Four reasons to switch from SAP to Microsoft Dynamics
Making the decision to change your company's business management system is a process that requires research and foresight. Here are four reasons why businesses using SAP business management products have decided to make the switch to Microsoft Dynamics.
Microsoft Dynamics can improve employee productivity. In a 2007 analysis that compared the impact of enterprise software applications on people's productivity, Microsoft Dynamics users on average scored Microsoft Dynamics 18 percent higher than SAP users scored SAP applications. This Microsoft-sponsored study was conducted by Keystone Strategy, an independent research firm, and was supervised by Dr. Marco Iansiti, the David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Download the full study (XPS 3.96).
Microsoft Dynamics can scale with your business. Microsoft Dynamics provides affordable scalability for your growing businesses. With benchmarked performance up to 1,000 users and beyond and rich functionality across financials, supply chain management, and customer relationship management, you can be confident in the ability of Microsoft Dynamics to meet the needs of your growing business. Integrate your Microsoft Dynamics business management solution with Microsoft SQL Server to enjoy enterprise-level reporting, flexible decision-making support, and timely, relevant business insight at a low cost with significantly high usability and flexibility.
Microsoft Dynamics provides a low cost of ownership. Microsoft Dynamics is engineered to cost-effectively support the changing requirements that are frequently necessary for customers to adapt, grow, and maintain a competitive edge in their business. Independent research has demonstrated that, on the whole, Microsoft Dynamics offers a higher return on investment (ROI) and lower overall costs than other major competitive offerings. Microsoft Dynamics licensing is designed to be cost-effective. It is based on concurrent users versus named users and has no imposed user minimum or maximum, so it evolves with you for the life of your business.
Microsoft offers an industry-leading vertical partner ecosystem. Microsoft is in a position to deliver vertical solutions to hundreds of different industries on a local basis; it can bring these solutions to market on a local level. Microsoft's Certified for Microsoft Dynamics program offers solutions designed to meet the needs of specific industries. It can provide customers with the benefits of a rich portfolio of tested, reference supported solutions developed by ISVs that have met Microsoft’s highest solution and organizational certification standards.
Customer evidence: Learn how switching to Microsoft Dynamics benefited other companies
See how companies have solved real business problems and benefited from choosing Microsoft Dynamics over SAP products.
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Wheelabrator Group is one of the world’s largest and most established manufacturers of surface preparation equipment and technologies. As the company grew, so did the complexity of its operations. Wheelabrator needed a solution that offered built-in project-management capabilities for manufacturing, integration with existing line-of-business and industry-specific systems, and cost-effective customizations to meet complex process–flow requirements and future growth needs. The company chose Microsoft Dynamics over SAP and Infor, and has benefited from improved visibility into project costs and increased operational efficiency.
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GfK Aktiengesellschaft is one of the world’s largest market research firms. As it grew, GfK found it increasingly difficult to standardize financial reporting across its global network. Subsidiaries could not easily roll up local reporting into the individual GfK Reporting Systems and the corporate SAP-based system. Instead of implementing a more costly, less flexible solution in its subsidiaries, the company chose to use Microsoft Dynamics, which integrated with the SAP system used at corporate headquarters, yet saved the company approximately U.S.$600,000 as compared to SAP.
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Texas-based Choice Energy LP is a leading independent energy brokerage firm in the United States, offering customers, such as corporations and utilities, market liquidity and price discovery. The company quickly outgrew its mostly manual accounting system, so it teamed up with the NexTec Group, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, to implement Microsoft Dynamics. In just weeks, they had a customized solution that helped Choice Energy LP move from quarterly financial reporting to monthly financial reporting. Their customized solution includes monthly detail-rich reports that offer increased insight into broker activity and that allow agile decision-making by the company.
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World-famous for the Indianapolis 500, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a renowned racetrack in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Speedway depends heavily on technology to run its various business systems, from ticketing to concessions. The Speedway implemented Microsoft Dynamics along with Microsoft DynamicsCRM. Now, the Speedway has streamlined its accounting and reporting processes and can provide better customer service and accountability. The Speedway's parent organization has also standardized on Microsoft Dynamics, choosing the Microsoft solution over SAP.
Questions to ask when evaluating an SAP solution
If you are considering the SAP Business Suite or SAP Business All-in-One:
- SAP may offer a fixed-price, fixed-scope implementation of SAP Business All-in-One. What specifics actually govern this offer?
- Do I have to license named users instead of concurrent users or user sessions? What is the difference, and what do you see as the pros and cons of each?
- Is NetWeaver middleware required for integration with SAP and non-SAP systems?
- How many support personnel?
If you are considering SAP Business One:
- What is SAP's future solution roadmap for Business One? Can you provide documentation supporting that?
- How does Business One fit into SAP's Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture? To what degree is Business One included in the development plans for SAP NetWeaver and Duet?
- How many users can Business One reasonably scale to? How many references can you provide of existing SAP Business One users of my size?
- What are my choices if I outgrow Business One? Can you provide details on the cost and steps to migrate to SAP Business All-in-One or Business ByDesign?
- How much of the functionality being demonstrated is native, "out-of-the-box" functionality versus functionality developed by a partner or through a third-party developer? How will this add-on functionality affect upgrades?
