Statement of Direction for Dynamics AX 2012 "R3"

Microsoft recently released their latest Statement of Direction for Dynamics AX 2012 R3. This new version of AX will be available by Q4 of 2013 and will come with a number of benefits and new capabilities. These include:

Warehouse Management
Advanced warehouse management capabilities will be introduced including embedded RFID, improved warehouse processing and rate, and route and load planning.

Introduction of Demand Planning
There will be new functionality to support SKU-level demand planning based on the Time Series algorithm of SSAS.

Retail
R3 has a strong focus on retail capabilities, with key areas including mobility, clientelling, ecommerce and social.

E-Procurement
Capabilities for purchasing within complex organizations will be enhanced, specifically in the management and control of the RFX (RFI, RFP & RFQ) processes.

Budget Planning
There will be improvements in budget planning capabilities with a focus on supporting the planning needs of complex organizations.


R3 will offer many new and improved capabilities that AX 2012 R2 does not offer. This new version will benefit large and complex organizations the most, especially those with Distribution and Omni-Channel Retail.

The next major version of AX will be released at the end of 2014 and will be called “Rainier.”


Read the full Statement of Direction here.

Questions? Ask one of our consultants.

The Art of Retail

The Art of Retail event was held on April 17, 2013 at Archeo in Toronto’s Distillery District. This event brought together executives from large Canadian retailers, including Canadian Tire and Shoppers Drug Mart, to educate on how to optimize mobile, social and web technology while growing their businesses. 

Two experienced and prominent speakers offered their insights into the ever-changing world of retail. The first of these speakers was Doug Stephens, a retail expert, founder and President of Retail Prophet, and author of The Retail Revival. Stephens educated attendees on how demographic and technological changes are affecting customer bases, how companies can stay current and how new technologies are transforming how we shop. He also shared his belief in a coming retail revival that is only possible if retailers embrace technology.

The second speaker, Scott Stratten, focused his presentation on the social aspect of retail. Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing and author of the book UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.. Stratten is also an expert in Viral, Social, and his own style of Authentic Marketing: Un-Marketing. His presentation covered topics such as why people spread some business content and not others, what fractional reaction means, what tools are useful and what are fads, how to improve corporate social media, and how to transform a negative situation into a positive situation. Stratten told attendees that passionate and knowledgeable frontline employees play a larger role in selling than the logos found on the product itself. He also stressed the importance of social media and creating a product that people want to talk about online. 

In addition to the presentations by Stephens and Stratten, Michael Griffiths, Global Managing Director of Retail at Microsoft led a customer panel featuring Longo’s, Microsoft Store, and Ideaca’s longtime client, LS travel retail North America. The three retailers discussed their ongoing journey to become connected through the implementation of fully-integrated Microsoft retail solutions. They shared their experiences with the audience including, what brought the need for them to adopt a connected and agile solution, lessons learned during the implementation and the improvements in their retail operations since go-live.

Positive feedback from the almost 100 attendees confirmed the success of this event. Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics for their partnership in The Art of Retail! For other upcoming Ideaca events visit http://www.ideaca.com/news.

A crossover into MS Dynamics AX

This article is a personal and subjective story on what to expect when switching from other ERP systems into AX. My specific experience is with some smaller scale project-centric ERP systems and might be different from experiences of other users/consultants.

After working with AX for a couple of months and after attending a boot camp training on AX in Fargo, ND I thought it was time to reflect on the overall differences between AX and other ERP systems that I have been working with over time.

First of all I have to state that all of the ERP systems I have been working with were smaller than AX, both in functionality, breadth and complexity so I will sometimes compare apples and oranges here but this is part of the experience as well.

Targeted markets

Dynamics AX is Microsoft’s ERP flagship and is positioned with the likes of SAP and Oracle. And that’s the market, Microsoft is targeting: medium to large size businesses with multiple locations, multiple legal entities, dealing with multiple currencies and governments.

This in itself differentiates AX from previous ERP that I worked with. Most of them claimed to be multi-company and multi-currency but they really were not. The software packages were initially written for a specific vertical for small to mid-sized businesses and they grew with the companies that initially bought it. So all the features feel like they were tagged onto the solution and never really as integral part of it. AX on the other hand was designed from the ground up to handle these environments and transactions. So I found it especially easy to handle these things in AX whereas in other ERP solutions you had to jump through several hoops to get it working for the client.

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2012: Toronto

Last week, the City of Toronto was flooded with more than 16, 000 people representing Microsoft Partners from all over the world! Partners from coast to coast took  part in the biggest ever Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). 
WPC travels the globe to take place in a new city every year giving Microsoft Partners a chance to discover the latest technology and trends to come in the year ahead. It also provides a valuable forum to gain industry knowledge, and learn new strategies to ensure Microsoft Partners, like Ideaca, can continuously deliver the highest standards of care and information to our customers.


This year, the conference was held in Toronto at the Metro Convention Centre and the Air Canada Centre. The conference was said to bring in the most traffic throughout the GTA that Toronto has ever seen for a conference, and even brought in a whooping $500 million to the City of Toronto! 

Each day Ideacans experienced  dozens of sessions and key note speakers that helped us to learn new strategies and product knowledge. There were even a few ground-breaking announcements, such as a demonstration shown on Kinnect that scanned a person to virtually produce them in 3D, then their 3D image was printed out into a 3D mold!  Truly a thing to see!  We also spotted new laptops that can convert into a tablet; which will be beneficial to all those stubborn people who cannot part without their keyboards. There was also a great deal of hype around the new Windows 8 phone and operating system that is sure to make many smartphone and Windows 7 users change their mind about what they currently have. Windows CMO and CFO Tami Reller announced at the conference that the new Windows 8 operating system will be launch in 231 markets worldwide, starting in October 2012.

The 5-day conference kicked off with a stunning performance by Cirque du Soleil and wrapped up Thursday night with a packed concert by the Grammy Award winning band Train. What a week! Ideaca is proud to have been apart of it and we look forward to sharing our new learning with our customers in the year to come.

Were you at WPC this year? What was your favourite part?
 

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Ideaca Renews Multiple Microsoft Gold Competencies in the Microsoft Partner Network

We have renewed our gold competencies in Business Intelligence (BI), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Portals and Collaboration and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as well as silver competencies in Virtualization, Web Development, Application Integration and Data Platform.

"These Microsoft competencies showcase our expertise and commitment in today’s technology market and demonstrates our deep knowledge of Microsoft and its products,” said Mike Alkier, Managing Partner, Ideaca.  “Our plan is to accelerate our customers’ success by serving as advisors for their business technology needs.”

“By achieving a portfolio of competencies, partners demonstrate deep expertise and consistent capability on the latest Microsoft technology,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “These partners show true commitment to meeting customer technology needs today and into the future.”

Check out the full story here.
 

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How Corporate Collaboration Strategy Affects Profits for Retailers Event

Last week Ideaca teamed up with Microsoft to put on an event focused around Corporate Collaboration and Store Portals for Retailers.

John Torella from J.C. Williams Group, gave an inspiring talk that made our attendees realize they need to keep with today's emerging technologies by being a differentiator.

"Surprise and Delight your Customers".
- John Torell

 Rob Alexander-Carew from Microsoft Canada, discussed how to Resolve your Retail Business Challenges

Valerie Prendergast and her team from Ideaca gave an impressive demo showcasing Store & Corporate Collaboration in Practice

The event was a great success, and motivated our retail audience to consider making impactful and necessary changes to their corporate collaboration strategy.

If you missed out on this event, don't worry! We are hoping to have a recording of this session up on our website in the near future. Stay tuned!

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When the Forecast Calls for Clouds

 

Is cloud computing right for your company? Inc. posted an article on the different ways you can use Cloud Computing, and how making the switch could benefit your company. Check out the article link below and tell us how your company benefits from the "cloud".

When the Forecast Calls for Clouds.

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Introduction to Microsoft SharePoint: Features and Benefits

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Calling All Retailers!

Join Ideaca & Microsoft on March 1st for a Complimentary Breakfast Seminar on How Corporate Collaboration Strategy Affects Profits for Retailers!
Attend this event to learn how your retail organzation can:

Empower store associates with the information they need on the floor to drive sales conversions and improve productivity.

Address comparison shopping on the floor with real-time competitive information.

Provide details on product information and pricing, inventory (in stock/out of stock), and more.

Deliver real-time views of the business to corporate decision makers on conversion and productivity metrics

Time & Location

Breakfast & Registration:
8:30 am - 9:00 am
Seminar:
9:00 am - 11:30 am
Tablet Draw:
11:30 am
Microsoft Missisauga Campus
Events Entrance
1950 Meadowvale Blvd
Mississauga, ON L5N 8L9

 Click to register for this event and also be entered to win a Samsung Tablet!

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Big Win for Ideaca at 2011 Impact Awards

We are proud to be selected by Microsoft as ERP Partner of the Year and Windows Azure Partner of the Year at the 2011 Impact Awards.

Take a look at the projects that we won awards for!

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