Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has many years of successful implementation in multiple horizontal markets. In today's small article we'll share our experience of implementing and customizing Microsoft Great Plains, formerly Great Plains eEnterprise/Dynamics in beverage production and distribution industries. These examples will cover two scenarios: US regional distribution and International fruit punch production and sales in US, Latin America and Europe. We'll try to be industry specific and at the same time technical ? using Microsoft Great Plains technical & customization terminology to address both ? decision makers and technical consultant / programmer.
? Concentrate and Output. Usually company sells concentrate to small and mid-size production facilities, where fruit punch or soda is produced and company control the produced volume in Gallons or Liters. In Great Plains you should have light production customization, the natural way is to build it upon Bill of Materials (BM) module. This production is very simple ? you put some labor units and portion of concentrate or powder to produce one Gallon / Liter of punch/soda.
? Marketing Reports. Beverage produces are fiercely competing with each other for the market share. In the case of fruit punch or soda ? competition moves to emerging markets, such as East Europe or Latin / South America. Company has to control sales dynamics via monthly marketing reports, where marketing people can compare sales comparing to the same period of the last year. You have two options ? first is to create data warehouse on SOP30200 and SOP30300 tables (Great Plains Sales Order Processing module) using MS SQL Server Datawarehousing, Cognos or other datamining tool and second ? use set of Crystal Reports. Datawarehousing approach requires user training and might be a bit less precise, Crystal Reports are very precise ? but might be less flexible.
? EDI. Electronic Document Interchange ? in the case of US regional beverage distributor/wholesaler (beer, wine, soda, strong lemonade), we usually see UNIX ordering system, working with EDI orders. In this case Great Plains has to be integrated with this IBM AS/400/RS6000 box and as company manager you should be looking for Microsoft Business Solutions VAR/Partner, who has experience dealing with multiple platforms: UNIX/Linux/Windows/Oracle/Sun Solaris
? Advertisement Expense Allocation. Beverage producer usually launches TV ads on local markets, especially difficult is to track ads efficiency on the emerging markets: Central America, Caribbean, Africa, South East Asia, Russia. You need to establish variable or fixed allocation accounts mechanisms for ads expense tracking
Good luck with implementation, customization and 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 866-528-0577 or 630-961-5918! help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies (http://www.albaspectrum.com) ? Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in California, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Russia
Make-or-Break Factors in Success and ProfitabilityFor quick printers, estimating can... Read More
Great Plains Software Dynamics, Dynamics C/S+, eEnterprise were written on... Read More
We all already got used to computer monitoring both at... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM become more and more... Read More
Bad News - the Threat is Bigger than it SeemedHow... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise... Read More
In 2004 Oracle, Inc. made its new step toward J2EE... Read More
In order to meet regulatory and corporate compliance requirements reporting... Read More
While Ukraine is becoming a new popular IT outsourcing destination,... Read More
IBM Lotus Domino or Microsoft Exchange?The severe competition continues for... Read More
Remember back in the days where screensavers were the coolest... Read More
Great Plains Fixed Assets Management module is a robust tool... Read More
ERP is the acronym of Enterprise Resource Planning. Multi-module ERP... Read More
Microsoft Retail Management (RMS) and Microsoft Great Plains are retail... Read More
Your computer cost you from hundreds to thousands of dollars,... Read More
And kill the best layout software in the process of... Read More
Did you ever want to erase everything on your computer?... Read More
There are many commands that are used in linux on... Read More
Before September of 1995, Microsoft ignored the Internet because their... Read More
Most people don't use Photoshop to its fullest capabilities. Here... Read More
At the end of XX century, in the late 1990th... Read More
We would like to give you several situations, when you... Read More
Are you ready? SQL Server 2005, the next-generation data management... Read More
Now that spyware is the single most dangerous threat to... Read More
Innovative Maintenance Systems (IMS) is one company that offers solutions... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Retail Management System (Microsoft RMS)... Read More
The most important benefit of XML is its simplicity. Though... Read More
All of us know that Microsoft bought former Great Plains... Read More
Disclaimer: All the thoughts expressed are my views only! Your... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics... Read More
Microsoft CRM was designed to be easily customizable. Microsoft CRM... Read More
The destruction of the Soviet Union about 15 years ago,... Read More
How to delete the user? This is the first problem... Read More
Have you noticed WordPerfect is gearing up for a comeback... Read More
Research bears that less than 70 percent of development projects... Read More
Usually, the easiest way to tell you have spyware is... Read More
As Mozilla Firefox nears 10% market share, with well over... Read More
A UNIX Shell is in simplest terms, a command line... Read More
Program Flow is what you think it is. How the... Read More
Microsoft Word is one of the most popular office applications... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains serves multiple industries in the... Read More
The stakes are high when considering security, privacy, and savings,... Read More
Internet worms. Is your PC infected?If your computer has become... Read More
You probably didn't casually invite, or extend a formal attendance... Read More
There are plenty of articles out there about how to... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has full-featured manufacturing set of... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software eEnterprise,... Read More
You would like to protect your documents, wouldn't you? Reasons... Read More
In part III of this ISDN primer, we learned that... Read More
Trying to figure out a stream in banning one email... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and Axapta are Microsoft Business... Read More
Configuring PPP PAP AuthenticationNow we know how the ISDN link... Read More
Running Applications in Compatibility Mode With Windows XP, you can... Read More
It is possible that if one avoided all sources of... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was purchased from Great Plains... Read More
User interfaces and accessibility are some of the most important... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains is one of three Microsoft Business Solutions... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics... Read More
The major reason I recommend getting your hands on real... Read More
Today's business world is fast-paced. No matter what it is... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is very generic accounting application... Read More
Is your PC is slow and wimpy? Then you need... Read More
SyncUp, a file synchronizer is designed to assist the home... Read More
I suggest that you do not spend a lot of... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for mid-size companies... Read More
Software |