Selecting Microsoft Great Plains
Partner/VAR/Reseller: ERP implementation & customization – overview for IT
director
By Andrew Karasev
Alba Spectrum Technologies
1-866-528-0577,
1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com
In the case when you represent
mid-size or mid-size-to-large business, it is not a surprise that you have to do
ERP selection and switch to new technologies, doing your own research. If you a
trying to stay with Microsoft technologies and try Microsoft Business Solutions
products: Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft Navision, Solomon, Axapta with
integration to Microsoft CRM, you should know the history of Great Plains
Software and Navision partners over the last 10 years.
- Great Plains Dynamics VAR of
earlier 1990th. These companies were a mix of CPAs, received
application consulting training. Second feature – these companies were
concentrating on the local market, the preferred method was on-site visit,
sales technique – cold calls with following hard pressuring sales.
- Great Plains Dynamics C/S+/eEnterprise
VAR of 1995-1999. This time, due to the fact of increasing competition on
Graphical OS market and Microsoft aggressive market take over, consulting
firms had to hire more technical consultants and programmers. These employees
were engaged into data conversion, data repair, Great Plains Dexterity
interfaces, VBA, ReportWriter, Crystal Reports customizations and web
development. This was the time of technology diversification and golden time
for programmers. At the same time the importance of application consultant
CPA was in the decrease, one of the explanations could be – universities
picked up in educating future controllers in basic CPA, standard ERP and
financial reporting
- Microsoft Business Solutions
nowadays VAR/Partner/Reseller. We see segregation of duties, however it
is not transparent to the end customer. Regional Partners are still deploying
strong sales techniques, but they have rather strong sales force. Consulting
job is subcontracted to independent consultants and customizations challenge
is subcontracted to nation-wide customization partners, such as Alba Spectrum
Technologies.
- Nation-wide partner specifics.
You are probably lucky if you got nation-wide customization partner
directly, because you can save 30% in local implementation and customization
rates, due to the fact that nation-wide partner doesn’t participate in the
bidding, but rather is subcontracted by the winner of the bidding battle.
We encourage you to analyze your
alternatives. You can always appeal to our help, give us a call: 1-866-528-0577
or 1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at
Alba Spectrum Technologies (
http://www.albaspectrum.com ), serving Microsoft Great Plains, CRM, Navision
to mid-size and large clients in California, Illinois, New York, Georgia,
Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington, Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan