Oracle Financials, Microsoft Navision & Axapta or SAP Business One - MRP Implementation in Brazil
Posted at 2:06 am | Filed Under brazil
One of the first questions for multinational company/corporation to move to new market is ERP implementation, customization, report tuning, integration for newly established subsidiary. The specific of South American and in particularly Brazilian market is manufacturing or production outsourcing to Brazil. We will try to provide the first level comparison or readiness of the major worldwide ERP brands: Microsoft Business Solutions, Oracle (we will not touch PeopleSoft & JDEdwards, just Oracle E-Business Suite) and SAP (where we will give you update on reasonable solution for mid-size companies - SAP Business One). Also we will be concentrating on manufacturing-type of subsidiary, the franchisees network deserves special publication.
Localization Challenge. Each large country: Brazil, India, Russia has unique taxation system and special rules in the accounting practice itself. This is why we see locally developed ERP/MRP applications flourishing on the corporate ERP market. At the same time - these specifics create some barriers and challenges for worldwide ERP brands to penetrate on the market. In the case of Brazil, we would like to mention such regional ERP as Microsiga. Please note that Multilanguage is usually easily resolvable issue, comparing to tax code.
SAP Business One. This ERP solution, coming from SAP deserves very high scores, it is pretty much ready with tax code, Multilanguage feature (Brazilian Portuguese). SAP Business One has MRP as well as Production modules plus integration to high end SAP is also available for transaction consolidation to the headquarters in Europe or in the USA. SAP Business One has about 8 thousand installations Worldwide and it is very advanced and popular in Latin America, where tax code is rather standard one: Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Chili, etc. SAP Business One launch in Brazil is the fall of 2005.
Microsoft Business Solutions. MBS has two ERP applications for Brazilian market - Microsoft Navision and Microsoft Axapta. Navision has several dozens of implementations, while Axapta will be available soon (in 2006). We see several blends of Navision localizations for Brazil. Axapta localization is currently on the way to be released. Talking about Navision - MBS promotes Navision on the emerging markets, such as Russia, East Europe, plus it is traditionally strong in the Europe. Also take into consideration very good Navision positioning in manufacturing industry. We do not want at the same time to deemphasize Axapta - it has very high potential. In East Europe and especially Russia - Microsoft indicates that number of Axapta installations is close to Navision implementations and Axapta was designed relatively recently, so please compare these two: Navision & Axapta before making final decision. Just to mention, that Great Plains is not popular in Brazil, however it was partially localized and if you have corporate standard to use Microsoft Dynamics GP worldwide - it should be available for you. Microsoft Project Green will lead to “merge” of its ERPs: Microsoft Dynamics will be the final merged ERP product, it will harmonically integrate the pieces of Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision), Microsoft Dynamics AX (Axapta), etc.
Oracle E-Business Suite. Also known as Oracle Financials and Oracle Applications - Oracle has traditionally strong positions in Latin America and Brazil. Oracle has conception of standard functionality (which could be used worldwide) and local or regional (language, special forms, tax engine, etc.). If your company has Oracle Financials/Applications implemented in the headquarters - you should check on the status of Oracle Financial localization for Brazilian or Latin American regional market. Oracle E-Business Suite also usually has extensive customization and integration components to custom Oracle databases.
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, Microsoft Axapta, Microsoft Navision, Oracle E Business Suite, SAP Business OneERP Brazil Microsoft Dynamics NAV, AX, CRM Localized Family
Posted at 9:02 am | Filed Under brazil
When your company plans to outsource its manufacturing operations to such countries as Brazil, the ERP system for the overseas subsidiary is one of the first decisions to make. In this small article we will concentrate on functional side of the Microsoft Dynamics ERPs, such as Microsoft Navision, Microsoft Axapta and Microsoft CRM and we will not touch background technologies (Microsoft .Net vs. EJB/Java discussions)
Localization. It usually has two components: language translation (in the case of Brazil it is Brazilian Portuguese) and sales, purchasing taxes and government regulation/reporting. In the case of Brazil we usually talk about these taxes & regulations: CNAE, CPF, IE, IEST, IM.
Local versus International MRP brand. This is usually the question beyond the functionality of the ERP - you need to decide for yourself if you would like advanced localization features (usually provided by local made ERP - Microsiga or Datasul to name two) or you want more control over your overseas operations from headquarters - this will probably be international ERP brand, one of them we are evaluating here - Microsoft Dynamics family (former name was Microsoft Business Solutions)
Navision/Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Around 2004 Microsoft Business Solutions tried to unify its international ERP offer. As the result, in many countries, including Brazil, East Europe, Russia and others Navision kind of pushed out of the market another MBS ERP - Microsoft Great Plains (currently Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 - Brazilian version is not available, however you can get local support from Alba Spectrum). There were multiple reasons, including technical feasibility, they are beyond the scope of this article. Navision is localized and has several years of successful implementation in S
Tags: Corporate ERP, Microsoft Axapta, Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft NavisionMicrosoft 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