If you are looking for making an ERP selection for large corporation from Microsoft products, you should take into consideration Microsoft Navision, Axapta or Great Plains. There is no point in also thinking about Microsoft SL because this is oriented towards project based companies and it is not suitable for large corporations. In what concerns the other three products, they are all suitable, but the final decision needs to be taken after knowing exactly what you require from such software. You have to make yourself a list of criteria you consider important when making an ERP selection for large companies and to prioritize them. Take into consideration the product life cycle, its implementation, its database platform and its compatibility with other software such as Linux or Oracle, for example.
ERP software that is gong to be used by a large corporation, which most probably has a bunch of subsidiaries, must have features that enable working in a different language or in a different currency. Microsoft Navision, Axapta and GP all have this feature.
In what concerns the product lifecycle, both Navision and GP have been on the market for 10 years and can be considered mature products. Among all three options, Microsoft Great Plains seems to be the easiest to implement. It is the easiest one to customize, also. Axapta is the one that requires the most time to be implemented. All of them are compatible with UNIX, Linux and Oracle which is quite an important feature for large companies. In what concerns the database platform, Navision has native platform, while others two are on MS SQL. This is great in what concerns integration and compatibility with other software. The use MS SQL platform also provides more reporting options.
Working in a different language and in a different currency sometimes means that add-ons will be required as new business processes occur or as new subsidiaries are being opened. From this point of view, Microsoft GP has the highest flexibility and the most options concerning add-ons.
All three products are user friendly and provide internet integration in order to manage e-commerce, web stores or e-business portals. The bottom line is that all three Microsoft solutions are worth considering when making ERP selection for large corporation, but Microsoft Great Plains seems to be the most suitable one because of its flexibility and ease of implementation.
