know what our demand is, what we have on hand, and what is forecasted on a SKU level.”

To find a solution, Canari Cyclewear began interviewing local business technology companies. “Many of the companies we talked to seemed more interested in selling us software than getting to know our business and helping us solve our problems,” says Robinson.

Solution
After evaluating more than 10 software solutions, Canari Cyclewear chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Certified Partner OfficeOps. “We chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV because it addressed our inventory management needs and is flexible and full-featured enough to meet our needs in the future,” says Robinson.

Canari Cyclewear appreciated the consultative approach that OfficeOps used during their initial discussions, which indicated the partner was willing to take the time to understand Canari Cyclewear’s unique business challenges and recommend the best solution. For example, OfficeOps offered pragmatic advice on how to handle Canari Cyclewear’s custom-order business, which can involve up to 20 documents for one order.

“Our custom-order business is very complex and today makes up only about 10 percent of our sales,” says Robinson. “However, we would like to see this segment grow to 30 percent of sales and wanted to streamline processes to accommodate that increase. OfficeOps suggested that we implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV for our core business and then tackle the custom-order side. We followed that advice and can see in retrospect that it saved us from a lot of potential difficulties.” After Canari Cyclewear finished implementing the solution for its core business, the company tapped OfficeOps to extend the solution for its custom-order business.

The solution that Canari Cyclewear and OfficeOps implemented makes inventory information instantly available to employees so that they can view stock levels by style, color, and size. Each employee has a unique view of functionality and information based on their role in the company. The solution links to other business software to eliminate duplicate data entry and automatically pull in information from supply chain partners.

Now, employees no longer need to enter information from invoices into the system by hand, for instance. Canari Cyclewear uses Microsoft Dynamics NAV to make manual processes, such as documentation and warehouse management tasks, easier. For example, instead of filling out packing labels by hand, employees can print import/export documentation and shipping labels that conform to customer requirements.

Managers at Canari Cyclewear use Microsoft Dynamics NAV to identify sales trends by style, gender, selling region, product type, and other attributes that the company decides to track. And, because Microsoft Dynamics NAV works well with Excel, managers can view and analyze data in spreadsheets with only a few clicks of a mouse.
Benefits
Canari Cyclewear enjoys greater insight into available inventory and future demand and no longer relies on time-consuming and error-prone manual processes for common tasks like entering sales orders and producing reports.

More Efficient Demand Planning
With detailed reporting available through Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Canari Cyclewear can more accurately predict future demand. “Whereas our planning process previously involved a lot of guesswork, we now have instant insight into what is available and can investigate historical trends to better gauge demand,” says Robinson. “We can better align our inventory with demand, which lets us reduce our stock levels for some categories by as much as 30 percent and reinvest those resources in products that are selling well.”

Lead Times Cut by 60 Percent
Canari Cyclewear’s warehouse operations are much more efficient with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. “If a large order comes in on Monday, we can usually ship it on Thursday,” says Robinson. “Before, it would have taken another week. This not only improves our image with customers but also gives our product more time on retail shelves.”

Reliable Technology and Partner
Robinson and other leaders at Canari Cyclewear feel confident that Microsoft Dynamics NAV will support future growth and are happy with OfficeOps as their partner. “We chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV, in part, because of the people at OfficeOps,” says Robinson. “They were interested in more than just the initial sale and were genuinely concerned about solving our problems. And, they’ve done a good job of providing us with the training and insight we need to be self-sufficient in using the solution.”

Organization Profile
Based in San Diego, California, with 80 employees, Canari Cyclewear makes premium clothes and accessories for cyclists around the world.

Partner(s)
OfficeOps

Software and Services
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Vertical Industries apparel retailing

Country/Region
United States



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Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Case Studies

2B Solutions Technology Consultant Secures New Business, Exceeds Customer Expectations

When Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner 2B Solutions experienced fast growth in its Microsoft Dynamics® CRM practice, it looked for ways to secure all pending business, use resources more effectively, control costs, and increase customer satisfaction. With sound methodology, best practices, guidance, and documentation, the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Methodology proved to be a comprehensive business-enabling resource. Since 2B Solutions adopted the methodology, it has used Sure Step to scope every implementation project and close a significant volume of new business. Clearly set expectations and careful planning boost customer confidence and help customers realize solution benefits rapidly. And, with Sure Step tools and materials, 2B Solutions minimizes the cost and risk of complex projects, streamlines technical training, and gains valuable efficiencies in its resource utilization.

“Following the Sure Step Methodology, we offer detailed statements of work and have secured the business every time. We’ve also won new public-sector customers on the merits of this approach.”

Jeff Cross, President, 2B Solutions

Situation

Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner 2B Solutions, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, was a 2006 Microsoft Technology Innovation Partner of the Year Finalist for Mobility Solutions. The company’s technology experts consult with business customers and deliver solutions to help them gain more value from key relationships and flexibly track inventory and assets while on the go and at business locations.

2B Solutions implements Microsoft Dynamics® CRM for customers who want to increase the productivity of critical business relationships. The company’s customers thrive in a wide variety of market segments, with heavier concentrations in education, government, and healthcare. Often, the company’s technologists customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM for specialized business requirements or integrate it with 2B Solutions’s mobile technologies. As Jeff Cross, President of 2B Solutions, explains, “We began by supporting and enhancing the more traditional customer sales and marketing operations, but have gone far beyond that. We now aim to help our customers generate greater returns from their relationships with their stakeholders and contributors.”

With 2B Solutions employing Microsoft Dynamics CRM in more demanding and complex scenarios, smart project planning and most efficient use of limited resources—people’s time and budgets—became critical. Says Cross, “As we expected our growth to continue and our workload to be challenging, we wondered if there were better ways to prepare, structure, and run our implementation projects.” The company also wanted to identify a reliable, comprehensive source of documentation for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to help standardize and deepen employee familiarization, and reduce training time.

In addition, 2B Solutions sought a way to ensure customers firmly committed to projects that the company’s consultants had spent time discussing and scoping with them to avoid any drop-off that would result in a loss of revenue. Closely connected to that goal was the intent to increase customer satisfaction. More specifically, the company wanted to ensure customers received all necessary information related to projects and technologies. With that information, customers would have a full understanding of the solution’s capabilities to harbor appropriate expectations and be in a position to put Microsoft Dynamics CRM to effective use immediately after an implementation.

Solution

Available through the Partner Foundation Plan for Microsoft Dynamics, the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Methodology is a key benefit of the plan. 2B Solutions had already invested in the Partner Foundation Plan and thoroughly evaluated what was available within the framework of the Sure Step Methodology, which provides guidance to streamline solution implementations and complete them successfully. Sure Step Methodology resources comprise a large repository of proven-to-be-effective templates, tools, and best practices, including specific content and tools for each product within the portfolio of Microsoft Dynamics solutions.

“The Sure Step Methodology helps us minimize the risk potential risks in our projects, which in turn frees us up to pursue new business with renewed focus.”

Jeff Cross, President, 2B Solutions

2B Solutions adopted the Sure Step Methodology as the framework for efficiently planning and completing software implementation projects. Available to 2B Solutions as a download, the Sure Step Methodology can scale to support projects of any size—from relatively simple upgrades to large-scale deployments. From diagnostics during the sales cycle, on to solution deployment and operation, the Sure Step Methodology develops through six distinct phases of a software project; 2B Solutions has incorporated this phased approach into its project management. Flowchart diagrams help the company’s consultants make timely, effective use of the tools, templates, and detailed best practices provided for each project phase. In addition, the flowchart diagrams help the 2B Solutions project team and its customers set up all the roles and accountabilities that play a role in completing a project.

The company also uses the extensive documentation accessible within the Sure Step Methodology to grow the skills of both new and experienced employees, and enhance team members’ professional standing with a deep education in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Sure Step Methodology technical documentation continues to serve as reference material during 2B Solutions’s projects.

Among other recommended practices, the Sure Step Methodology assists in creating a complete, highly detailed scope of work before projects are underway. “As soon as a customer commits to a project, our team carefully reviews the scope-of-work document so that everybody understands the requirements, project milestones, and criteria for success,” says Cross. Using the scope of work, project managers:

Plan resources. Precisely identify tasks and action items. Set deadlines for the distinct phases of a project. Remain in close contact with the customer to make sure 2B Solutions meets or exceeds expectations.

Clear definition of project scope means that consultants and technologists immediately know when a customer request may result in a digression from the project path or present an unplanned risk. If the latter is the case, 2B Solutions issues a risk warning to the customer, asking for review and discussion so that the customer and consultants together can mitigate the risk and adjust the project scope if needed.

Following the Sure Step Methodology guidance, 2B Solutions adjusted the categories that the company uses to allocate and track employee time on projects. Managers review this information to keep projects on track within budgetary guidelines. The Sure Step Methodology enables a transparent information presentation that provides granular, flexible drill-down capabilities. Those, in turn, give project managers an easy way to review the details of project events, assess any changes to be made in project delivery, forecast the projected outcome of changes in resource allocations, and keep projects on track with customer requirements.

Benefits

For 2B Solutions, adoption of the Sure Step Methodology accelerates business growth, improves customer satisfaction, and enhances the efficiency of resource utilization. “The Sure Step Methodology helps us take our company to the next level of success,” states Cross. “It’s an invaluable resource that reinforces our expertise, ensures accountability, and offers practical ways to act on opportunities to grow our business and make it more efficient.”

Close More Business with Better Customer Experience
Using the Sure Step Methodology, 2B Solutions finds it easier to obtain firm customer commitments and steadily grow its customer relationship practice. “Following the Sure Step Methodology, we offer detailed statements of work and have secured the business every time,” says Cross. “We’ve also won new public-sector customers on the merits of this approach.”

“We’re enthusiastic about the potential of the Sure Step Methodology to drive productivity. We will adjust the way we work whenever we see the beneficial impact of practice enhancements.”

Jeff Cross, President, 2B Solutions

2B Solutions has seen first hand how the Sure Step Methodology enhances the experience of its customers. Customers often mention to the 2B Solutions consultants working with them that they feel the company’s approach is thorough, well organized, and completely in line with their goals. Customers also appreciate the fact that every activity in a software implementation follows the steps and schedule outlined in the scope of work so that they always know when and what to expect next. “The Sure Step Methodology gives even the most complex projects a dependable orientation that keeps everybody on track,” says Cross.

Boost the Productivity of Individuals and Teams 2B Solutions can ensure its consultants’ proficiency and effectiveness through the comprehensive documentation and prescriptive guidance available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM through the Sure Step Methodology. What’s more, employees can review the materials on their own without requiring a significant portion of somebody else’s time for training. Says Cross, “In contrast to earlier times, our managers’ workload in familiarizing staff with the intricacies of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and how to meet customers’ challenges is a fraction of what it used to be.”

2B Solutions expects to modify its team collaboration process in response to the experience gained in implementations informed by the Sure Step Methodology. “We’re enthusiastic about the potential of the Sure Step Methodology to drive productivity,” says Cross. “We will adjust the way we work whenever we see the beneficial impact of practice enhancements.”

Generate Savings, Reduce Risk
After having managed a number of implementations in accord with the Sure Step Methodology, 2B Solutions is still finding new ways to use the methodology to improve the way it manages the company’s business. 2B Solutions project managers regularly review detailed information to ensure projects are on schedule and within budgets, and frequently identify opportunities to boost efficiencies. “Sure Step gives us much better control in managing budgets and resources,” says Cross. “I know we will generate more substantial cost savings for customers and the company.”

A 2B Solutions manager team meets every week with a Microsoft partner advisor to discuss how the company uses the Sure Step Methodology and strategize the most promising ways for increasing the outcome. The best use of the methodology to anticipate and mitigate potential roadblocks and risks in implementation projects figures prominently in these conversations. Says Cross, “The Sure Step Methodology helps us minimize the potential risks in our projects, which in turn frees us up to pursue new business with renewed focus.”

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.

http://www.pargesoft.com/ Microsoft Dynamics CRM Global Partner

Microsoft Dynamics Video: Oracle Migration to Dynamics ERP

Network Equipment Technology is a provider of enterprise solutions. They moved from Oracle to Microsoft Dynamics AX. They saw a significant costs savings with the move and also increases in user productivity.

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Blue Sun - Microsoft Dynamics NAV customer stories

A provider of alternative fuels from sustainable resources, Blue Sun has built a strong reputation for product excellence. To manage the company most efficiently in a challenging business climate and to prepare to capitalize on the promise of its Blue Sun Fusion brand following a recovery, Blue Sun implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The solution provides company managers with the meaningful insight they need to move the business forward. It also facilitates with ease the many types of reporting Blue Sun requires to demonstrate regulatory compliance, drive financial performance, nurture strategic relationships, and maintain high levels of individual and organizational productivity. By using Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the company has added customers and distribution channels without increasing overhead and is poised to realize significantly enhanced growth as the clean-tech market rebounds.


With Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we’ve become an extremely efficient, lean operation. We know it also has the flexibility to scale to the substantial growth we are preparing for today.


Jerry Washburn, Senior Vice President and CFO, Blue Sun

Situation
With headquarters in Golden, Colorado, Blue Sun markets a product family of alternative fuels under the brand of Blue Sun Fusion. Founded in 2001 with the goal of developing the best possible biodiesel fuel, Blue Sun went to market in early 2005 after extensive research and development efforts. Blue Sun Fusion products offer a variety of blends of traditional diesel with fuel from renewable sources, which are proprietary oilseed crops. The company quickly garnered an outstanding reputation as a provider of renewable-source fuel products of a significantly higher quality than traditional diesel fuels.

Blue Sun operates a fuel distribution network with sophisticated, high-volume ration-blending terminals, from which trains and trucks can transport Blue Sun Fusion products to almost any location in North America. Today, Blue Sun Fusion fuels are available mostly in the Mountain West region of the United States and neighboring areas, including Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Blue Sun’s main business groups engage with the supply chain to procure raw oil feed stocks, which a contract refinery refines into biodiesel; make these fuels available to the Blue Sun Fusion product offering or resell them domestically and internationally; and market the Blue Sun Fusion brand.

With the economic downturn, companies in the alternative-fuel industry have faced severe challenges to their business viability and made far-ranging adjustments to remain competitive. An embargo by the European Union on biodiesel from the United States added to the urgency of doing so. Of 17 alternative-fuel companies that venture capitalists or private equity groups funded from 2005 to 2007, only Blue Sun and one other organization are still in business. Blue Sun today maintains a small, efficient team and pursues strategic partnerships with large petroleum companies to jointly market the Blue Sun Fusion brand and products.

To ready the company to weather a recessionary economy and capitalize on newly emerging opportunities for growth, Blue Sun decided to make more strategic use of software technology. As Jerry Washburn, Senior Vice President and CFO at Blue Sun, explains, “Our employees would create stand-alone spreadsheets to track and reconcile financial and other business data, which was a labor-intensive practice. The accuracy of the results was often questionable and rarely provided the meaningful insight into the business that managers needed.”

In addition, Blue Sun’s needs outgrew the capabilities of the Sage Peachtree accounting software that the company used. Specifically, Blue Sun sought a complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that included:

- Dimensional accounting to accommodate multiple departments and divisions without being compelled to handle them through the general ledger.
- Cost center and profit center accounting.
- Commodity tracking.
- Tax credit tracking and handling.
- Intercompany transaction posting, elimination, and consolidation.
- Compliance and financial reporting.
- Process-manufacturing management functionality.

In 2007 ... we used Microsoft Dynamics NAV to boost individual and organizational productivity and doubled our revenue, adding new customers and distribution channels, without hiring more staff.


Jerry Washburn, Senior Vice President and CFO, Blue Sun

Solution
Washburn knew of Radiant Technologies, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with a strong concentration on clean-tech industries and deep expertise in using technology to achieve environmental benefits. Radiant Technologies is headquartered in San Diego, California, close to many alternative-energy and sustainability-focused organizations. The company also has offices in Denmark and Singapore. Within the company’s technology portfolio, Microsoft Dynamics NAV plays an especially prominent role.

Michael Anderson, CEO of Radiant Technologies, highlights the reasons why the company feels so strongly about Microsoft Dynamics NAV: “Clean-tech and other environmentally directed companies often run many different phases of business operations—from startup and research and development to commercial distribution—within a very short time. Some of these companies follow nontraditional business models that may have little precedent. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a great fit for such organizations because it offers a flexible programming environment and extensible software tools that we can use with great efficiency to create business management infrastructures that help companies to innovate and grow.”

Blue Sun had set a short timeline to get the new business management solution running and wanted to get started using the solution without making any changes to its hardware and network configurations. To start, Radiant Technologies deployed Microsoft Dynamics NAV as a hosted solution to save Blue Sun the costs of an on-premises solution and the expenses and reconfiguration effort related to hardware changes. The entire implementation, including some customization to support process-manufacturing and fuel-blending operations, took less than 90 days. Later, Blue Sun streamlined its hardware environment and brought Microsoft Dynamics NAV in-house. However, Washburn anticipates that growth during the coming years will bring the company to a point when a hosted solution again makes more sense for the business.

Today, Blue Sun uses Microsoft Dynamics NAV primarily for financial and compliance reporting. All business and financial data reside within the solution. By using Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Blue Sun employees perform order processing, general-ledger consolidation, accounts payable and accounts receivable tasks, inventory cost management, and extensive reporting. To help generate the reports in the precise formats Blue Sun managers want, the solution integrates with Jet Reports. And, employees at Blue Sun no longer use stand-alone spreadsheets or other insular reporting functions.

Radiant Technologies enriches Microsoft Dynamics NAV with graphically rich, intuitive, highly action reports on business results.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV connects with an off-site payroll system facilitated by Ceridian, sending and receiving payroll details. And to ease tax reporting, the solution links with the tax management systems of several states where the company does business, automatically populating state tax–reporting forms with business data. In the near future, Blue Sun plans to link the solution with its human resource records, which Ceridian also manages, and connect it with a Concur travel and expense management system. Manufacturing and distribution operations will come online with Microsoft Dynamics NAV as demand grows. Eventually, when the company develops more established strategic relationships with distribution and marketing partners, the solution will support collaboration with these partners and provide them with access to business information.

Benefits
Having successfully weathered a challenging economic downturn, Blue Sun is preparing to grow market share and revenue as proven providers of clean and sustainable technologies to garner increased attention. “Microsoft Dynamics NAV is smoothly fine-tuned to the specific requirements of our business,” says Washburn. “It facilitates all the reporting and management tasks we need to perform today and will serve as the core of our business infrastructure in the years to come.”

Reliable, complete business information from Microsoft Dynamics NAV helps us increase our visibility and communicate the unique value of our brand and products to partners, investors, and the public.


Jerry Washburn, Senior Vice President and CFO, Blue Sun

Meaningful Business Insight and Compelling Visibility
Today, Blue Sun owns a single, centralized repository for all business information and has discarded the isolated spreadsheets and other informal information management tools that it previously used. Says Washburn, “Blue Sun enjoys the ability to easily generate all the reports it needs to demonstrate regulatory compliance, help the board and business managers to make sound decisions based on real-time business insight, and make a compelling business case to potential strategic partners.” Washburn and other executives can also review the company’s financial events and trends in the form of highly intuitive dashboards that make it possible to absorb information quickly.

For a company that is successfully emerging from a global recession and is pursuing a larger share of the market when other clean-tech competitors may be struggling, the ability to use data as business evidence is critical. Explains Washburn, “Reliable, complete business information from Microsoft Dynamics NAV helps us increase our visibility and communicate the unique value of our brand and products to partners, investors, and the public.”

Strategic Focus with Low Technology Ownership Cost
With Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Blue Sun operates with great efficiency and keeps costs under close control. “In 2007, for example, we used Microsoft Dynamics NAV to boost individual and organizational productivity and doubled our revenue, adding new customers and distribution channels, without hiring more staff,” says Washburn. “Consolidating management processes on a single, integrated solution makes a big difference in keeping our overhead low.”

Blue Sun expects to further minimize its cost of technology ownership when Microsoft Dynamics NAV will again become a hosted solution, which is what Blue Sun expects to happen as it looks to support sustained growth facilitated by the most efficient and economical use of resources. As Washburn states, “I believe software as a service has excellent potential for us, with an optimal combination of best economy and flexible technology. We will be able to generate substantial savings simply by eliminating much of our hardware and service contracts.”

Scalable to Support Clean-Tech Resurgence

Role Centers in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, fine-tuned by Radiant Technologies, help

business managers find exactly the data and functions they require most in their jobs.



Given changing economic trends and the current administration’s emphasis on renewable energy, Blue Sun expects increasing interest in its Blue Sun Fusion biodiesel products along with stronger growth for the entire clean-tech industry. The company already takes advantage of the technology to thrive through shifting business requirements. “With Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we’ve become an extremely efficient, lean operation,” says Washburn. “We know it also has the flexibility to scale to the substantial growth we are preparing for today.”

For Blue Sun, that renewed growth is likely to include international expansion, which means the company will be able to take full advantage of the multilanguage, multicurrency, and multisite capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. As growth accelerates and the Blue Sun Fusion brand becomes more broadly available and appreciated by consumers, the solution’s business intelligence and reporting capabilities will continue to play a critical role in executives’ ability to take the company in the right direction.
 
Solution Overview


Organization Profile
Blue Sun, a clean-tech innovator with a strong reputation for product excellence, markets a family of biodiesel fuels from sustainable resources under its Blue Sun Fusion brand.

Business Situation
The company wanted to strengthen its viability through the challenges of an economic downturn, increase management control over the business, and prepare itself for renewed growth.

Solution
Blue Sun implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV to manage finance, provide reporting and business insight, and progressively support all aspects of the operation.

Benefits
Meaningful business insight and compelling visibility
Strategic focus with low technology ownership cost
Scalable to support clean-tech resurgence

Partner(s)
Radiant Technologies

Software and Services
Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Vertical Industries
Oil Refining Industry

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info@pargesoft.com

Compare Oracle with Microsoft Dynamics

Three reasons to switch from Oracle to Microsoft Dynamics

Making the decision to change your company's business management system is a process that requires research and foresight. Here are three top reasons why businesses using Oracle applications, including PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and E-Business Suite solutions, have decided to make the switch to Microsoft Dynamics.

Microsoft Dynamics can scale with your business. Microsoft Dynamics provides affordable scalability for your growing businesses. With benchmarked performance up to 1,000 users and beyond and rich functionality across financials, supply chain management, and customer relationship management, you can be confident in the ability of Microsoft Dynamics to meet the needs of your growing business. Integrate your Microsoft Dynamics business management solution with Microsoft SQL Server and enjoy enterprise-level reporting, flexible decision-making support, and timely, relevant business insight at a low cost with significantly high usability and flexibility.

Microsoft Dynamics provides a low cost of ownership. Microsoft Dynamics is engineered to cost-effectively support the changing requirements that are frequently necessary for customers to adapt, grow, and maintain a competitive edge in their business. Independent research has demonstrated that, on the whole, Microsoft Dynamics offers a higher return on investment (ROI) and lower overall costs than other major competitive offerings. Microsoft Dynamics licensing is designed to be cost-effective. It is based on concurrent users versus named users and has no imposed user minimum or maximum, so it evolves with you for the life of your business.

Microsoft offers an industry-leading vertical partner ecosystem. Microsoft is in a position to deliver vertical solutions to hundreds of different industries on a local basis; it can bring these solutions to market on a local level. Microsoft's Certified for Microsoft Dynamics program offers solutions designed to meet the needs of specific industries. It can provide customers with the benefits of a rich portfolio of tested, reference supported solutions developed by ISVs that have met Microsoft’s highest solution and organizational certification standards.

Customer evidence: Learn how switching to Microsoft Dynamics benefited other companies

See how companies using Oracle products solved real business problems and benefited from switching to Microsoft Dynamics.

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Network solutions leader projects $1.5 million savings with switch to Microsoft Dynamics

Based in Fremont, California, Network Equipment Technologies (NET) develops, distributes, and supports voice and data communications equipment for multiservice networks. Because the company’s Oracle system did not enable flexible product configuration, NET maintained as many as 37,000 derivative part numbers in its system. In 2006, NET decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics instead of upgrading its Oracle ERP system. Using the built-in product configuration capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics, NET reduced the number of parts in its system by more than 85 percent. The company anticipates a total estimated savings of U.S.$1.5 million in the first year.

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Floral goods manufacturer gains time-saving insight with business software

Established in 1946, family-owned Syndicate Sales leads the floral hard goods industry. Syndicate Sales had used JD Edwards from Oracle, but found that employees relied heavily on IT staff to generate routine reports and extract information in response to queries. After evaluating a number of alternatives, Syndicate Sales chose to switch to Microsoft Dynamics. Now employees quickly and easily access the business information that they need, and have confidence that their information is accurate and up to date.

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Tactical gear maker meets growth demands with business management solution

BlackHawk Products Group, headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, produces high-end military, law enforcement, and outdoor gear products. Struggling to keep track of inventory and manufacturing costs with their existing system, BlackHawk decided it needed a more robust business management solution. After evaluating SAP and Oracle, the company chose to implement Microsoft Dynamics due to the flexibility and low cost of ownership.

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Branded drug maker solves complex budgeting and reporting challenges—affordably

Teva Neuroscience Inc. needed to upgrade to a new system that could handle a greater volume of transactions through a short accounting cycle. After opening a branch in Montreal, Canada, the Kansas City, Missouri-based company also needed a more complete business management solution to meet its increasingly complex reporting needs, as well as a system that made it simple to drill down into financial data for better budgeting and forecasting. After testing Microsoft Dynamics in its business environment, Teva found it made little economic sense to deploy Oracle when a less complex, more affordable solution met its needs.

Questions to ask when evaluating an Oracle solution

- What does a typical Oracle support team look like? How many administrators are there? How many developers? How many support personnel?

- Does your proposal include the use of an Oracle Accelerator for streamlined implementation? What specifics actually govern this offer? How will the cost and time of implementation be affected if I want the solution modified to meet my unique business practices?

- Will I have to conform my business to match Oracle's ideas of how to run a business in order to get the benefits of the rapid implementation? How am I able to realize a competitive edge in my business processes if I am just taking what is given?

- Do I have to license named users instead of concurrent users or user sessions? What is the difference, and what do you see as the pros and cons of each?

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Microsoft Dynamics for the sales professional

Microsoft Dynamics for the sales professional

Meet customer needs, drive more sales, and build strong customer relationships

The success of a company relies on the business and revenue it generates. Maintaining happy customers while pursuing new relationships is essential to this task. The Sales department not only drives future growth but also shapes the direction of the company and enables it to meet its goals through the customer relationships created by sales engagements.

Sales representatives must have available to them the most accurate company data, including up-to-the-minute product and service pricing as well as information about clients. Success for the sales department depends largely on immediate access to business-critical information, which helps them respond to customer needs. Customer relationship management (CRM) software can give the sales team a strategic advantage and make information that can be hard to find or that resides in disparate systems more centralized and readily available.

People

Kevin, a Sales Manager

As a Sales Manager for a midsize company, I am responsible not only for the performance of our Sales Representatives and our company's relationships with its customers but also for setting goals, providing resources for the sales staff, and maintaining the image our company wants to project. For me, building a solid sales team and strong relationships with our customers is key.

With my busy schedule, I often work long hours. Microsoft Dynamics business management solutions help me to account for both the sales team's progress on converting new leads to sales as well as our actual sales results. With up-to-the-minute data, Microsoft Dynamics CRM lets me respond to any sales concern, determine pricing policies, and track individual as well as team performance. Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics, I always know how well we are doing.

I am also the point of escalation for the customer service and sales teams. When I need to take a call from an unhappy customer and leave the person content, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides me with a full account history and all the information that might help me in that conversation.

Michael, an Account Manager

As an Account Manager, I am responsible for maintaining the relationship with existing customers and for providing customer service, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is crucial for me to do my job well. If a customer has a question, I only have to go to one place to get the history of both the customer and the deal. I'm also responsible for the overall customer experience. With a complete customer record, nothing falls through the cracks. This lets me provide the kind of experience our customers want—and expect.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM lets me stay focused on growing the accounts because it's easy to keep records of all my contacts and activities. I don't have to work to remember what I said to the customer the last time we spoke; it's all in the customer record.

Processes

The Sales team is at the front line of your company. You must be able to accurately gauge their performance as well as effectively plan, execute, and take advantage of sales opportunities. Microsoft Dynamics CRM lets you view, manage, and track the work of your Sales team, see how fast the Sales team converts new leads to prospects and sales, and evaluate performance changes over time.

Qualifying leads and closing the deal. Extensive research, effort, and time are necessary to maintain customers, manage a team, and qualify sales leads. Sales Managers rely on key sales information, such as staff performance data, budget and expense information, and product pricing, as well as information on potential customers, including intelligence that helps determine a customer's market and financial position. The contact and opportunity management features in Microsoft Dynamics let you maintain detailed profiles of your sales contacts, move the sales process along, and pursue all actionable opportunities. And Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers integrated, flexible customer relationship management (CRM) tools that enable the tracking and reporting of sales results and events on customer accounts.

Easy access to data to improve sales processes. The Sales Manager must have up-to-the-minute business and industry data, and you must also be able to quickly and effectively access, share, and analyze that data. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can document and manage your customers and prospects; create, view, revise, and distribute financial reports; and assign tasks to your team and ensure their completion. Microsoft Dynamics solutions maintain information from throughout the organization in a single repository, so you always have a complete view of factors that affect your business. And Microsoft Dynamics solutions work with and like other Microsoft products. For example, you can export and analyze data in Microsoft Office Excel, create reports in your preferred format, and make them available through business portals built on Microsoft SharePoint technology.

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