ERP/Accounting Selection: Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, SAP – Expansion to Europe
This text is focused at US-based mid-size and enormous corporations, planning the growth and opening branches in Europe. It’s for IT director, who’s these days answerable for ERP/MRP platform choice and following implementation. The format of the article would not enable us to provide you with element specs comparability, we will probably be moderately providing you with highlights for additional analysis and guidelines of issues that you shouldn’t miss on the consideration. We are going to start with the precise of the market after which level out to the options accessible.
o A number of Languages. Continental Europe would not converse on English language natively – documentation is in German, French, Italian or whichever nation you contemplate. It isn’t only a query of discovering English talking and writing accounting personnel – as you will notice, studying additional
o Taxation. Now it’s changing into extra standardized, nonetheless you must now that in Europe you must take care of VAT (Worth Added Tax), compared to Gross sales Tax within the US. VAT ought to be paid not solely by finish client, but in addition by resellers, distributors, and so forth. Additionally it’s common apply when Providers are taxable in European nations.
o Authorities Reporting. Within the USA you report on the federal and state ranges and normally IRS and the states do not care concerning the accounting system you utilize. In Europe, once more relying on the nation and doubtless this tendency is extra relevant whenever you transfer Eastward, the federal government may need extra involvement within the ERP manufacturers choice, recommending a number of techniques as authorized, licensed, localized, and so forth.
o Accounting Procedures. In some nations (France, Russia) you could encounter with the scenario, when authorities needs you to make use of really useful chart of accounts, normally generalized and geared towards manufacturing accounting, which could be a nightmare within the case in case you are service-oriented enterprise. Contemplating progressive nature of US companies in growth mode – this problem ought to be addressed
Now we gives you options highlights
o Native ERP. The precise laws and circumstances of the nation you selected on your European penetration in all probability produced a number of regionally originated ERPs. As a bent – these techniques sometimes take care of authorities reporting and accessible in native language solely. For those who resolve to implement such an answer, please perceive the trade-ins – you can’t discover US/worldwide managers who may effectively take the management over when wanted.
o Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft Enterprise Options these techniques for continental Europe: Navision, Axapta – Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics AX (Microsoft Nice Plains/Microsoft Dynamics GP will probably be pulled out from France, Germany and Holland, the place it at the moment has some market presence). Navision & Axapta are each localized and “authorized”
o SAP Enterprise One. Assuming that you simply symbolize mid-size italian citizenship jure sanguinis enterprise – this technique has all-in-one and the named person license contains all of the modules (you’ll be able to have CRM-only shopper on your gross sales folks at ½ of the value). SAP Enterprise One was designed with the concepts of the Multilanguage, versatile reporting and object-oriented tax engine. Plus SAP Enterprise One has transaction integration to mySAP.
o Oracle Financials/E-Enterprise Suite. This resolution, coming from Oracle, additionally referred as Oracle Purposes ought to be thought of as very environment friendly and dependable. It is usually localized and has very lengthy market presence historical past in Europe. Oracle comes with J2EE/EJB/Java customization & growth
o IBM Lotus Notes/Domino. It isn’t an ERP – it’s moderately the platform, Lotus may be very common in Europe and you must contemplate and respect it if you buy current firm, utilizing Lotus for doc workflow
o Integration, Customization & Reporting. You must contemplate European department ERP integration.