Brazil ERP Selection - Oracle, SAP, Microsoft
Posted at 4:35 am | Filed Under brazil
In the beginning of 21st century we can recognize the trend in international business. Multinational corporations are moving their manufacturing facilities and sales operations to Brazil. Typical scenario - regional office is established in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro and manufacturing facility in Salvador, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Manaus, etc. The first step in establishing controllable operations is ERP system implementation - this formalizes the chain of command, decision making and management. In this small article we will give you Brazilian ERP market review for midsize and large business. We will compare Microsoft Business Solutions, Oracle, SAP as well as local ERP vendors: Microsiga and RM. Let’s come to the topic:
Local versus International brand. We do not pretend to be the judge, just pluses and minuses. Local brand ERP has local market experience, tax, typical chart of accounts, payroll specifics implemented. They are probably very competitive if you are Brazilian business. However if you represent multinational company or corporation - you should think about users experience for your international management team, IT centralized support and things like these.
SAP. If you are committed to SAP solution - SAP Business One is probably the system of choice - it has transactions integration to SAP, CRM, MRP/Production, POP, SOP, HR, Multilanguage, multicurrency. SAP Business One is just localized for Brazilian ERP market, especially we should mention localized tax engine. SAP tested its localization with 7 pilot implementation in 2005. You should be looking for SAP Business One customization partner (who is licensed to develop customizations and integration in SAP Business One SDK). SAP Business One sits in Microsoft SQL Server and is written in C++ - it also has integration with MS Office on the level of COM objects
Oracle. Oracle E-Business Suite, also known as Oracle Financials (as part of Oracle E-Business Suite) and Oracle Applications is natural choice if your Headquarters in Europe, USA, Australia or elsewhere is committed to Oracle platform. Oracle has long time presence in Brazil and is very good choice.
Microsoft Business Solutions Navision & Axapta. Microsoft is currently on the way of merging/integrating its applications - this is known as Project Green, in September 2005 new marketing name was introduced- Microsoft Dynamics. Respectively Microsoft Navision and Axapta became Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics AX. More traditional solution for Brazilian market is Navision. It has very strong position in both Europe (where it is recommended by Microsoft in all the countries, except UK - where both Navision and Great Plains are in use) and USA- especially in manufacturing sector. Axapta, however is newer and respectively its design should be more geared toward new technological trends. Axapta should be released for Brazilian market in 2006
You can always appeal to our help and expertise - in our Sao Paulo office we have all these systems expertise, plus Microsoft CRM, MS Great Plains, Lotus Notes Domino. Please give as a call S
Tags: Brazilian ERP Market, Microsoft Business Solutions, Oracle E Business Suite, SAP Business OneMicrosoft Great Plains 8.0 Brazilian Version - Overview For International Consultant
Posted at 6:37 am | Filed Under brazil
Microsoft Great Plains has substantial mid-market share in the USA plus due to the marketing efforts of former Great Plains Software (now part of Microsoft Business Solutions) in Spanish Speaking South America, South Africa, United Kingdom, Middle East, Poland - we see strong position of Microsoft Great Plains in these regions (on these markets MBS promotes two mid-market ERP: Great Plains and Navision).
In Brazil situation is the following. Brazilian market has long story of local mid-size accounting/ERP systems - Microsiga is one of the major - it was developed in Brazil for Brazilian market. Great Plains Software marketing campaign was getting very strong resistance from local market commitment to Microsiga and other local ERP application.
Currently MBS officially promotes Navision on the Brazilian market, however localized version of Microsoft Great Plains is available as well.
We’ll describe you in this small article the technical side of the localized Brazilian Portuguese version:
Translated Interface and Reports. Great Plains is written on Great Plains Dexterity programming shell with several types of resources, one of the types is Strings - localization requires you to translate String resources to have windows and ReportWriter reports show Portuguese text.
Tax Engine. This is more difficult. If you look at the tax code of the country of the size of Brazil: such as Russia, France, China, India - you will find that it has nuances, making such a tax code very unique and this is probably why in the above countries we find local accounting applications being very successful - these applications were developed mainly for the specific large country tax code, government tax reporting and other regulations.
In Brazil this is Microsiga. Great Plains Dynamics was designed for US tax code with US Social security, later on it was adjusted to comply VAT (Value Added Tax) rules to promote it in UK and other countries. Microsoft Great Plains version 8.0 Brazilian Portuguese version was adjusted to comply Brazilian tax and government regulations
Payroll-related filings. These are W-2 or like in US. Brazil has its own rules and accounting application should pass certain government certifications in the country of this size
Of course, midsize accounting application requires local support, when it has adapted local version. You can imagine all the issues, related to upgrades, data conversions, customizations, integrations. Somebody should stay behind and serve local clients. Don’t worry, MBS does support it in Brazil via local partner.
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Tags: Microsoft Business Solutions, Microsoft Great PlainsMicrosoft Navision Implementation, Customization, Integration - Rio de Janeiro ERP Market Notes
Posted at 5:34 am | Filed Under brazil
Major ERP/MRP vendors, such as Oracle. SAP, Microsoft Business Solutions are present on Brazilian market, in this small article we would like to highlight MBS Navision, especially in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, plus the economy situation in Rio and its ERP/MRP market
Economy. Rio’s harbor is deep enough for the largest vessels to come alongside the wharves, which lie near the city center. Through the port flows the major portion of Brazil’s imports and exports (iron ore, manganese, coffee, cotton, meat, and hides). Rio is also a distribution center for the coastal trade. The city’s manufactures include textiles, foodstuffs, household appliances, cigarettes, chemicals, leather goods, metal products, and printed material. There are two major airports.
Manufacturing. Navision traditionally is considered as strong MRP & production automation platform. Considering high number of manufacturing facilities in Rio de Janeiro - manufacturing module implementation is critical.
Distribution. Microsoft Navision, together with Microsoft Great Plains, Axapta, Solomon are currently under evolution - so-called Project Green should result in these ERPs interconnection and probably interface unification. Recently Microsoft renamed its products and Navision is now Microsoft Dynamics NAV (more likely NAV will be dropped when Project Green is realized). From the Distribution needs perspective - Microsoft Navision is now and will be even more exposed through web portal, plus it will be integrated with Microsoft CRM (please be aware that Navision also has its own CRM module), where Microsoft Sharepoint should play the role of workflows, approval cycles, etc. All these facts make cargo tracking and delivery control automation naturally implemented on the Navision and CRM platforms
Brazilian Localization. Navision is translated into Portuguese and adjusted for the compliance to Brazilian tax code. From the localization standpoint, if you represent multinational corporation and set up manufacturing facility in Brazil, you should know that other vendors have localized solutions: SAP - SAP Business One and Oracle: Oracle E-Business Suite
Customization. Navision has its own proprietary language C/Side and currently Microsoft recommends MS SQL Server as the database platform. Plus the future customization directions will be focused on XML web services and developers will be deploying Microsoft Visual Studio.Net
Integration. Considering MS SQL Server platform - software programmers have all the spectrum of integration technologies: ODBC, JDBC, Microsoft will be moving more functionality to business portal - where Navision logic will be called through the sets of stored procedures and be exposed through SDK. Open MS SQL Server technologies gives you SQL based reporting, you can deploy such industry standard tools as Crystal Reports, MS SQL Server Reporting services, etc.
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Tags: brazil, ERP, Microsoft Business Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Navision