Adding the WOW factor to NAV
In today’s competitive ERP landscape buyers have plenty of options. Systems of all varieties are available with each one bringing a unique feature set to the table. ERP buyers must wade through the mass of information, narrow the field and thoroughly analyze the finalists before finally selecting an ERP system and a partner. While different ERP systems offer different features, none of them have it all ‘out of the box’. That’s why ERP systems are customizable to varying degrees with Microsoft Dynamics NAV being on the “highly-customizable” end of the spectrum.
Customizability increases the ability of a partner to mold an ERP system around a company’s unique business needs. Of course customization brings complexity, so there are some advantages to the customer and the NAV partner if, when possible, the required functionality can be added while avoiding customizations.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been speaking to a number of NAV partners. If I were to sum up those conversations simplistically, I’d say this is where Zetadocs shines.
Tom Doran is the Sales Director for ABC Computers, a widely respected NAV partner based in Wisconsin. He recently summed up the value that Zetadocs adds to his customers:
“ABC Computers has been working with Zetadocs for several years now. Our customers have been seeking a cost effective solution for document management for many years. The obstacles typically ran into cost and the effort required to maintain two separate systems to achieve a single goal. With Zetadocs, ABC’s customers have a very economical solution that is built right into the technology they already use to run their business.”
This quote is telling a story that we often hear about ERP buyers. They want as much integration as possible without huge customization costs. Mr. Doran also touched on some Zetadocs functionality that is now included by Microsoft as part of NAV:
“Zetadocs Express is a great way for any Microsoft Dynamics NAV customer to get great drag and drop document tracking capability and try the system FREE, since it is included with their NAV 2009 R2 or newer license.”
Zetadocs Express gives NAV partners a huge value-add at no additional cost – a potent combination when fighting off other ERP vendors. For NAV customers there are benefits too as they can upgrade from Zetadocs Express to our Delivery and Capture editions through their NAV partner, lending a tremendous amount of flexibility to every Zetadocs deployment.
It was at this point that I knew we had hit on something of great value to the NAV community. More and more partners started telling me that Zetadocs was a big competitive advantage for them. Tom Zappia, a NAV consultant and President of Stratus Informatix, told me recently, “I knew Zetadocs for NAV was going to be a big hit when the first company I showed it to said, “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
“Wow”, I thought. It’s great to hear firsthand how Zetadocs is bringing tangible value to NAV. Mr. Zappia has been in the NAV business for a long time, including owning a practice for 14 years. I put a lot of trust in his opinion. After I probed deeper to find out just how Zetadocs was adding value he gave this example of a customer:
“They currently scan about 25,000 pages a month into Zetadocs, but before then, it was taking roughly one entire day to manually collate and file the prior day's printed pages. By using the Zetadocs batch scanning features, they have eliminated entirely the need to manually file these pages, and they can retrieve them directly from NAV without anyone having to go to a file cabinet.
Not only has Zetadocs saved this company time and money, by putting the necessary documents in front of the people who need them, when they need them, it has also improved the operations of the business, from manufacturing to customer service.”
Such a detailed description of how integrated document management touched so many areas of the customer’s business was music to my ears. Mr. Zappia did not stop with these benefits to his existing customer, but also mentioned how Zetadocs has helped him show the value of NAV to potential customers: “Zetadocs for NAV has added tremendous value to my NAV customers, and in demos has been a significant factor in driving sales of NAV. As soon as I show how documents and emails can be dragged and dropped into a NAV screen, people are already thinking about where they want to start implementing Zetadocs in their organization.”
Mr. Zappia’s last quote drove me to write this blog:
“Zetadocs adds the WOW factor to NAV.”
Zetadocs Express is available at no additional cost to users of the NAV Windows or RoleTailored client who are on a Business Ready Enhancement Plan. If you would like more information on getting started with Zetadocs, feel free to get in contact directly, or visit our partner resources page.