This week I have been immersed in a hefty tender document. As I am bound by the NDA I can’t comment much; however, one of the questions invites suppliers to discuss the industries they service and what they specifically do for them. I am recycling my response for this week’s blog for two reasons; it’s pretty interesting stuff so worth sharing and I confess, I am time poor this week!
Microsoft Dynamics NAV suits most industries, in fact I am now wracking my brains (or “racking”, although I’m reasonably confident “wracking” is correct) for an industry that wouldn’t use NAV. Possibly, I am not 100% sure, but I don’t think I have ever heard of an estate agents using the system, please do correct me or add suggestions. At the core of NAV is the financial system, all companies need ledgers hence somewhere, someone in every industry will probably be using NAV. NAV offers standard functionality for pretty much all horizontals: distribution, service, manufacturing, construction, retail etc. NAV is flexible and so over the years, partners and ISVs have developed vertical and niche vertical solutions built out of the standard product. For example, our own wine system is based on the standard distribution extended to meet needs such as reporting by equivalent case, recognising duty, waste management and so on. Other partners have built on the standard distribution to meet the needs of car dealers, timber merchants, rag trade etc. And this is just a small example of what has been built out on the distribution functionality (rather than list the add-on catalogue now, far easier if you call us to see if your industry is already catered for).
Okay, so having said NAV can support all industries, back to the question: which industries does TVision service? As a NAV specialist, TVision can support most industries suited to NAV (we do not focus on work with the retail sector as we have no expertise in retail management systems). Within the industries we work with there are often trends of requirements, albeit these are not specific to the industries.
Alongside our general NAV business we focus on Distribution, Fine Wine Merchants and Recruitment Agencies. For distribution and fine wine merchants, we tend to have more Ecommerce and CRM requirements for these sectors. We also offer advanced distribution such as EDI interfaces, hand-held devices (warehouse and delivery), warehouse management functionality etc. Fine Wine Merchants are more likely to outsource their warehouse and so we have expertise integrating to third party warehouse and logistic systems.
Recruitment Agencies are more focused on timesheet processing and payroll. They are also more interested in web portals that allow contractors to post timesheets and employees to process expenses.
The services provided are not exclusive to the industries. We find that our expertise in one area enhances our service to another. For example, Ecommerce has long been a requirement for distribution but more recent for Recruitment; timesheet processing is becoming more important across industries and waste management that has long been a key requirement of wine merchants is becoming prevalent in all industries.
Companies are attracted to TVision either because of our specific experience or because they like our style. We may not have experience in your specific industry but even where we do, we would never profess to know as much about your business as you do. What we specialise in is understanding requirements, expertise in configuring NAV and delivering the solution. Sometimes I think that this is the most important speciality we have and what differentiates us from our competitors. Unfortunately, it is undervalued as everyone will claim they can do this even when few do. As Richard is fond of saying, “The problem is people don’t recognise what good looks like.” Hence price is in the top three evaluation criteria for people doing this first time round but ranks around ninth for old hands. Often it’s only when it has gone horribly wrong that certainty of budget is recognised as far more important than a smiley salesperson’s “best price”; not sure why, but seems it is human nature to prefer to learn from our own mistakes.
