Rapid Implementation Methodology, a connector to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Service Pack 2 benefit new and existing customers.

March 2006 - Today at Convergence 2006, the Microsoft Business Solutions Group’s annual customer conference, Microsoft Corp. announced a new set of features and partner tools for Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV, formerly Microsoft® Business Solutions–Navision®, a fully customizable business management solution designed for companies seeking an integrated tool to help increase productivity without disrupting everyday operations. Through these enhancements, Microsoft Dynamics NAV can deliver faster and more cost-effective deployments, increased integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and better product performance.

With more than 1 million licensed users already, Microsoft Dynamics NAV is creating new opportunities for partners to quickly customize and deliver the solution in a cost-effective manner for customers. Microsoft is today announcing the Rapid Implementation Methodology (RIM) for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. RIM is designed to make the implementation process more efficient and predictable for partners and customers through standardization, automation and simplification. RIM will help drive down the total cost of ownership for customers, as well as free up partner resources to work on more specialized and value-added customization services. RIM includes tools to help partners automate key implementation tasks and pinpoint the exact information they need to get customers’ Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementations up and running more smoothly and quickly than ever. RIM tools include project schedules, questionnaires, setup data files and master data migration templates. As part of RIM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV will include additional RIM templates.

“By using RIM, we were able to install 11 separate Microsoft Dynamics NAV solutions for education organizations in just one month,” said Malcolm Roach, president of MBS partner Open Door Technology Inc. “For these 11, we also created a standard industry database complete with a chart of accounts, sent out templates for data conversion, and utilized standardized training specific to the client. Prior to RIM, it normally took two to three months per installation and we would never have been able to do so many at once.”

In addition, Microsoft Dynamics NAV customers will soon have the opportunity to leverage a new connector that will allow them to realize the benefits of integrating the solution with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, a full sales, marketing and customer service suite. Through this connection component, customers will be able to connect the valuable financial data and information in Microsoft Dynamics NAV to the sales-oriented CRM tools of Microsoft CRM, helping ensure that organizations have up-to-date and consistent data with two-way synchronization. Using the connector, users working in or out of the office can seamlessly exchange data and information across these two systems, helping increase sales force efficiency, streamlining processes across the organization, and empowering employees with up-to-date information and data.

Finally, Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 Service Pack 2, available in the second quarter of 2006, will complement the existing release with a variety of product enhancements and optimizations to further enhance the solution’s performance and usability.

Extracted from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/mar06/03-28Convergence2006NAVPR.mspx

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February 2006 – Microsoft have a clear and industry leading vision for their Dynamics range of software. Their vision extends beyond the current role for business / ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) s?lutions into a fully connected organisation.

Their vision takes away the need for users to get used to several software environments and replaces them with a single unified user interface. Giving users the ability to have information that is appropriate to their roles within the organisation on one screen – regardless of which system it came from.

All of the technology employed to create this vision is available now and can be implemented. Over the coming months and years Microsoft are committed to making their vision a compelling business reality. One that will give organisations the opportunity to empower their users and gain real efficiency benefits as well as giving users more information from which to work with.

If you would like to see how Microsoft Dynamics can help you improve the way your business works, please contact us for a discussion. Please call 01707 607000 and ask for Amit Wason, who will be happy to go through any queries you may have.

January 2006 – Microsoft Dynamics CRM has moved on considerably from its previous version, offering a simple ease of use that matches outlook – allowing users to start using CRM effectively from the start. Offering a Web and Outlook front end, it allows you to use and update CRM wherever you are – On or Off Line. The offline options works with Outlook and quickly updates your local database, giving laptop users “go-anywhere” availability.

Not only does the solution work for Sales and Service teams, it has a powerful reporting solution that allows managers and team members to extract meaningful information and trends easily.

For more information please contact us or go to Microsoft’s CRM web site at…http://www.microsoft.com/uk/dynamics/products/crm/keyfeatures/default.mspx

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December 2005 – Within the press and various publications, the subject of corporate Compliance is gaining more and more attention. Various factors such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Turnbull report are focusing on the non-operational procedures and polices in place within the corporate structure. The responsibility for ensuring correct procedures and adherence to them no longer rests with the auditors, but is held with the Directors. The exact impact on corporate policy is not quite clear at the moment. As media coverage and share-holder attention start to focus on the corporate compliance and risk management – be that Health and Safety, Quality, Social Compliance or risk avoidance measures – it seems that directors are going to be held (personally) accountable for the way their companies follow procedures – or (more significantly) when they do not.

As a foundation, a defined strategy and strong management involvement is needed to create a sound operational environment - allowing good business procedures to operate effectively. Once these are in place, how do Directors gain confidence that their strategies are making a positive difference to their level of compliance? Can an array of spreadsheets and documents continue to serve the n?eds of the board? Currently, Directors of most small-to-medium enterprises (SME’S), that have a need to report on compliance (be that industry specific requirements or internal goals), have relied on their management team to report on the levels of compliance. With the move to increased corporate governance it seems that these ad-hoc arrays of documents are becoming increasingly difficult to audit and to extract ‘intelligent’ information from. Systems that allow for risk management and the recording of ‘events’ is increasingly being seen as a core requirement. It seems that a more ‘intelligent’ solution is needed, one where management can record the planned risks and the actions that are required when they arise, one that can weight the severity of events and report the overall compliance to the board graphically. Would a more proactive solution that e-mails or texts the appropriate teams on the occurrence of a specific event be required? Could sending these teams instructions on what actions are needed help ensure that the fallout from events is minimised and handled efficiently?

This is a developing subject and we would be glad to hear from directors to better understand how you feel the subject of compliance will affect you.

November 2005 – Microsoft’s new release of their database solution - SQL Server has many enhancements over its predecessor. One of these is to its built in Reporting Services; this offers companies an easy route into the benefits of Business Intelligence.

SQL Server Reporting Services is a comprehensive, server-based reporting solution designed to help you author, manage, and deliver both paper-based and interactive Web-based reports. Giving all levels of the organisations accurate and timely information that will help them be more effective on a day to day basis.

For more information please go to Microsoft’s SQL Server web site for more details…

October 2005 - QlikTech Teams with HP and Intel to Leverage Platform Speed with Intelligent Ad-Hoc Data Analysis for Business Insight in Seconds.

QlikTech, Inc., today announced a one billion record benchmark of its QlikView application, extending its ability to give individuals quick and easy access to information locked in corporate databases. The QlikView application takes full advantage of Intel processor-based HP Integrity and HP ProLiant servers to offer fast, scalable and cost effective access to data analysis previously only available from complex and specialized enterprise BI applications.

The billion record milestone has tremendous impact on companies that are being forced to compete in today’s global “always-on” business environment. Not only has the amount of data that needs to be stored, tracked and analyzed increased by orders of magnitude, but the ability to access that data to determine trends or make quick decisions has been diminished by the inability of individuals to make their own ad hoc queries on the data.This trend is particularly important in the retail market where access to large volumes of point of sale data and the ability for an individual to quickly identify buying patterns in seconds rather than months can be critical to staying competitive. Financial services is another market where fast and easy access to both high level and detailed information is vital. Imagine that the CEO of a bank can see a broad view of business metrics and, within seconds, move to a level of detail that identifies credit risks and who is managing them.

(extract from the QlikTech website www.qliktech.com. http://www.qliktech.com/ArticleDisplay.asp?id=1779 )

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September 2005 - Microsoft Business Solutions have announced that their forthcoming release (Navision 4.0 SP1) will have a strong integration to Windows SharePoint™ Services. This release will also include a number of other improvements and enhancements.

Microsoft Navision Employee Portal is Microsoft Navision’s integration to both Windows SharePoint Services as well as to the Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. Microsoft Navision Employee Portal provides Web-based access to real-time enterprise resource planning based on data for employees and partners via a known Microsoft Web platform.

The main benefit for having an intranet portal offering is to broaden the footprint of the Microsoft Navision application and enable a self-service environment within customer sites. Instead of having to use the standard Microsoft Navision client to view, modify, or create data in Microsoft Navision, it will now be possible to do these tasks using an application that resides on all desktops—the Internet Explorer. This enables a broader range of users to work with Microsoft Navision data and reduces the amount of time it takes to learn to read and update data.

August 2005 - Being able to send e-mails and faxes for ‘bulk’ items is a quick way to save money and time on postage. Utilising ZetaDocs for Accounts® from Equisys, CBS can offer an easy to use method of sending documents such as Statements and Invoices directly to your customers e-mail address or by fax.

ZetaDocs itself is a very easy to use solution that allows a user to print documents to business stationery (for example a letter head) and then allow other standard documents to be attached (for example any Terms & Conditions). These documents are all sent as one neat PDF document to the mail recipient or can be saved for future use. ZetaDocs works with almost any Windows compatible software package.

ZetaDocs for accounts works directly with Navision SQL Server to recognise print jobs (such as Statements) and automatically sends them to the correct recipient; either by e-mail, fax or printed hard copy – depending on the settings chosen. This saves the costs involved with postage and filling envelopes, as documents are directly sent by e-mail (via PDF documents) or fax.

July 2005 - Understanding the issues faced by your business is the first step to finding a suitable solution. But how do you calculate the actual cost of dealing with these issues? How do you know if a solution to this will actually add value to your business?

CBS will identify and quantify the financial impact of your existing issues faced. We will prepare and present a board level report to you and your director where there is a real and actual business benefit in finding a solution.

To enable us to gain an in-depth understanding of the financial impact of business constraints, we have selected a solution that methodically and accurately helps us calculate the anticipated return on your investment (RoI). This is a powerful benchmark to measure the impact of current business issues and to measure the effectiveness of systems that have been employed to address those issues.

By performing an analysis of your current business issues, CBS will be able to calculate the financial impact those issues have on your business. Once a solution has been identified and proposed, the methodology can be used to calculate the actual Return of Investment after a few months of “live” use.

QlikTech launches in the UK

23rd June 2005 - The perfect setting for the launch of a concept that breaks with tradition, The Saatchi Gallery has become an international forum for contemporary art and the launch pad for previously unseen, innovative talent. Guests at QlikTech’s recent ‘Art of New Rules’ event were left with a similar lasting impression that will change their perceptions of business performance analysis for good.

‘The Art of New Rules’ demonstrated how QlikTech is set to take the UK business community by storm with its revolutionary information analysis and reporting solution, QlikView. Much easier to use, faster to implement and a fraction of the cost of traditional business intelligence solutions, QlikView 7 supports both Intel’s x64 and Itanium 64-bit platforms to dramatically increase the scale and speed of analysis. The system can support massive data sets with hundreds of millions of unaggregated records, and can be deployed to an entire organisation in days.