International Support - Microsoft Great Plains

by Andrew Karasev

Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind it. It seems to be goof solution for mid-size and even large multinational corporation with Headquarters in US and branches Worldwide. You, as V.P. IT can deploy the strategy, when you host your Great Plains in headquarter and have international offices connect via remote support. Or, you can have regional offices work of their own Great Plains installations and then consolidate information via FRx or other reporting tools.

The challenging thing here is to get local Great Plains support for your regional offices. Ideally you should have Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains Partner - who serves your headquarter and has consultants/technicians close to your overseas operations. It is not always possible, due to multiple reasons:

1. Europe - in Europe Microsoft Business Solutions has Navision and Axapta lines - so you can not find (with some minor exceptions) local European Great Plains VAR - you have to appeal to remote support.
   
   
2. Multicurrency issue - US-based partners do not usually have this expertise. You have to appeal to ones, operated by former immigrants - there are partners present in two countries with balanced operations in both: like US-Brazil, US-Mexico, US-South Africa.
   
   
3. Sophisticated consolidation - usually companies, participating in international business have complex ownership structure with vertical and horizontal structures, mostly due to the necessity to get diversified tax legislation advantage. In this case you need the partner who has experience dealing with at least two or three megamarkets (Europe, East Europe, Asia, Latin America).
   
   
4. Government-regulated chart of accounts issue - France, Russia and the related counties have this complication - so you have to be able to produce proper reporting and be ready to satisfy auditors with your General Ledger workflow.
   
   
5. Remote Support - obviously partner should be excellent in the remote support and be ready to travel to your remote location in the case of emergency.
   
   
6. Customization - partners who can handle above issues are kind of tax advisers/ international accountants/ business consultants they may not carry technical expertise in Great Plains that you need - each multinational corporation has its specifics and usually has customization in its ERP system. This technical expertise is somewhat common for US-based regular partners, serving specific business metros. In case of their help - you have endless projects, involving regional partners and your IT group plus probably local consultants in remote locations.
   
   
7. Cost Issue - in either case - when you deploy multiple partner or when you appeal to huge international consulting/auditing company the cost is very high.

In Alba Spectrum Technologies we offer you reasonably priced international support from our multiple locations in USA and Worldwide with good mix of Accounting, multicurrency, tax and technical expertise. Moreover we specialize in serving small market niche in Europe - branches of US multinational corporations, who have local Great Plains users or installations.

Happy shopping and selecting!