How to Implement Microsoft Navision on the Emerging ERP Market - Rio de Janeiro
 by: Arthur Ferretti

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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About The Author

Arthur Ferretti is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Manaus, Lisboa, Coimbra, Porto, Cascais and having locations in multiple states and internationally: Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand.