Confessions of a Dynamics NAV / Navision Consultant - All Comments

re: Implementing NAV (Navision) through a 3rd party Consultant

Alex Chow — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:39:21 GMT

Yeah, unfortunately, being an implementor doesn't just require you to have excellent technical skills. It also requires good inter-personal skills and able to QUICKLY (notice the QUICKLY) identify key allies and enemies within an organization.

That's why it's always tough to answer general questions like "what does it take to become a good Navision consultant".

re: Be Current or Not Current on the Microsoft Annual Enhancement Plan

Alex Chow — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:36:55 GMT

I think it's tough to ask Microsoft to give the software away for free. :)

re: Be Current or Not Current on the Microsoft Annual Enhancement Plan

David Singleton — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:05:45 GMT

I agree that an enhancement plan o some kind is fair.

The thing that has always concerned me is how Microsoft sell the Navision plan. In a word "appallingly". I understand the origin of this, since PC&C (except in the US for a brief period) never charged any form of recurring fee for Navision, and Microsoft had a hard time introducing it. But now its introduced and we all know its there, why cant they just be up front and honest.

Just lets call it a fee to keep using supported software. In fact why not just drop the initial cost of the software, give it away, and then just charge subscription based. Use the example of a 6 year = 16% support, so in 6 years you pay $200 for $100 of base software, / 6 = 33% so basically what would have cost $100 up front, now costs $33 per year.

Imagine you get a new employee, you simply work out their Navision cost as an annual figure, no need for a user and then maintenance etc.

Anyway, this is a great blog topic, something that customers don't understand well enough, but need to.

re: Be Current or Not Current on the Microsoft Annual Enhancement Plan

Alex Chow — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:00:51 GMT

I do think the new architecture in NAV2009 RTC will make it a whole lot easier to upgrade. But you're correct in that not supporting mixed mode will be a huge problem.

Microsoft is always changing what they're providing in the Enhancement program. One of our clients is current because he believes that it's necessary for the software company to keep developing new technologies.

Imagine if no one had to pay for enhancement for any software. The price of the software will probably be insanely high and no one would purchase any software.

If software companies do not receive constant cashflow, what would be the incentive for software companies to keep investing in their products?

Personally, I believe it's fair for the enhancement fee. By staying current, you get the latest in Microsoft Dynamics technology. Microsoft does need to keep working on the ease of upgrading so there's more incentive to stay current.

re: Be Current or Not Current on the Microsoft Annual Enhancement Plan

David Singleton — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:54:14 GMT

Its good to see the numbers in perspective, though its still important to remember that each country and region has different numbers, I think some countries are not yet at 16% but are slowly getting there. And in some cases there is the 20% (or some amount) of penalty PLUS you have to pay the 16%. Sometimes the penalty is waived, so each case should do the same math that you did.

I like the way you analyze it as a Win/Lose. It makes the numbers easier to interpret. And then compare it to insurance.

In terms of the new policy, I think the big question now is what do you get if Microsoft now will no longer support mixed environments. 100% of all my clients are on mixed mode (i.e. Objects and executables are different versions), and to be honest I can't even remember the last time I saw a supported system under these rules. (Most of my clients run 5.00sp1 Exe)

So for the typical client that maybe plans to upgrade the Executables once a year or so, and objects maybe every three years, it means they will only really be supported for a very small percentage of their time. So what are they getting out of the support plan?

I am just playing devils advocate here, but this is a major issue that maybe Microsoft just didn't think about.

re: Implementing NAV (Navision) through a 3rd party Consultant

Erik P. Ernst — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:28:07 GMT

I would say that in the ideal world then using 3rd party consultants would be a benefit for most implementations. As I see it then the biggest problem in most implementation is that the customer really doesn't know what's up and down when it comes to implementing ERP systems. And many time they really don't know what's up and down in their own business.

Using a 3rd party consultant who speaks the same language as both the end-user and the Dynamics partner implementing the system, can help everybody.

But you're also absolutely right that often having a 3rd party consultant on board doesn't really help neither the customer nor the implementation. A consultant many times have a different agenda. One of the worst examples I have seen was when the consultant was an experienced consultant with a different system, which the company had decided not the implement. It was the same consultant who had offered to implement this system. Instead the company decided to implement Navision, and to use the consultant (who had spend a lot of time analyzing the company to quote the implementation of "his system") as the 3rd party consultant.

Doing the whole implementation project we felt that the only agenda of the consultant was to pinpoint the areas where "his system" would have done a better job than Navision, and then try to get every thing to work as "his system" did already. The result was a much higher cost for the customer. The problem was additionally that this consultant was family related to the CFO.

I don't really remember how we got this consultant off the project, but after 3-4 months we somehow got the CEO involved and then the consultant was (officially) "moved down" - in reality taken off.

Then we could finally complete the project. But we never really got the best relationship to the CFO again.

re: Implementing NAV (Navision) through a 3rd party Consultant

Alex Chow — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:19:01 GMT

Dang... Bad grammer and all... One of the disadvantages of writing your blog in notepad.

re: Implementing NAV (Navision) through a 3rd party Consultant

Rashed Amini — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:55:30 GMT

I see this in many implementations.

"Clients avoids responsibility for the implementation of Navision"

re: How to Create Drilldown page to a custom table in RTC - NAV2009 SP1

Alex Chow — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:40:21 GMT

The arguement is, if you're creating a custom application using only RTC, why involve the classic forms at all?

re: How to Create Drilldown page to a custom table in RTC - NAV2009 SP1

Luc van Vugt — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:49:11 GMT

Yeah, Alex, sometimes you keep searching how-to. But just look at it as Page = Form. We went to RTC but the Page in many aspects fulfills the same role as the Form did for so long.

re: Future of Dynamics NAV (Navision) - Recap of Directions 2009

Alex Chow — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:41:52 GMT

The application roadmap is not released yet. Look for it on the next Statement of Direction, if not, the one after that.

Social comments and analytics for this post

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:31:09 GMT

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re: Future of Dynamics NAV (Navision) - Recap of Directions 2009

gete — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:26:50 GMT

Where can i get that Application Road map.

can i know the link.

re: Future of Dynamics NAV (Navision) - Recap of Directions 2009

Rashed Amini — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:26:21 GMT

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re: Future of Dynamics NAV (Navision) - Recap of Directions 2009

Erik P. Ernst — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:25:01 GMT

Dynamics C5?? That's very interesting, especially since I thought it only was sold in Denmark.

Here in Denmark one of it's otherwise biggest competitors in the low market SummaSummarum was just sold to Norwegian Visma who are known for a not very good support organization. So right now C5 is regaining markets here. I heard numbers saying that C5 has over 60% of it's market in Denmark.