Category Archives: Microsoft Dynamics

MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX OVER MICROSOFT DYNAMICS NAV

Microsoft Dynamics AX Over Microsoft Dynamics NAV

The Microsoft Dynamics suite includes ERP solutions for businesses of all sizes and industries. Over the last decade, Microsoft acquired two ERP companies that resulted in four Dynamics ERP products: Dynamics GP, Dynamics SL, Dynamics NAV, and Dynamics AX.

The two products that have the most crossover are Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics NAV. When deciding what fits the best for the company, a lot of people tend to generalize and view AX for large enterprises and NAV for small to medium size businesses. If only selecting a software was that simple.

In terms of size alone, Dynamics AX is regarded to handle up to 10X more users than Dynamics NAV. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller businesses using Dynamics AX and larger enterprises running Dynamics NAV. Instead of taking the traditional approach and looking at both products from a size perspective, let’s compare by looking at the bigger picture. Explore this article and know what are the major differences between Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

COMPLEX BUSINESS PROCESSES

Difficulties come in all shapes and sizes – from accounting compliance to vertical needs. Let’s say your organization has different accounting groups in different organizations within a consolidated corporate structure. This is one classic example of when the robust functionality of AX will overpower NAV. Dynamics AX works best when there are multiple accounting groups or a shared service models exists. Dynamics NAV is best suited for organizations with the same accounting group managing the books for multiple entities.

Dynamics AX is built on a platform that handles more complexities. Dynamics AX has more functionality out of the box.

ANALYTICAL CAPABILITIES

Once the user considers his business process complexities, then the user needs to consider the volume of data being transacted and the resulting reporting requirements. Dynamics AX has richer analytical and reporting functionality than Dynamics NAV, with more modules. The software also consists of much-advanced business intelligence, workflow, and portal capabilities that are beyond what Dynamics NAV natively offers.

Dynamics AX is one of the most powerful platforms that can handle great volumes of data without any decadence of performance. It can also handle multiple sites across multiple locations and has the capability to easily scale to thousands of users.

CLOUD AVAILABILITY

This scenario is a little easier to decode, as Dynamics AX was the first Dynamics ERP product built in the cloud. Dynamics NAV is available on-premise and hosted, but the latest version of Dynamics AX (AX7 or AX 2016) runs natively in Microsoft Azure. This is the best option for companies that are rapidly expanding and need mobility, versatility, and scalability in their ERP solution. The new release brings out the benefits of the cloud that are most important for business.

The cloud version, or AX on Azure, is also becoming the Operations Application in the upcoming Enterprise Edition of Dynamics 365, a new cloud product that combines both ERP and CRM capabilities into one solution. Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition is a solution designed for large companies with over 250 employees. By choosing this route, a user can merge the powerful functionality of Dynamics AX7 with individual modules for core CRM, in addition to Microsoft’s Power Apps and Flow. This solution is also available for on premise customers as well.

MICROSOFT DYNAMICS: WHAT IS CRM? WHAT MICROSOFT DYNAMICS IS ALL ABOUT?

Microsoft Dynamics: What is CRM? What Microsoft Dynamics is all about?

Every successful organization need the right enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software to help their employees to drive key business processes, making smarter and faster decisions and ensure they make the most of their assets and resources.

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, a user can accomplish mission-critical tasks across their organization. It reduces the cost of doing business and improves customer services by connecting and streamlining the user’s supply chain. So, explore this article and know about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and its importance.

CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system for managing organization interactions with current and future customers. It often involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. CRM helps to reduce the costs and increases the profitability by organizing and automating business processes that foster customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management software package developed by Microsoft focused on magnifying customer relationships for any organization. Also, the product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service sectors, but Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform and has been encouraging partners to use its proprietary (.NET based) framework to customize it.

The CRM Solution can also be used to drive the sales productivity and marketing effectiveness for an organization, handle the complete customer support chain and provides the social insights, business intelligence, and other functionalities and features. As a product, Microsoft Dynamics CRM also offers complete mobile support for using CRM apps on mobiles and tablets.

MICROSOFT DYNAMICS CRM IS BEING OFFERED IN TWO CATEGORIES:
CRM ONLINE

CRM Online is a cloud-based offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM where all the backend processes are managed on Microsoft servers. CRM Online is a subscription-based offering which is more preferred for organizations who may not want to manage all the technicalities involved in a CRM implementation. The user can get started with setting up their system in few days and access it on the web through their browser.

CRM ON-PREMISE

CRM On-premise is a customized and sturdy offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM where the CRM application and databases will be deployed on the user servers. This offering allows the user to control all their databases, customizations, deployments, backups, licensing and all other network and hardware setups. Usually, organizations who want to go for a customized CRM solution prefers on-premise deployment as it offers better integration and customization capabilities.

From the functional standpoint, both the offerings offer similar functionalities but they differ mainly in terms of implementation.

ACCESSING CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be accessed through any of the following options:

  • Browser
  • Mobile and Tablets
  • Outlook

MAJOR PRODUCT COMPETITORS

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is doubtlessly one of the top products in the CRM space. However, following are the other products that compete Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

  • Salesforce.com
  • Oracle
  • SAP
  • Sage CRM
  • Sugar CRM
  • NetSuite