Lotte Cordt Ihlemann, Author at Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog

Microsoft is excited to collaborate with BDO, USA

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 10:30:00 +0000

Microsoft is excited to collaborate with BDO, USA LLP to deliver leading edge business process outsourcing services to their middle market clients.

BDO USA, LLP, one of the nation’s leading accounting, tax, consulting and advisory firms, is teaming with Microsoft to bring the efficiencies of cloud accounting services to its middle market clients. Announced this week, BDODrive, is a new integrated solution for financial management, accounting services and business intelligence that leverages Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Azure.

“We are extremely pleased to be working with BDO USA on BDODrive. As the premier accounting firm serving middle market businesses, BDO is ideally positioned to drive adoption of cloud-based solutions at entrepreneurial companies,” said Paul White, General Manager Microsoft Dynamics SMB Product Marketing. “Other professional service firms are trying to move their clients online, but they don’t provide the value-added advisory relationship that BDO professionals bring to the table. Their analysis and insight greatly enhances the impact of the online solution for clients.”

Historically, users of outsourced services have viewed their relationship as transactional. BDO is committed to changing this view of outsourced services. BDODrive is about a relationship with a valued advisor, just as much as it is about achieving new levels of efficiency through leading-edge technology.

“Given the familiarity of middle market businesses with Microsoft, it was a priority for us to incorporate their technologies into BDODrive – our outsourcing solution for finance and accounting services,” said Kelly Johnson, Partner and National Practice Leader for Business Services & Outsourcing at BDO USA. “We look forward to working with Microsoft in converting existing clients and many new clients to the cloud and all the benefits it provides.”

A real-time, mobile view of their business’s performance accessible via laptop, tablet or phone
New levels of efficiency, security, business intelligence and standardized best practices to outsourced finance and accounting service
Access to a dedicated team of experienced professionals to provide analysis, identify opportunities, mitigate risks and collaborate on growth strategies
A scalable solution that adapts to clients’ needs as they grow and their business becomes more complex

The announcement of BDODrive and BDO USA’s relationship with Microsoft, follows an announcement last week of a strategic alliance between Microsoft and BDO globally. BDO, together with Microsoft, is poised to deliver exceptional client service across all areas of its operations and industries.

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Small and Midsize Business Success: 6 Inspiring Stories

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Head to any major news outlet right now, and in the financial section you’ll likely find coverage of major mergers, new technology that is making a splash, and how the market is faring. All of these stories are important to be sure, but they’re not the only news worth reporting. Every day, whether we take notice or not, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are making equally noteworthy moves we can all learn from.

So, in the spirit of fairness and good will, here are some SMBs that have recently reaped great rewards by rethinking the way they do business.

1. Gearys of Beverly Hills. Gearys has been a standout in luxury home goods since its doors opened in 1930. With the advent of online shopping, this little store with a big reputation started looking for a way to deliver its high standards of personalized, attentive service to online customers. Recently the company made the decision to modernize, adopting Microsoft Dynamics and the Microsoft cloud to help strengthen relationships with online shoppers and give on-site sales associates mobile access to customer account information, while also connecting sales and accounting processes for visibility across the entire business.

2. Midlands Air Ambulance. Another organization making great strides to understand its community is this UK-based charity, which operates three emergency response helicopters. By using Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Midlands now has better information about its donors. This improved insight can help the charity increase contributions and use incoming funds donations more effectively. Increased visibility into the use of these funds helps assure donors that their money is being spent wisely, so they’ll be more likely to donate again should the need arise.

3. Bounce Foods. Just 10 years old, this global producer of healthy snack foods has experienced rapid growth in recent years. As Bounce Foods added new suppliers and customers of all sizes across Australia, Europe, and North America, the company needed to upgrade its management of customer and supplier experiences. Thanks to a new cloud-based, mobile-centric ERP solution, company representatives can now handle orders and customer issues the moment they crop up, even while on the go. States company CEO Mark Tanous, “One of the most pleasing things for me personally is when someone thanks me for a quick reply. It makes my day!”

4. Kelly Roofing. A small, family owned company, Kelly Roofing was looking for tools to help improve its already sterling rapport with customers, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for rapid growth. With Dynamics CRM Online, this small business now has the technology to ensure that each customer receives the proper level of service. Aided by online scheduling and workflow tools, Kelly Roofing has also doubled revenue without increasing its staff size.

5. World Animal Protection. Despite having offices in 15 countries, this global animal welfare organization is made up of fewer than 500 employees. In an effort to reduce back-office costs and obtain a unified view of its geographically disparate finance and operations processes, World Animal Protection replaced spreadsheets with a connected, cost-efficient, cloud-based solution. The reduction in cost and time spent on analysis now means that staff can spend more time in the field, secure in the knowledge that they can do their jobs efficiently from anywhere.

6. Adaptive Solutions. After years spent working out of physical offices, this consulting firm made the decision to move its business to the cloud. Now the full power of Adaptive Solutions exists everywhere that its agents do, thanks in part to the use of holistic CRM and office tools housed in the cloud. The reduced overhead that resulted from leaving the office for good also enabled the business to expand faster than ever before.

If you operate a growing company that’s held back by outdated or basic management tools, it’s time to take the steps to move your business to the cloud, better manage your finances and operations, and build closer customer relationships. With the right business solutions, you too can experience the kind of success these folks have.

You owe it to yourself to discover what Microsoft Dynamics can do for small and midsize businesses. And for an in-depth analysis on how so many small and midsize businesses are finding success in the cloud, check out our e-book, The Cloud as a Platform.

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Now Available! Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 17:31:00 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 has shipped and is now available for download! We just made the announcement to over 500 Microsoft Partners at the sold-out Directions US event in Nashville, Tennessee. This is a significant milestone for Microsoft Dynamics and represents a big step forward in interoperability with Office 365 and Windows Azure, as well as great new functionality such as cash management and enhanced usability. For more information on what’s in the release, check out this post from the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 announce at Directions EMEA.

Over the past several months we’ve been gearing up for the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 by working closely with our first “go-live” early adopter customers and partners, including:

Passion for Life (PFL) Healthcare, a UK manufacturer and distributor of non-prescription medical products, that is a former Sage 200 customer. PFL aims to grow its business by 20% next year and is now running Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM as the foundation for growth. Read the full case study here.

Rocco Forte Hotels, a five-star hotel chain, with hotels in Europe, the Middle-East and North Africa, deployed Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 as a hosted solution, allowing Rocco Forte to focus on its core business activity without worrying about the maintenance and security of server hardware. Read the full case study here.

We are extremely excited to ship yet another release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV on schedule, and can’t wait see how our customers and partners put it to work in their businesses. And yes, the product team is already hard at work on the next release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV! Keep watching The Edge blog for more info.

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Microsoft Dynamics NAV helps software provider understand its cost base for rapid growth

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 01:44:00 +0000

Sláinte Healthcare is a provider of technology and services to the acute healthcare sector. Founded in 2006, it grew rapidly to an international organisation with 75 employees, across six countries and it needed fast and accurate financial information so it could make the necessary investment, sales and marketing decisions.

Sláinte chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV to provide a leading-edge, multi-territory, scalable platform, which gives it the reassurance and confidence needed for rapid growth. Andrew Murphy, Sláinte Healthcare’s CEO explains, “We’ve doubled in size every year for the last five years and, if we’re going to do that for the next five years, access to information to allow us to make really critical decisions on a fully informed basis is really important. We can now do that because we have Dynamics NAV 2013.”

Not only can the system do everything Sláinte needs, but they liked the easy set-up of the product. As Andrew Murphy says: “I was pleasantly surprised at how fast it all was. The rapid-start functionality of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 is great.”

Read the full case study and watch the video.

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Refrigerated and Frozen Foods Distributor Enhances Operations with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:51:45 +0000

When Dutch Farms needed an ERP system, the company chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Jay Earnshaw, General Operations Manager of Dutch Farms, explains, “Microsoft Dynamics NAV was a complete and integrated package, backed by Microsoft, and offered us the flexibility to meet our unique needs now and as we continue to change to meet the needs of our customers.”

Relying on the solution since 2004, Dutch Farms has gained visibility and control over its operations, can maintain profit margins and control overhead, and has streamlined supply chain management. With powerful tools in place, the company has also enhanced its competitiveness and is now better equipped to meet the needs of both small and large retailers alike. Says Earnshaw, “We now have the means to forge ahead as an independent, midsize distributor in the extremely competitive, thin-margin perishable-goods industry. We are able to understand what we have done as a business and what we are currently doing, and make a strong run into the future.”

Want to learn more? Read the full case study here.

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Print Distributor Strengthens Customer Ties and Flexibility with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:21:00 +0000

Already one of the largest print distributors in the midwestern United States, Print Management Partners is rapidly growing its base of satisfied customers that trust the company to manage their print and digital-publishing workflows. Print Management Partners was founded in 1995 as an employee-owned firm with an emphasis on customer service. Since its founding, Print Management Partners had used two different enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems specifically designed for the print distribution industry. However, as the company grew in scope and scale, it found that its old system was unable to handle changing business requirements, especially in terms of collaborating with customers and suppliers. “We outgrew the capabilities of our old system,” explains James O’Brien, President of Print Management Partners. “And, we relied on the vendor to make changes—sometimes they could make those changes, and sometimes they could not. What was worse was that sometimes the changes didn’t meet our expectations, causing further delays. Because of this, it was extremely difficult to do things like change the look and feel of our e-commerce component, integrate with a customer’s ERP system, or even compile data into a single report.”

Searching for a solution with greater flexibility, Print Management Partners looked into general ERP solutions from Microsoft, NetSuite, Sage, and SAP and eventually narrowed the field down to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and SAP Business One. “After considering our options, we chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV over competing offerings for three reasons: superior technical flexibility, the partner ecosystem, and a long-term cost advantage,” says O’Brien. To customize and implement the solution, Print Management Partners teamed up with Solution Systems, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and member of the 2010 President’s Club for Microsoft Dynamics based just outside of Chicago.

By replacing its inflexible ERP system with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Print Management Partners gained a world-class solution that helps the company deliver superior service, eliminate inefficient financial management processes, and open up opportunities for international expansion. Print Management Partners uses Microsoft Dynamics NAV to respond quickly to customer requests, strengthening the company’s advantage over competitors. Compared to the previous systems, employees today spend 50 percent less time processing customer orders. With help from Solution Systems, Print Management Partners configured Microsoft Dynamics NAV so that it can make changes to the solution without the help of software programmers, which the company was required to do with its previous ERP system. Employees at Print Management Partners today can make more informed decisions based on information from Microsoft Dynamics NAV. “No doubt, implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV was a significant investment for our company, but one that has proven absolutely worth every penny,” says O’Brien. “And, for us, the solution came at a long-term cost advantage over the competing product.”

Read the full case study here.

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ISV grows public-sector business with super-fast Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementations that ease regulatory financial compliance

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:24:12 +0000

INFOMA Software Consulting, a leading German public-sector ISV, built its solution newsystem public on the basis of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. More than 900 German public-sector entities already use the solution. Regulations mandate that all governmental bodies implement new financial standards and processes, so the many smaller and resource-limited entities also have to change the way they manage finances. For these customers, the company standardized on a preconfigured, optimized version of newsystem public that workers can be comfortable with after one and a half days of training. This approach incorporates many thousands of hours of technology and consulting experience on the INFOMA team. For implementations of the preconfigured solution, INFOMA also decided to streamline the implementation and project management, enabling customers to perform their tasks with the new finance management software after a minimal lead time. With the standardized version of newsystem public, INFOMA performs implementations in 8 to 10 days. Most small customers opt for the hosted solution during negotiations. With newsystem public in the cloud, customers receive important solution updates that help them comply with new regulatory mandates, in addition to upgrades and new features. They also benefit from the stringent data protection and application availability measures in place at the hosting data center.

With an optimized solution and a streamlined implementation approach, INFOMA generates significant business growth with delighted customers and has enhanced its competitive edge. Successful projects with these customers account for approximately 35 percent of the company’s implementations today. INFOMA also finds that it has an advantage over large competitors, such as SAP, whose offerings may lack the optimization for the public sector and may come with a complex pricing model, higher upfront costs, and features many customers find unnecessary. Says Daniel Riss, Consulting Practice Manager at INFOMA, “By keeping things as simple and practical as we could, we found a way to empower small public-sector customers with an effective financial management solution that lets them focus on their work and comply with regulatory mandates for public-sector finance.”

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Microsoft Dynamics NAV Just Got Better

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:57:00 +0000

Today at Directions EMEA in the Microsoft keynote Paul White and Daniel Brown announced new product improvements for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Within the next several months, we will be able to give our customers the opportunity to use a really smart business reporting tool called Jet Reports Express for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This tool gives users an easy and simple way to create powerful reports using Microsoft Dynamics NAV data from within the familiar environment of Microsoft Excel, and with all the great Microsoft Excel capabilities, like Power Pivot, formatting, charting and Pivot Tables.

Our customers will also be able to take advantage of integration between Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Office 365! Zetadocs Express for Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a document management tool that enables users to store original documents associated with Microsoft Dynamics NAV records, such as emails, faxes and scanned documents, securely in one central location for fast, easy retrieval using Microsoft SharePoint Online – a component of Microsoft Office 365. It’s always satisfying to deliver new features and enhancements that can make a positive difference in the way our customers’ run their business. But what makes these enhancements even better is that they are the result of a partnership with two Microsoft Dynamics ISVs who are leading in their field. These partnerships have enabled us to deliver important enhancements and more value to our customers – sooner rather than later. And that’s a great thing.

In the month of June we will post more on availability, conditions and requirements for customers and partners on PartnerSource and CustomerSource.

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann

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Directions EMEA – Largest NAV Partner event in Europe starts today!

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:15:00 +0000

Over the years, the Directions EMEA and Directions US events have grown to become prime conferences for our Microsoft Dynamics NAV partners creating a platform where they can meet and connect, share knowledge, get trained and engage in new business opportunities as well as network with Microsoft representatives and executives. The event is run and owned by the partner community, however, Microsoft will be hosting sessions and be on spot to engage with our engaged Microsoft Dynamics NAV partner community.

Today the European event opens in Berlin and runs for 3 days – a packed program with sessions split into 3 tracks; business, technical and training sessions. See the full schedule here.

This year Microsoft is especially delighted to have Kirill Tatarinov, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS), to open the Keynote at Directions EMEA.

As we will be back reporting more about the event, take the NAV Nostalgia quiz which Microsoft has posted on Microsoft@Direcitons; a fun way to test your knowledge about the products history or see why The Genie Cartoon decided to join Directions EMEA, this is all just fun! When it comes down to business; partners joining Directions EMEA have opportunities to speak to Microsoft Dynamics NAV R&D team members in side meetings during the 3 days – take a look at the schedule and Microsoft contacts here.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV partners enjoy the event!

Lotte Cordt Ihlemann

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