Multinational Corporation ERP Implementation – Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains

If you look back to the history, you will see that ERP for large publicly traded company had to be built upon very reliable hardware (more likely non-Intel hardware: mainframe, Sun sparc, etc.), powerful database platform: Oracle, DB2, Ingress, Sybase and reliable OS: UNIX. 10 years ago Microsoft had Windows NT first tries, plus Windows 95 was kind of revolution, but not the one to stake on for corporate users. Nowadays hardware (from Intel side), Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition, WindowsXP Pro, and Microsoft SQL Server could be considered reasonably reliable plus it is certainly easier to support these products, because of the large pool of Microsoft-oriented IT professionals available Worldwide. Microsoft Business Solutions offers several lines of ERP systems: Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft Navision, Solomon, Axapta. We don’t want to state here that in the future Microsoft will be only ERP systems provider, but it certainly is and will be one of the major players on the ERP/MRP market. In this small article we’ll consider the ways to implement large corporation required features in Microsoft Great Plains.

• GL Consolidation. If you do business exclusively in the USA – you probably do not need this, however if you have to operate in the multicurrency and under multiple countries regulations – you need this feature. European ERPs of late 1990th had this GL consolidation as separate module. Microsoft Great Plains doesn’t have this feature out of the box, and you have to implement it via MS SQL Server Data Transformation package, Stored Procedure or Great Plains Dexterity customization. The alternative approach is to use Enterprise Reporting or FRx with multicurrency to provide consolidated reporting

• Internal Audit reports. Internal Auditor should be provided with reliable random selection of documents to review. Great Plains is MS SQL Server based application and if you base your Crystal Report on the stored procedure in SQL Server – you can easily get random selection
• Intercompanies Transactions. This is probably complicated with multicurrency – but Great Plains has the module to address this issue

• Customer/Vendor Consolidation. You might deal through agents on your local or regional markets and based on the results you pay the agent or subtract from it. This feature is covered in Customer/Vendor Consolidation module

• Multiple languages support. Great Plains had support to all the major languages in version 6.0. When Microsoft acquired Navision Software – it staked on Navision in continental Europe and all the emerging markets (Russia, East Europe, Brazil, China). The way you implement local language or Unicode characters support – you translate several screens for GP local users and extend Dexterity with Unicode enabling software utility.

Do your homework with regards to implementation, customization, integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call +420 724 160 427 or ask for info@espaceconsulting.eu

Author: Andrew Karasev

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Oracle HTML DB

HTML DB uniquely converts an Oracle database into an online development service, which enables anyone with a Web browser to create reporting and data-entry applications quickly without the need for professional programming skills.

What Is Oracle HTML DB?

· It’s Browser driven.
· Provides rapid application development.
· It’s Wizard driven.
· You can quickly build web applications on the Oracle database for:
o Reporting
o Data entry
· Supported by Oracle 9.0.2.3 or later.
· Only needs Oracle HTTP Server.

Browser HTTP Server Oracle DB & HTML DB

HTML DB allows

You can create forms for:

· adding a record
· adding multiple records at a time
· updating a record
· deleting a record(s)
· viewing a record as read only

It allows you to setup triggers that execute when a particular action is committed by the user. For example, if a user clicks the delete button, some code will execute that will remove a product from the Oracle database, or write that record to another table, so that you have an audit trail.

Data is stored centrally and can be accessed by users from various locations. Users can be given privileges, where they can access only their own data. As an example following is a business scenario.

Business Scenario

Effective project management is the key to completing any project on time and within budget. Within every project there are always multiple issues that need to be tracked, prioritized, and dealt with.
For example there may be several projects that must be completed on time for Company A to be profitable. Missing deadlines for any of the projects will cause Company A to lose money. The project leads are tracking issues in several different ways. Some individuals are manually tracking issues in notebooks, others are tracking issues in text documents, and other managers are using spreadsheets.

By creating a hosted application in Oracle HTML DB, each project lead can easily record and track issues in one central location. Not only will everyone have access to just the data they need, but having the data stored in one location, will make it easier for management to determine if any critical issues are not being addressed.

Reports

Reports can be produced that allow users to filter report output. This allows the end user to set values that will be queried against to produce a report. These reports can be sorted by any heading on that report and can also be filtered down again. To produce these reports a developer needs to set the reports up and add the SQL queries or PL/SQL code to HTML DB.

Data can be imported from a spreadsheet into HTML DB and put into an Oracle database. All that is required is the database tables need to be setup first.

Reports can also be produced as pie charts, line charts, date reports (a calendar with text on specific dates where for example a support issue arose), bar charts and text output.

Author: Dal Hayer

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ERP Software Suppliers

The ERP market has continued to grow over the last 10 years. While it was once only the domain of Fortune 1000 companies, Enterprise Resource Planning has now caught the attention of small to medium sized companies. The growth rate of Enterprise Resource Planning has reached over 30% since the end of the 1990s.

Because this tool has become so important for a large number of companies and organizations, it is important to understand the suppliers who make it available to them. The foundation for ERP technology was introduced in the early 1970s. An organization called SAP was created by engineers who had worked for IBM, and it became one of the largest ERP vendors in the world.

The software created by SAP is R/3, and it was created for the purpose of assisting companies with their logistics and accounting processes. In addition to this, SAP also offered a number of tools that dealt with human resources. Over time, SAP has extended its services to include supply chain maintenance and data warehousing solutions. The second most popular ERP software company was PeopleSoft. The area where this company became most prominent was human resources. It eventually placed an emphasis on tailoring its products to the service sector, and they wanted to help organizations deal with their costs and expenses. One reason why SAP and PeopleSoft had a great deal of success is because they extended their product line to suit the needs of a changing market.

There are a number of other suppliers that have made important contributions to the ERP industry. Some of these companies are J.D. Edwards and Oracle. Oracle has sold ERP tools since the late 1980s, and these tools were designed to work with their databases. Oracle has focused on selling their products to consumer goods firms and manufacturing companies. Because of this, they have become a formidable adversary to companies such as SAP. However, Oracle has had a number of problems over the years. Many of these problems are a result of reorganizing the structure of the company as well as the uncertainty of their newer products.

Another ERP supplier that has become quite popular is Baan. Baan is a company based in the Netherlands that sells ERP logistics tools to companies that wish to avoid doing business with SAP. They have spent a great deal of effort focusing on software suppliers that are relatively small. One of the most powerful advantages of this strategy is that a broader variety of products were introduced. The firm called J.D. Edwards is a company that has sold software for many years. However, they did not officially become a public company until the 1990s. When the launched the OneWorld ERP tool, they became a powerful force in the market, and they have earned billions of dollars in profits.

There are the four ERP vendors that have made a tremendous impact on the industry. However, it should be noted that there are a host of smaller companies. Because the largest vendors have placed an emphasis on working with Fortune 500 to Fortune 1000 companies, this has left open a market that was not tapped for many years. The smaller ERP vendors are catering their services to smaller businesses. Some of the companies which have done well in this area are Infinium Software, QAD, and PowerCerv. The software sold by these companies will require a great deal of customization if they are to be used properly.

However, they have assisted these smaller businesses by offering their products at a much lower cost. In addition to this, the software can be implemented within a short time frame.

Source: www.exforsys.com

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