This week’s Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 release was a historical event for Microsoft, our Partners and Customers alike.

The solution delivers a host of new features and powerful capabilities, a simpler, more intuitive user experience, and deeper interoperability with the productivity tools SMBs use every day, such as Microsoft Office 365.

All pretty exciting stuff. But the real fun starts when we begin to see these capabilities translate into real customer value—when a company can pick up the solution and do something that matters.

This has been the case with the Cary, North Carolina–based company, Thinking Maps. A thriving small business that provides visual learning solutions, and relies on a lean back-office of only seven employees to keep the business moving. That means everyone wears multiple hats, and no one knows this better than Jonathan McCarron, who when asked his job title simply replies: “Accounting and customer service.”

McCarron’s is a job description that many small business employees can relate to – and he has found the new enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 to be a great benefit for his multiple roles. “With the time I save every day on reporting as well as on simply printing things like invoices,” he says, “I can go right to answering the phones.”

McCarron points to the simple, intuitive, user interface of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 as a major factor, saying “If you are going to sit at a computer for eight hours a day and spend most of that time in one program, that program needs to be aesthetically pleasing, not utilitarian. Having something that is easy on the eyes can make a big difference both physically and mentally, and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 certainly provides that.”

McCarron notes that it’s the small things that often make the biggest difference. And, to this end, he now takes a not-so-secret delight in the ability to manage the many windows of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 separately. This has enabled him, for example, to place a customer record in the system side by side with an email to that same customer, thus eliminating application switching. And because most peoples’ jobs require that they use more than one application at a time, the ability to put windows side by side is, in reality, no small thing.

Thinking Maps’ early experiences and initial success with the new release is just one example of how Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is helping small and midsize companies work better. And surely, the many enhancements in the solution’s latest release will spell many more successes both small and big, expected and unexpected, for SMBs worldwide.

Read the full Thinking Maps success story with Microsoft Dynamics here, and learn more about Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and other Microsoft Dynamics business solutions here.

Ross Thorpe

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Product Marketing

The post Thinking Maps streamlines everyday work to boost customer service with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

o World Vision is changing children’s lives through supply chain excellence

o Lotus F1 Team is transforming their global racing operations at mind-blowing speed!

o Vitamix Corporation is enabling rapid growth by streamlining processes right on the shop floor

The post Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Coming December 1st appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Meeting delivery deadlines is a must for good customer service, and for companies that make to stock, the ability to respond quickly to market demand is especially critical. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 supports responsiveness by giving managers a great overview of the business, and arming salespeople, purchasers and inventory staff with all the information they need to focus on their everyday tasks.

How Dixie gained 20% in efficiency
Dixie, a Danish fashion accessory company, began as a home-run startup built around the promising idea of designing and making quality accessories to order, bolstered by the value-add of a super-fast delivery time.

However, their previous business solution gave them a poor overview of available items, and difficulty accessing information in general meant that workers had to work twice as hard to meet the fast delivery dates promised.

“We chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 because I could see that it could meet our needs in a much easier and more cost-efficient way than the other solutions that had been in the running,” says Dixie’s managing director, Flemming Warrer Jensen.

A quick glance tells a business story
So how critical is this business overview for Dixie's management?

“Well, for example, a quick glance at the screen is enough for me as managing director to keep abreast of key figures and everything important,” he says. “From orders, purchasing patterns, slow-moving individual items, the actual inventory value, cost prices, turnover lists, and so on – and pretty soon this will also include complaints and reason codes.”

A much better overview of the business and inventory processes has in fact helped the entire Dixie staff. It has reduced time used on order handling and Dixie saved 460 hours annually related to price list handling. All in all, an efficiency gain of 20%.

Are you looking for a business solution that can help your company be more responsive? Read the full Dixie case study here, and learn more about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 here.

Ross Thorpe
Microsoft Dynamics Product Marketing

The post Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. A business solution from Microsoft – helps companies be more responsive appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

UK company, Poupart Ltd. is one of the first organizations to use Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. The solution has helped them increase productivity by an impressive 300 percent! How? They have simply become more efficient in their use of information.

In the fruit business? Yes, but also in the information business!

Poupart Ltd. is a group of companies in the UK that sells fresh fruit to supermarkets, wholesalers and catering services. Poupart does not, however, grow fruit, nor do they transport it. Their business revolves around logistics, and therefore, the efficient use of information is critical.

“We don’t own any warehouses. We don’t own trucks. We don’t own trees. Our business is information, and Microsoft Dynamics NAV gives us that information,” says Robin Dawson, Group Finance Director for Poupart.

According to Dawson, Microsoft Dynamics NAV has given them the ability to triple their inventory turnover, without having to recruit more than a couple of new administrative personnel.

How focus and familiarity have boosted productivity

One thing that Poupart points to in terms of the productivity increase is how similar the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 user experience is to other Microsoft products.

Claire Warby, Business Systems Analyst at Poupart Group, says that this similarity means people learn the system quickly.

“When a new person comes to start using it, they recognize a lot of the layout is similar to other Office products. They do end up picking up the system quite quickly,” Warby says.

Beyond the similarity, Warby points out that the way in which the interface is tailored for a person’s particular role helps people work in a more focused and efficient manner.

“You can customize pages specific to the users’ roles and show only the options that they really need,” she says.

Integration brings it all together

Another factor Poupart points to is how smoothly Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 integrates with other Microsoft products. Matthew Butlin, Information Director at Poupart Group says that the fact that it works well with other products that Poupart were already using has contributed to the productivity increase.

“Because they’re all Microsoft products, they all gel together seamlessly, so the integration is already built into the package,” he says.

You can, for example, use data from Microsoft Dynamics NAV in Microsoft Excel, and then come back to it later, hit refresh, and if the figures in Microsoft Dynamics NAV have changed, your sheet will then be updated.”

Drill down to understand

Beyond the Microsoft look and feel and built-in integration, the ease and speed with which you can explore quality information is another factor that Butlin sees as important.

“The tremendous power to me is the ability to drill down to the lowest level to understand what has happened from the farm to the customer,” he says.

“And it’s not just the quality of the information, it’s the speed of the information. There’s no point in having fantastic quality information, if it takes you two weeks to get there. We have that information at our fingertips, and if questions come up, we can answer at a few clicks of the mouse.”

It’s become part of their DNA

Microsoft Dynamics NAV’s familiar, RoleTailored user experience, its ease of use with other Microsoft products and the ability to understand information quickly and effectively have all been key factors in Poupart’s success. And Dawson fully believes that the positive results will continue.

“This has been a success story for us, and that success is going to carry on. It is part of our DNA,” Dawson says.

Are you looking for a business solution that can help your company increase productivity? See the full Poupart video here, and learn more about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 here.

Ross Thorpe

Microsoft Dynamics Product Marketing

The post Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. A business solution from Microsoft – helps companies increase productivity appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

I’m pleased to announce that Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 is now available!

With deep investments in new capabilities and improvements across all areas of the product, this is the most significant release yet in the history of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The feedback from our early adopter customers and partners has been really positive, and we couldn’t be more excited about getting this product out into the market and putting it to work in your businesses.

With this release, we’ve focused on building what we’ve come to call “a business solution from Microsoft.” By this we mean a solution that combines comprehensive ERP capabilities for small and midsize businesses together with a simple, intuitive user experience, insightful business intelligence and reporting tools and deep ties into Microsoft’s portfolio of products. The result is an ERP solution that is easy to use, works seamlessly with your existing productivity tools, and is quick and cost-effective to implement.

We’ve seen some great outcomes from customers already up and running with the new product. For example, Flemming Warrer Jensen, Managing Director of Dixie, a fashion accessory company in Denmark, reports that “With Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 all in all, our inventory management has become 20% more effective.  Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 has been optimal in helping us to streamline processes – and using the time gained on customers.”

We’ve also done a lot of work with Microsoft Dynamics NAV to give you the power of choice. Choice about which client, device or browser your people use to connect with the system – and choice about where and how you deploy it – whether that is on-premises or in the cloud.

For our partners that build industry and custom solutions on top of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, we’ve made a big investment in improving the “hostability” of the solution. What does this mean in practice? It means you get going faster because partners can deploy and manage Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 in a more streamlined way. It also means that performance is significantly faster. Some of our hosting partners such as NovaVision, TRIMIT and Sikich are already experiencing the benefits of this work as they offer a hosted version of the solution to our customers today.

Last but not least, we’ve localized Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 for 15 markets: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and international English. Other localized versions are on the way, but we don’t have dates to share yet.

Anyway, that’s just an overview of what’s new. I hope that you’re as excited as our early customers and partners are about the new product. Check out the Microsoft Dynamics NAV product pages here for more information.

Paul White

Senior Director – ERP Product Management
 

The post Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Now Available appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

It’s been two busy months since we first announced Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 and a planned May beta release at Convergence 2012. We’re thrilled to announce that the beta release is now available for partners! This is an important milestone for us as the beta enables a broad set of our partners to try out the product, prepare to engage with prospects, and help our existing customers get ready for the final version. This beta release is also significant because Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 will be the first Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution for Windows Azure giving customers the choice to move to the cloud on their own terms.

Last month we also participated in Directions EMEA 2012, an event organized by Microsoft Dynamics NAV partners, which saw an attendance of more than 930 delegates, all there to learn about the coming release.  Feedback from this group was extremely positive as they saw the possibility and opportunities enabled by Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. As one partner noted “Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 is the best of many great new releases I’ve seen over the last 15 years.”

Designed to meet the specific needs of small and mid-market businesses, Microsoft Dynamics NAV changes the way our customers can approach business management solutions.  When most current ERP systems were designed, SMB’s had dedicated people engaged in every aspect of their business, managing various work streams, whether it was part of their core business or not. In today’s business environment, with the renewed focus on optimizing operations, controlling costs, etc., many SMB’s have outsourced some part of their business such as manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, finance and administration and are now partnering with specialists to support  some aspects of their business—all in an effort to focus on their core competencies.

As business models change SMB’s need their business solutions to support them.  We’re committed to ensuring that ours do.  Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 is a significant step forward in this regard as it combines business process, communications and collaboration capabilities to dramatically change the extent to which business applications support SMB business operations.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 substantially advances our ability to help our customers become dynamic businesses – to secure greater control, increase margins and drive growth.

Our partners can download and learn more about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 here as well as visit the Partner Launch Portal for more information and resources. Customers and prospects, who want to check out Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, should connect with their local Microsoft Dynamics NAV partner. 

Now we begin the best part of the journey – from beta to general availability.

Paul White 

Senior Director – Microsoft Dynamics ERP Product Management

The post Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Beta Released for Partners appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In my last Edge blog "Powerfully Simple" I took a closer look at the real product benefits and capabilities that lie behind the "Powerful" half of the  "Powerfully Simple" headline that you will see used in many of our communications associated with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. In this blog, I want to complete the other half of the picture by focusing on "Simple".

Simplicity is a word that you hear a lot in the ERP industry. A ubiquitous promise that can often appear to be more "force of habit" than serious "driving force" for product development.  But where many in the industry could claim that they offer powerful solutions, often based on the sheer monolithic size and complexity of their offerings, few would be able to claim (at least while keeping a straight face) that their solutions are also simple to use.

The reality is that without a considerable and concerted effort to integrate simplicity into every facet of the solution – and through every phase of its development – power and simplicity inevitably end up being opposing forces instead of complementary strengths. Which is a shame for the users, because simplicity enables user engagement, accelerates user adoption and advocacy, and drives user productivity, innovation and impact. And what companies are really looking for are solutions that enable simplicity, cost-efficiency and agility without sacrificing power.

As with previous Microsoft Dynamics AX releases, simplicity has been a primary design theme and development tenet for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. A constant touchstone to help us scope new functionality and capabilities in the solution, and to strike a balance between exciting our developers and delighting our customers.

The most obvious, and often most difficult place to surface simplicity is in the user experience. Microsoft Dynamics AX is already leading the field here, with considerable enhancements in the coming release including additional Role Centers and enhanced data visualization, preview and navigation features. But it's not enough that the user interface is familiar, simple to learn and intuitive to use, it also needs to be consistent whether you are in the office or working remotely through a portal solution. With Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, the experience across Windows client and SharePoint client are so similar it becomes a non-issue. This familiarity and simplicity of use in the user experience also extends to bi-directional interoperability with Microsoft Office 2010, enabling users to access and refresh data in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 without even leaving Excel and Word.

But simplicity should extend beyond your own desktop. It's also about making it easier to work and collaborate with others. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 integrates Microsoft Lync technology to enable presence information and instant access to help keep employees connected with colleagues, customers, suppliers, and partners. SharePoint integration not only simplifies basic supply chain collaboration with vendor and customer portals, but also allows employees to quickly create collaboration sites, where they can share information with team members, directly from within the ERP solution. And cloud-based services, such as Sites Services for Microsoft Dynamics ERP, extend Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 business processes and workflows on the web, empowering businesses to collaborate with customers and vendors with minimal IT investment.

Finally, simplicity should also be a recurring feature in every stage of the product lifecycle. For Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, we have examined and streamlined every step of the product installation process to remove unnecessary steps, eliminate opportunities for error, and streamline the interaction between IT and application roles – dramatically shortening and simplifying the process. We have also simplified the security set up with an enterprise-ready security framework and tools, and System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) integration helps simplify ongoing system maintenance. At the other end of the life cycle, optimized upgrade advisors, tools, and processes speed upgrade activities and reduce the impact on the daily business by, for example, allowing a much greater proportion of the upgrade process to take place offline.

So with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can let simplicity drive user adoption and productivity with a consistent, familiar experience, effortless Microsoft Office interoperability, and improved collaboration across the extended supply chain. At the same time, your IT staff can spend less time on application life cycle management and maintenance, and more time focusing on strategic development.

At the end of the day, it's all about delivering simplicity without sacrificing power. Or as Einstein once put it: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – Powerfully Simple

Ross Thorpe 

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Product Marketing

The post Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – The Power of Simplicity appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

If you are a regular – or even occasional – reader of The Edge blog, then the phrase “Powerfully Simple” should be a familiar one to you. We have been using it pretty consistently in our communications around the coming Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 release. Not just because the phrase is “Powerfully Simple” in its own right, but also because a lot of the new capabilities and resulting customer value that are inherent in the new release can be aggregated around the notions of “Power” and “Simplicity”. And although often mutually exclusive, in the case of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, they work hand-in-hand to enable unique business advantages for our customers.

So in this blog, and the next, I want to dig a little deeper, and look at how Power and Simplicity are actually hard-coded into the DNA of the product itself. Let’s look at Power first.

In the natural world, power is defined as the ability to do work over time – the ability to achieve more, faster. And this definition is no less relevant in the world of business. A powerful business solution is one that can drive your business forward, enabling progress and growth as others are forced to throttle back, allowing you to raise your goals instead of lowering your expectations.

Microsoft Dynamics AX has always offered our customers a powerful foundation of core ERP capabilities to enable and support their core business processes across the business. The release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will significantly strengthen and deepen this core functionality across areas such as finance, sales and marketing, procurement, project accounting, human capital management, supply chain management, inventory management, and governance, risk and compliance. It will also add rich, prebuilt industry capabilities for manufacturing, distribution, services, and Public Sector (and soon after, retail) to help customers meet the specific business requirements of their industry with less need for customization. With more than 1,000 new features and enhancements across core ERP and industry capabilities, the next release will put even more power at the disposal of the business.

But power doesn’t drive progress unless it is harnessed, channeled, and put in the hands of the people who need it most. The Microsoft Dynamics AX RoleTailored user experience makes this possible. Helping users leverage the rich functionality, access the data, and add value to the processes that are relevant to their area of work.

Enhancements to this user experience, including additional Role Centers and new data visualization, preview and navigation features, will help boost productivity. The integration of self-service business intelligence and reporting in the user experience will drive insight and perspective for everyone in key business areas. And notifications and alerts initiated by embedded workflows will provide people with more context into the business processes they are taking part in.

Finally, role-based security and single sign-on will help ensure segregation of duty and data security across the organization with minimal setup and maintenance.

So with powerful business capabillities that are harnessed and put to work driving efficiencies and value, the foundation is in place for business success. And with the economy finally on the turn, we can once again begin to equate success with growth.

Here too Microsoft Dynamics AX 2102 will be an enabler – an asset rather than a liability. As well as being highly scalable to accommodate growth in the number of users, the number of transactions, and the complexity of business processes, the solution can also support businesses as they expand across geographical and cultural borders with prebuilt, country-specific localizations for 38 countries in a single instance.

So Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 can not only deliver a powerful foundation for your business, it can help put that power in the hands of those who need it most, so they can deliver more value faster, and support the growth and expansion that results.

And that sounds like a pretty powerful business proposition to me… 

Next time, I will look at the other half of the equation, and see how power and simplicity really can work hand-in-hand and deliver on our “Powerfully Simple” promise.

Ross Thorpe

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Product Marketing

The post Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – Powerfully Simple. appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Among the wealth of information that was shared at the recent Convergence 2011 Conference was a powerful early adopter customer success story with US distributor and manufacturer of hydraulic and pneumatic systems Hydra-Power Systems.

Just to make sure that this case was not lost amid the rest of the Convergence buzz, I wanted to share it with you again as a great example of a customer that is already experiencing the power, simplicity and agility that the coming release can enable.

With a multisite operation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Hydra-Power Systems has relied on Microsoft Dynamics AX as a highly dependable, flexible, and scalable business enabler since 2007. So when the company was given the opportunity of joining the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program to gain early access to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 , they jumped at the chance. Bob Jablonski, operations manager at Hydra-Power Systems, was especially keen to investigate how the release could introduce new efficiencies and enhancements to help the whole business run more smoothly, improve responsiveness to customer demand, and make the company even more competitive.

The new solution will be used across the organization to streamline and boost productivity: delivering insight and reporting to company leadership; enabling visibility and efficiencies for inside and outside sales teams; enabling engineering managers to run and track manufacturing projects more effectively; and helping warehouse employees optimize management of inventory, receiving, and shipping processes…and just about everywhere else in-between.

The final goal of the implementation is for employees at Hydra-Power Systems to use Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to perform all of the tasks that are central to their roles, equipped with the reports, dashboards, alerts, and other decision-making tools that they need to help them move the business forward and serve their customers better.

The upgrade and implementation progress has been fast and surprisingly non-disruptive. Largely handling the pre-release upgrade on his own, Jablonski has been able to run an efficient, phased implementation of functionalities for specific business activities and requirements over time. And with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 providing so many new capabilities as part of the core product, the implementation is primarily based on standard product functionality, with far fewer customizations than were previously necessary to meet business needs. As Jablonski comments: “By providing us with all these capabilities and making them easy to implement and operate, Microsoft gives us opportunities that usually only large companies with ample resources experience.”

As for the business needs of the future, although uncertain, they are certainly not forgotten. As Jablonski adds: “With Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, it’s very easy to scale horizontally or vertically to meet the challenge of whichever requirements the business presents.”

Sounds like Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is already providing impressive upgrade value at Hydra-Power Systems by delivering a powerful business foundation that’s simple to implement and use today, and with the agility to seize compelling new business opportunities as they arise.

You can read the full customer success story here, and see the Hydra-Power Systems video here.

Ross Thorpe

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Product Marketing

The post Industrial Equipment Company Hydra-Power Systems Advances Its Business on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In the wake of the early disclosures around the coming Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 release at the Microsoft Dynamics AX Technical Conference 2011 last month, ripples of anticipation and interest have been spreading throughout the ERP technical and business communities.

With planned availability in Q3, 2011, and key launch activities scheduled around Convergence 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia in April, there is a strong appetite to learn more about the product that promises to deliver the next generation of ERP architecture.

An audacious claim indeed, but with many organizations still tied to ageing, one-size-fits-nobody ERP solutions that were originally implemented to safeguard from the dreaded Y2K meltdown, the agility and simplicity offered by Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012’s Model Driven Layered Architecture should be a complete revelation.

Add to this Unified Natural Models that let organizations see, measure and change their business to address business requirements and opportunities; seamless, Pervasive Interoperability with Microsoft Office productivity applications and application platform technologies; and more than 1200 new features….well, that claim starts to seem a little like under-sell.

So, ever willing to be the bearer of good news, and to set the scene for future disclosures, our own Guy Weismantel, director of ERP marketing here in Microsoft Dynamics, took the opportunity to give a brief overview of What’s New in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in a recent Executive Interview Series for US-based software research and review company Software Advice Inc.

You can see the video interview here on the Software Advice blog.

Between now and the Q3, 2011 availability, you should stay tuned to The Edge for much more on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, read (or re-read) Kees Hertogh’s recent blog on Engineering the future…, and remember to register for Convergence 2011 to make sure that you are there in person to watch Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 usher in a new era of ERP architecture.

Ross Thorpe

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Product Marketing

The post Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – ushering in a new era… appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.