A lot more affordable…
Clients First has been selling and successfully implementing Dynamics AX (previously known as Damgaard Axapta) for over 16 years now. Our customer base that we have implemented and continue to support have revenues that range from 10M up to 3B with employee counts from 30 to 15K. These are smart companies that understand the value of this solution and Clients First as an implementation partner. Microsoft added the solution to their ERP product line in 2001 and has since invested a great deal of time, money and effort in the product improvement over the years.
If you think about this from Microsoft’s perspective, today they have four Dynamics ERP solutions, dealer channels and user bases and they don’t want to upset any of them. Therefore Microsoft positions all of them positively and equally, it just depends on which one best suites your needs. This puts the real positioning of these products into the hands of the dealer channel/Partner/VAR (value added reseller).
What’s unfortunate among solution providers who offer these various Microsoft Dynamics products is that they have historically positioned “the other one” improperly and incorrectly, particularly in scenarios in which they have no previous experience in implementing them. Very few Microsoft VAR’s represent all four of these Dynamics offerings, and those that do tend to favor one over the other just because of their history in implementing their favorite. Resellers tend to focus on promoting what they’re authorized to sell and have experience in deploying, while discounting those that they don’t. It’s just an unfortunate reality that everyone considering business technology should be aware of and will undoubtedly encounter at some point.
Yet, if a Microsoft partner is telling you something important about one of its products, the natural tendency would be to believe them. As a long time Dynamics Gold Certified Partner with experience across all four (Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL) of these Dynamics offerings, Clients First has seen this scenario play its self out all too often, time and time again. The result is that Dynamics AX always seems to be drastically positioned incorrectly as too big, too complex and too expensive, when all that’s really needed to make it affordable is a partner that knows how to implement it properly.
Clients First has over 70 successful Microsoft Dynamics AX implementations and can state with full confidence that there are considerable differences between all of these solutions. Of the four Microsoft Dynamics products; AX is easily the most powerful, scalable and technologically superior. In conjunction with the release of the 2012 version of AX, Microsoft unveiled a new licensing model, making AX extremely affordable, even for smaller businesses, while remaining just as scalable for the larger companies.
Clients First has also inherited a variety of challenged AX implementations by users taken advantage of by inexperienced consultants and turned these unfortunate scenarios into success stories. Have you ever tried to get a technical consulting resource to admit that they don’t know what they’re doing? Good Luck!
What makes us different? As corny as it may sound, it is our people. Our consultants and management team have worked together for many years and they work as a team. Even our new consultants are amazed at how different Clients First is compared to the Partner that they worked at before. Clients First does not send 5 people to a customer site to sit and learn on our clients dime. We have a Project Manager, a Senior Consultant that has experience in the customers industry which is typically manufacturing or MRO related, a focused Distribution Consultant, a focused Finance Consultant and if needed programming. Basically we tag team – and it works very well for our customers. You can see what our customers have to say here: http://clientsfirst-ax.com/about-us/testimonials/
Just this week we met with a prospect and they shared our competitor’s Dynamics AX positioning. The competitor flatly stated to the prospect with full confidence that you can't implement AX for under $500,000.00! So we reviewed with the prospect a real life proposal which converted into an actual active project at a fraction of that amount and dismissed the fantasy positioning of our competition. I sure wouldn’t want those guy’s budgeting my next project, and neither should you.
If you are interested in working with Clients First on a Dynamics AX, please contact us at 800.331.8382 or email sales@clientsfirst-tx.com.
By Mike Miller, https://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-miller/a/565/1b6
Video by Mike Miller: ERP Implementations - What You Need to Know: https://youtu.be/1XnwkWKKcOM
