Dynamics NAV and SAP - Features and Capabilities Comparision

Dynamics NAV and SAP are undoubtedly the most popular ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software solutions available today. Often many business owners are confused which amongst the two is a better ERP solution for them. So, in this post, we will compare these two premier ERP solutions on different parameters to help the readers make a more prudent decision.

•    Global Approach: Dynamics NAV offers 52 localisations and supports 44 languages, compared to the 41 localisations and 28 language support of SAP.

•    Partners: Dynamics NAV has over 10,000 partners worldwide against more than 11,500 partners of SAP.

•    Popularity: Dynamics NAV is being used by over 100,000 companies across the globe, whereas SAP is being used by more than 31,000 companies.

•    Maturity: Dynamics NAV is the revamped version of Navision, which was first released in 1983, whereas SAP is a revamped version of TopManage that was first released in 1996.

•    Licensing: Dynamics NAV offers two types of licenses: Perpetual and Subscription with added flexibility that the subscription licenses can be used for on-premise as well. So, the data can be migrated to and from the cloud as per the requirement. On the other hand, SAP offers separate licenses for on-demand and on-premise requirements, which substantially cuts the flexibility option.

•    User Types: Dynamics NAV allows two types of users: Full users and Limited users. On the other hand, SAP allows 4 types of users: Full users, Limited CRM users, Limited Logistics users, and Limited Financial users.

•    Reporting: Dynamics NAV offers reporting features like SSRS, Direct export to Excel, and Jet Report Express, whereas SAP offer Crystal reports, and HANA (in-memory) reporting features. Both Crystal and SSRS reports allow users to utilize the power of SQL. SAP HANA delivers better performance in data warehousing in-memory while Jet Reports helps in fetching data to Excel, and Direct export to Excel allows the NAV users to work on raw data easily.

•    Support: Dynamics NAV offers mainstream support for 5 years and extended support for 10 years after the release at a onetime maintenance cost of 16% of the license costs. On the other hand, SAP offers only 4 years of support for every release, and its onetime maintenance cost is 16% of the license costs.

•    Office integration: Dynamics NAV being a Microsoft product offers tighter integration with Office, which is also a Microsoft technology. On the other hand, SAP only offers basic MS Office Excel export and Outlook for CRM functionalities to the users. 

•    Instant messaging & Social media: Dynamics NAV offers richer IM and social media features given its Outlook and Yammer integration attributes. However, SAP offers only IM features.

•    Intranet and Publishing: Dynamics NAV offers seamless integration with SharePoint that helps a lot in intranet and publishing; these features are not available in SAP as it does not support SharePoint integration.

•    CRM integration: Dynamics NAV offers tight integrations with its sister product Dynamics CRM; SAP, on the other hand, has a basic CRM integrated with it.

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Why Businesses Need an ERP?

With the rapidly intensifying competition in the global business environment, almost every enterprise today is concerned at trying their best to outperform their peers. For this, the companies strive hard to improve their work processes, enhance their efficiency, and aim at achieving higher customer satisfaction levels. However, with the growing complexities of modern business, doing all these has become extremely tough. This is the reason almost every company today, regardless of the fact how big or small it is or what its industry domain is, wants to embrace a competent ERP solution.

ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning is a software solution that automates the key processes of an enterprise and provides a common platform for quick sharing of data between various departments of an organization. Though, there are several different types of ERP solutions available today, each with their own highlights and drawbacks, but the common objective of almost every ERP solution is to offer better management control to the users to help them dispose of their responsibilities in the most satisfactory manner. A robust and competent ERP solution can do wonders for any organization and provide them with the edge to outperform their competitors. Some the main advantages of an ERP solution for a business organization include:

·        * Automates processes: The key objective of any ERP solution is to automate the key processes of an organization. By automating the processes, an ERP solution not only reduces the redundancy of manual processes, but also plugs-in the loopholes to quicken the processes and increase their efficiency.

·        *  Single centralized platform: An ERP solution provides a common platform for all the key divisions/departments of an organization to help them quickly share critical business data amongst each other, and increase the overall productivity of the organization.

·        *·         Discrete management module: Many comprehensive ERP solutions like Microsoft Dynamics NAV or Dynamics GP offer discrete modules for individually targeting the key verticals of the enterprise. Such modules include Accounting, Manufacturing, Supply chain, Inventory, Human Resource (HR), Service, and Project management modules.

·        *     Time and cost saver: Implementing a good, high-quality ERP solution can act as a great cost and time saver for the organization by speeding up the processes and reducing the redundancy. The cost saving aspect of ERP solutions not enables the company to operate in a more economical manner but also increases its profits. Moreover, by cutting down the operational time, and the solution helps an organization to reduce its turnaround time and achieve higher customer satisfaction.

·        * Easy to customize: Most ERP solutions available today are not specific to any particular industrial domain; instead they can be easily customized for all types of business, irrespective of their industry or technology niche. Hence, any company operating cutting across varying industry verticals can implement the desired ERP solution and get it customized to meet their unique business needs.

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