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Microsoft
Dynamics compares favorably against SAP on End User Business Productivity
This article is based on
the study conducted on:
By
Samadhan: 806, Mahabir Tower, Main Road, Ranchi,
Jharkhand, India. 834 001
Phone: +91 651 2331882, 3290550. www.samadhanindia.com
Email:
info@samadhanindia.com
Executive
Summary:
This newsletter is based on a business productivity
measurement framework developed by Keystone Strategy,
working under the direction of Dr. Marco Iansiti, the
David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration at
the Harvard Business School, and sponsored by Microsoft.
User productivity is linked to the user experience AND
User productivity decides the return companies get on
their investment in ERP implementation. SAP has long
focused more on adding functionality to their solutions
rather than focusing on the usability of them. This has
resulted in very complex applications that require
extensive user training and have not been thought of as
‘user friendly’ applications by many of those that have
been forced to use
them.
While Microsoft has always put the user at the center of
it’s design approach for Microsoft Dynamics ERP
solutions. Starting in 2005 Microsoft started doing
their customer research in a more systematic way, focused on the unique needs of each employee based on
their role in the organization.
They have conducted and will continue to
conduct thousands of interviews with employees who use
or want to use business applications to help them be
more productive in their respective roles.
This knowledge and understanding of the different users
and the work they do, has been captured in something
Microsoft refers to internally as the “Customer Model”.
Using this “Customer model” in the design stages of
Microsoft software has allowed them to build software
that is focused on making its users more productive and
more efficient in their day to day tasks.
The study conducted recently by Keystone Strategy
validates the fact that end‐ user business productivity
in Microsoft is decidedly better than that of SAP. As
stated earlier this means that not only is the return of
investment is better for Microsoft ERP, the user
training and re‐training costs are also much lower in
Microsoft.
This is a very good news for the those who have already
invested in and are using Microsoft Dynamics Navision.
The businesses who are about to decide, may do well to
select Microsoft Dynamics Navision and reap the benefit
of user oriented approach of the product design in
Navision.
Samadhan: 806, Mahabir Tower, Main Road, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India. 834
001
Phone: +91 651 2331882, 3290550.
www.samadhanindia.com
Email:
info@samadhanindia.com
The Wall Street Journal
reports the woes of the SAP users.
A detailed survey was done by Keystone Strategy and the
findings place Microsoft Dynamics ways ahead of
SAP:
Microsoft promises to continue delivering the very best
due to its underlying philosophy
To fulfill the un‐met needs
in business applications, Microsoft will continue to
invest and execute on their vision for the “Connected
Business”:
Connecting Your Business Vision with Software
where Microsoft is making investments in
Microsoft Dynamics to help customer “bridge the gap”
between ideas company has to…. And their ability to
execute them. Examples of these investments are:
-
Software that looks like
your business - where Microsoft is pursuing a design
approach for
making business process software that actually looks
like your business. Technologists call this ‘model
driven design’. Think of a WYSIWYG – what you see is
what you get” - for your company by making the different
components of Dynamics be easily configured using visual
tools that resemble org charts and process flow
diagrams. This is a long term vision that Microsoft is
tackling in pieces.
-
Software that Fits with
Your Systems - The type of flexibility described above
derives from Microsoft’s “integrated innovation”
approach to software development. Microsoft invests in
integrating their technologies together so you don’t
have to, reducing the amount of time and money you need
to spend on customizing the system in order to support
new opportunities. The entire Microsoft software “stack”
– Windows, SQL Server, SharePoint, BizTalk – is the native
infrastructure for Dynamics, meaning that security,
portal, search, collaboration, and business intelligence
are built in. Of particular importance is our pragmatic
“Real Word SOA” approach to systems integration, where
dozens of customers in the last year have used the XML
and web services infrastructure of Dynamics to quickly
deploy new solutions that involve sharing of data and
processes across multiple installed legacy systems.
-
Software that is Industry
Relevant - Companies tell us they do not like being
forced to make a tradeoff between choosing a solution
that has rich platform capabilities from an established
vendor and a solution that supports the highly
specialized requirements of your particular industry.
Dynamics takes a balanced approach to delivering
software that is industry relevant, with deep platform
investments in targeted industry areas - including
manufacturing, distribution, retail, professional
services, and public sector – combined with the broadest
ecosystem of over 3,000 solutions that support the
highly specialized requirements of particular
industries.
Connecting People with
Processes
Even if
your company has a business process software environment
that is extremely well designed, it will not provide you
with much business value if most of your employees do
not use it. AMR released an important study last year
showing that for most companies that have an ERP system,
only 15% of employees have a licensed seat to the
software and only half of these licensed seats are
actually used. These systems contain your data on
customers, costs, orders, schedules – the lifeblood of
your business, yet most of your people do not use this
information within the context of their daily jobs. At
Microsoft we call this problem “the Last Mile of
Productivity”, a direct analogy to the problem facing
the growth of the Internet in the 1990’s, where it
seemed the entire world was wired for broadband
communication except for “the last mile” between the
local phone
branch and consumers in their homes. Just as the
eventual introduction of broadband to the home unleashed
an entirely new world of social networking and YouTube
for the consumer, the eventual connection of your
business process software with the people in your
company will unleash an entirely new world of
collaboration and productivity within your business.
Connecting Your Company with your Community
Microsoft is pursuing a strategy where
we will take our new capabilities around process
flexibility and user experience and enable you to apply
them beyond the four walls of your company, helping you
use the Internet to build richer connections with your
community of customers, suppliers, and partners.
Complied by:
Mr. Manoj Tiwari,
MD, Samadhan
manojtiwari@samadhanindia.com
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