Corporate ERP for Multinational Firm: Microsoft Dynamics and SAP Business One

Jun 7
18:23

2009

Andrew Karasev

Andrew Karasev

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Globalization trend is real and many mid-size manufacturing organizations went into international business field. While you may get good advantage on international job market and outsource production to such countries as Brazil, you will have to be prepared to more complex accounting

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In this small publication we would like to walk you through multinational firm corporate ERP selection and implementation phases,Corporate ERP for Multinational Firm: Microsoft Dynamics and SAP Business One  Articles where we are using real case studies from our international ERP consulting practice:

 

1.       Corporate ERP in US Headquarters.  Here you often have little room for change, as your organization might already invested few or even many years ago to mid-size accounting application and everyone is happy with this historical choice.  In our example, we assume that your corporate ERP is Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics or eEnterprise.  Let’s assume that Great Plains is in production and you have solid number of FRx financial statements to cover Financial and Managerial Accounting versions of Balance Sheet, P&L, Statement of Cash Flow with their consolidated versions

 

2.       Manufacturing facility overseas.  Let’s assume that you acquired firm in Brazil, Sao Paulo area, were you now need to implement localized accounting application.  First idea is probably the following – we already purchased Dynamics GP licenses, why don’t we just add new company in our current Great Plains installation and have our Brazilian operations be accounted there?  Well, theoretically you can do that, however, there are some points to consider.  First, you should be aware if your selected ERP is translated to Brazilian Portuguese, and second – is your ERP compliant to Brazilian legislation?  If you make a research, calling Microsoft Dynamics subdivision, you will get the answers No.  Instead Microsoft would probably recommend you to deploy Dynamics AX, formerly known as Axapta, or as back up alternative – Dynamics NAV Navision.  Great Plains Dynamics GP is neither translated to Portuguese nor localized for Brazil

 

3.       Dynamics AX Axapta for Brazil.  Yes, this is what you should consider first.  AX is especially strong in process manufacturing, such as Brazilian food industry.  Axapta is not for tiny business, you should request local AX presentation to see if you can afford Axapta

 

4.       SAP Business One for Brazilian subsidiary.  This route should be taken if your Brazilian plant is mid-size or small.  SAP B1 is based in Microsoft SQL Server and internationalized, including Brazil, translated into Portuguese and compliant to Brazilian tax code

 

5.       East Europe.  Here you have to choose between Dynamics GP AX, Dynamics GP NAV and SAP Business One – all these are localized and available in most of East European countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech, Romania, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovakia.

 

6.       Asia.  If you have manufacturing facility in China, please consider AX or SB1, if you have manufacturing plant in Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, you may try Dynamics GP, AX, NAV or SAP Business One.  Turkey, Armenia, Georgia – think about AX