Back to basics
Peter Dhillon
Director Optimus Equations Ltd, D365BC Implementations and support owner D365Resourceltd
I can not think of a time when tech has been so prevelant and able to empower businesses. I see so much on here constantly informing us on whats current, whats new and how capable we are on deploying these tools for businesses.
As a Dynamics NAV and BusinessCentral enthusiast, I undertook a systems review for a Manufacturing firm operating in a niche market. The kind of firm that Dynamics Nav is exactly right for. Procurement, traceability, Supply Chain, Warehousing, Manufacturing, Costings and Financials. Straightforward.
And yet when they needed it most they could not work with the fundamentals. When were the parts going to be ready ? What were the parts for ? Production planners who could not plan, Financials that noone believed in and, Procurement relying on anything apart from NAV, Sales people who could not "pitch" with informed profit margins, customers annoyed at the lack of delivery and a Finance Director watching the cash bleed.
In my journey through investigating this it became obvious what had gone wrong. From the outset they had bitten off too much without realising that they could just have started with the basics and gone from one stepping stone to the next on both processes and costings. This would have allowed things to bed in, confidence to build and complexity to grow with high confidence levels.
I have always felt duty bound to advise our clients not just on the capability of the software but also on the capability of the company and if "stepping stones" were required to advise accordingly. I will admit that this takes courage and honesty, as well as being as certain as you can be that this advice is correct. Most ERP implementations have a shelf life of around 10 years, so an implemention journey launching with the basics and escalating when ready to more complexity over a relatively short period is a no brainer. I have been lucky enough to have been involved with clients who did take this route and in some cases 10 years after the project was signed off Nav serves them well and has grown with their needs.
At OptimusERP we concentrate on the client, the software comes second.