Like many other industries around the world, the enterprise resource planning software (ERP) market has seen its share of acquisitions over the last ten years. As an example, Microsoft has added four main product lines to their solution set over this period - Microsoft Dynamics® GP, Microsoft Dynamics® NAV, Microsoft Dynamics® AX and Microsoft Dynamics® SL. All of these products had previous lives and significant client following prior to the acquisition by Microsoft.
Since the acquisitions took place in the early 2000’s, Microsoft has invested significantly in the upgrade and renewal around these core product offerings. This year alone, Microsoft will be releasing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2012 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 to the market. These products have undergone a significant amount of change over the years in terms of both breadth and depth of features. One of the most significant enhancements has been to the end user experience. Business users who have grown up using Microsoft Outlook now experience the same “look & feel” with their core ERP solution, allowing them to train their teams faster, manage change better and gain the ROI they are looking for from these investments over much shorter periods of time.
Along with the heightened user experience there is an increased level of functionality for specific industry verticals. Where significant modification or customizations were required in the past to meet business requirements, verticals like and are now seeing mainstream applications, supported by Microsoft and their partner communities being available to them for the first time.
began working in the fuel business nearly 50 years ago and serves over 3000 customers within a two hour driving radius from its depot. The company distributes fuel oil, propane and lubricants to residential, commercial and agricultural customers and operates a fleet of delivery and technical vehicles. Their green screen Unix-based application was not very user friendly and they struggled with manual data entry, inaccessible data for reporting and limited insight into customers & inventory. Since implementing FuelSoft, based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV specifically designed for fuel distributors they have a user friendly system that integrates with the company’s onboard truck computers.
Based on these new advancements within the Microsoft Dynamics products and increased functionality available to industry, Arthur’s Fuel has reduced their manual data entry, improved customer service, implemented data based decision making, streamlined inventory management, and timely invoicing is helping them stay profitable.
BDO Solutions is a throughout Canada, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Reseller of the Year in Canada for 2011.
By Jim Krahn with , Calgary. Leading Canadian Microsoft Dynamics ERP & CRM Partner
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