Dynamics AX Flexible Implementation with International Aspect

If you are expanding internationally, then AX has certain advantages, as it is targeted to major regions and countries and is localized and translated there to such languages as Chinese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, German to give you just a short list.  Former Axapta in our opinion is better fit for larger organization, where you need real three tier ERP technology.  It is also recommended in food processing industry, where you need true process manufacturing functionality.  If you are also considering GP – please, note that it is good for so-called discrete manufacturing (process manufacturing is available through ISV add-ons, but we believe that this is important to do it in core offer from AX).  Let’s review additional information in paragraphs:

1. Corporate ERP localization.  This term typically includes two components: local country language support in user interface and compliance to local tax and business related regulations.  Foreign language might not sound like a big challenge, as you can have local IT folks to translate string resources, but legislation compliance is a big challenge and often a show stopper.  This for a moment about Corporate ERP “localization” to the USA: 1099, W2, W4, FEIN…  And as you may know here in United States the regulation is not really complicated, as business climate in general is very pleasant and stimulating.  Other countries might require electronic payment notification to the tax agency, obligatory sequential invoice numbering (plus Payroll, analogs to 1099 or vendor tax control).  We think that it is in general good idea let Microsoft Business Solutions deal with foreign country ERP compliance.  The good news is – AX is localized in major foreign countries and regions

2. Process Manufacturing.  It is common in mining (coal, precious metal, metal ore, copper, etc.) as well as in food processing (each pig, caw or chicken has different weight and muscle development and you do not know how much of the packaged pounds or kilos will be produced, however you have certain knowledge about statistics and estimate it as “from – to”).  Before you jump into Axapta project – please think about the scale of the implementation.  Are you upper mid-market production facility with twenty five and plus users in Accounting, AR, AP, Production departments in summary?

3. Distribution and Supply Chain Management.  This application is very flexible to Logistics extensions and custom business processes, especially where you are thinking about Warehouse Management on the Barcode scanning or RFID tag reading technologies.  Global Supply Chain Management is often associated with EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) technology and (or) B2B Ecommerce

4. Public Sector.  This offer is introduced in version 2012, where General Ledger module was redesigned to enable Fund Accounting .  We’d like to see how events will unfold, as we are writing this paper in May 2011, where 2012 release is not yet available in production version.  Earlier MBS recommended Dynamics GP with Grant Management module, based on Analytical Accounting for Non-Profit funds and charity organizations

5. Customization without a single line of code.  Well, this might sound like marketing or advertising pitch, and if you are suspicious you probably have some reasons to take this position.  Traditionally customization was coded in X++ which in turn is open through MorphX IDE (Integrated Development Environment).  In version 2012 MorphX metadata seems to be made portable.  It is now available in MS Visual Studio.  Plus you can publish newly created tables, queries, forms not only into Windows Fat Client, but also to Enterprise Portal (web thin client)

6. ISV products pool.  We tried to share the opinion with other resellers, and the general feeling that AX add-ons is in its initial growing phase.  Number of ISV products is growing, but at this time, 2011 – it is not compatible with huge number of custom modules, available through the ISV market for another Microsoft Dynamics ERP family product – GP or formerly known as Great Plains.  This is probably why Axapta implementation typically require some custom programming, integration and reporting

7. Deemphasizing MorphX in 2012.  It is probably great news for generic Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB developers.  However it might be just a marketing trick, where the time might show that X++ and MorphX is very good entrenched and they are not something for easy replacement.  In fact, similar scenario was seen back in 2004, where Microsoft Project Green was about to suggest recode Great Plains Dexterity in C# and by doing so forget about such problems as sticking to ANSII (one byte character standards), restrictions to the international expansions (as  hieroglyph alphabets requires Unicode or two bytes per character)

8. Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representative pick up the phone in St. Joseph, MI call center).  help@efaru.com  We have local presence in Chicagoland, Southern California, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). Our consultants speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese.  Our core expertise is in International Business