Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM become more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind them. Now Great Plains is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. Small companies use Small Business Manager (which is based on the same technology ? Great Plains Dexterity dictionary and runtime), Great Plains Standard on MSDE is for small to midsize clients, and then Great Plains serves the rest of the market up to big corporations. Microsoft CRM is extremely scalable and fits to all the market niches.
It is always good idea to install everything on your own - however Great Plains requires combination of computer networking, some programming, good accounting/distribution/logistics/reporting background - so it is not a surprise that Microsoft Business Solutions requires their customers to have specially assigner Microsoft Great Plains Partner/VAR/Reseller to serve the account.
If you are IT Director/Controller who has the dilemma of proper partner selection ? read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.
1. Local partners - if you are in the remote area - there is often seen the opinion that local partner is the best choice. Consider this however as a contra argument - local partners maybe tiny with one/few consultants and they may not serve you adequately when you have somewhat complex - such as Manufacturing, complex Project Accounting needs, integration with UNIX-based legacy system, etc.
2. Mid-Size partners in Major Business Metros ? these companies were classical Great Plains VARS/Resellers with balanced application consulting and technical expertise. Please, consider these points, however: in recent recession most of such partners were bought or merged with big auditing companies and lost their flexibility, plus their consulting fee went up due to the fact of belonging to big conglomerates.
3. Nation-wide partners with local representative offices. This maybe a very good option, if you need kind of reliability and complete expertise - missing parts could be taken from different location with this specialization. However the hourly rates are probably the highest among the first three.
4. One-Project-Manager partner with Offshore consultants ? Well - this is very new type of partners - and you potentially can save a lot of money if you are risk taker - hourly rate is usually lower, price of the failure maybe higher.
5. Nation-wide partner with tiny local representation, serving via remote support. We are in this category, so let me tell you couple of good points here. Companies like ours - have to specialize in order to do excellent job in what we claim is our specialization (technology challenging projects with heavy customization needs). Serving via remote support lets us keep reasonably low rates and often go for fixed bids.
Also couple of hints about how do you switch the partner. It is actually more easy than you may think - you just send the new proposed partner the letter in free format saying that you would like to switch to you as my Microsoft Business Solutions partner - and this is it.
Happy shopping! if you want us to help you - give us a call!
About The Author
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies ? USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Colorado, Washington, Florida, Canada, UK and having locations in multiple states and internationally www.albaspectrum.com, he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.
1-866-528-0577
Culver prom limo ..This is the tutorial where we really get into programming.... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Retail Management System (Microsoft RMS)... Read More
Are you a whiz at calculating financial information? Not the... Read More
Have you ever noticed that when you look at your... Read More
This article is for advanced Microsoft CRM SDK C# developers.... Read More
This is intermediate level SQL scripting article for DB Administrator,... Read More
One of the things we can be as certain of... Read More
Several years ago Microsoft purchased Great Plains Software, then Navision... Read More
Finally, you have some time to personalize your desktop with... Read More
Before September 1995, Microsoft Windows was an MS-DOS program. DOS... Read More
First we had the original Google search that evolved into... Read More
Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more... Read More
This is a short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style to... Read More
We live in a post-industrial age where information is the... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains serves the wide spectrum of horizontal markets.... Read More
In this article you will find some background information about... Read More
Adobe Photoshop is one of the world's leading graphics editing... Read More
The Windows registry is a huge database that ensures normal... Read More
With many manufacturing shops heading over seas in favor of... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has substantial market share and... Read More
Background: For many organizations like ours, the interim target of... Read More
If you copy something from a Web site or elsewhere...... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains is main mid-market application from Microsoft Business... Read More
The research in the field of Natural Language Processing usually... Read More
Innovative Maintenance Systems (IMS) is one company that offers solutions... Read More
Wood Dale limo ..Microsoft Great Plains is one of the Microsoft Business Solutions... Read More
Language development computer: Computer-based method for aiding language development seems... Read More
OEComplete is a utility for managing the personal information of... Read More
Should one use Windows Update?This topic has good and valid... Read More
You turn on your computer, and it doesn't look quite... Read More
IntroductionDuring the early years of our modern computer era, very... Read More
Assertion facility is added in J2SE 1.4. In order to... Read More
Here is some free software tools to help you build... Read More
Music downloads are off the charts! We're listening to digital... Read More
Viruses and spyware usually show up on your computer one... Read More
While Ukraine is becoming a new popular IT outsourcing destination,... Read More
In our small article we'll consider Microsoft Business Solutions Great... Read More
Program Flow is what you think it is. How the... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions CRM proved to be reliable solution in... Read More
Pirated software is on the increase and now accounts for... Read More
Are you ready? SQL Server 2005, the next-generation data management... Read More
When reading an article where some term is used often,... Read More
With any good luck and a good amount of hard... Read More
Costs of fleet maintenance software can vary widely. It is... Read More
Our hosted solution allow you to run your own search... Read More
Microsoft CRM is winning market share step-by-step from such the... Read More
Although statistics often is blamed for various deadly sins --... Read More
Logistics automation is often considered as barcoding extension to Sales... Read More
We would like first emphasize the change in the paradigm.... Read More
As of now - Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise is transformed/renamed into... Read More
Software |