Merit Matters Blog

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides a flexible pre-built business intelligence (BI) solution for mid-market organizations. The use of built-in content—including Role Centers, analytic reports, and analysis cubes—eliminates the need to build a solution from the ground up, and therefore saves time and money. The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 business intelligence solution can be configured and extended to suit your specific needs with the help of Microsoft Business Intelligence development tools.

The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 business intelligence solution consists of the following built-in features:

• Role Centers (dashboards). Thirty-two default home pages that pertain to the work needs of various user profiles in an organization.
• Analysis cubes. Eleven analysis cubes that address the analytic requirements of the major functional areas within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012—including finance, supply chain, manufacturing, professional services, and business processes.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). More than 60 of the most commonly used KPIs that help users evaluate the success of business activities.
• Analytic reports. More than 150 analytic reports that provide insight into business data.

The pre-built BI solution can be deployed when you implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in your organization. A new intuitive, wizard-driven interface guides the user through deployment of the solution without requiring the user to have expert business intelligence skills.

By deploying the pre-built business intelligence solution as you implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, your organization can start using BI capabilities as soon as the new business functionality is operational.

Based on reports from industry analysts and the many conversations that our team has with clients, we believe four megatrends will radically change how businesses view enterprise IT over the coming decade.

• Mobility and social are the driving forces for change in business today, particularly as employees (and customers) increasingly expect to use mobile and social technology to interact in new ways. These two elements are becoming a competitive differentiator for business - for recruiting and retaining employees and for attracting and retaining customers.
• The cloud and big data are quickly becoming enablers for business success. The tremendous scalability and agility enabled by the cloud and the new insights made possible with big data can help businesses today get ahead of the competition and tap into new sources of revenue.

These trends represent not only what is most important to our customers today, but also what we feel are likely to be the dominant forces of change in the coming decade.

• The proliferation of new device types, along with the connectivity of the cloud, is making us more mobile and changing the way we work and play. Mobility answers the growing expectation from your employees to be able to work from anywhere, with the device that they choose. Mobile technology also delivers a great mobile experience to customers, bringing your business to them wherever they are through their mobile phone or tablet.
• As technology becomes more immersive, we also expect it to help us develop more personal and social connections with our colleagues and customers. Social networks build strong work communities, enhancing collaboration, information sharing, and productivity.
• The connectivity that the cloud offers is changing what we expect from technology. With an always-on connection, apps can provide innovative new services with instant scalability and attractive economics.
• While business intelligence (BI) has been important for a great number of years, the explosion in connected devices and apps is generating an exponential growth in data and the need to get better insights from “big data.” The challenge for today’s businesses is to make that data useful—to put it into the hands of their people to drive informed, forward-thinking decisions.

We’re not alone in identifying these megatrends. According to IDC, “In 2012, the ICT industry's shift to its third major platform of growth—built on mobile, cloud, social, and big data technologies—will accelerate.” In contrast to what IDC refers to as the first (mainframe) and second (PC/server) platforms, they estimate that by 2020, “…enterprises’ highest-value leverage of IT will be driven by these third-platform technologies as well as an explosion of new solutions built on the new platform and rapidly expanding consumption of all of the above in emerging markets.”

It’s amazing just how fast our world is changing today. Just think…

• Within 15 years, a little startup named Amazon has gone from transforming the book industry to changing the face of retail.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users. In less than nine months, Facebook reached 100 million users. And in the space of just a few short years, social networking services have significantly changed people’s expectations of how we interact with each other and with businesses, particularly for the millennial generation.
• Within just two months of its launch, Kinect for the Xbox 360 changed the face of gaming and became the world’s fastest-selling consumer electronics device ever.

Each of these examples reflects the tremendous impact that the megatrends are having on our world - and the pace at which it is all changing. As we enter this new era in the enterprise, the question is - what can your business do to make the most of it?

Of course, technology trends on their own aren’t going to revolutionize your business or help you stay competitive. How you adopt new technology and put it to work in your business will ultimately be the responsibility of IT. We know how important it is to ensure that your technology solutions truly empower your IT professionals to deliver what the business needs. What are those needs?

• Integrate new devices and applications with their existing line-of-business apps, for a seamless experience that keeps people productive and connected to the business.
• Help maximize end user productivity, with solutions that put the tools users need at their fingertips, wherever they happen to be working from, and that connect them with the people, information, and content they rely on to do their jobs well.
• Ensure that corporate data and resources are protected and secure, even as access to those data and resources becomes possible from an increasing number of devices and apps.
• Fully manage all devices on the network, both local and remote - a task that is becoming ever more complicated as users bring more and more devices into the enterprise and work from more and more locations.

At Merit Solutions, our goal is to deliver ground-breaking technology solutions that empower IT to take advantage of the latest trends without compromise. By achieving this goal, we are able to provide your IT professionals with the tools they need to help you innovate and compete while meeting the core needs of the business in all new ways.

Learn more about how Merit Solutions can help you transform your business!

A while back we discussed some global business and IT trends that are slowly but steadily reshaping the ERP landscape. With our emerging economic climate, these trends are posing additional challenges for business and IT professionals who are struggling to improve profitability and retain IT agility.

Global market trends are creating the need for businesses to:

• Achieve operational insight and better decision making across the organization with faster, easier, and more pervasive access to relevant business information.
  
• Need for business agility to stay ahead of the competition and accelerate business growth.
• Reducing the cost of doing business by optimizing processes and driving productivity.
• Align business objectives with IT priorities and investments to ensure that IT systems and tools are enabling and supporting strategic business priorities and that they address changing business needs.

At the same time, shifting IT trends are creating the need to:

• Increase ERP adoption and access to ERP data across a broader subset of the workforce.
• Reduce IT operational costs by investing in systems that are more flexible and scalable, and simpler to configure, maintain, and upgrade.
  
• Put solutions in place that enable broad business strategies, and that enable IT to respond quickly to specific line-of-business (LOB) requests and industry needs.

When you frame this discussion with the research conducted by Forrester in 2010 detailed in our article, Key Challenges Companies Face with ERP Solutions, you can see how the needs produced by market and IT trends are affecting customers’ expectations of their ERP application.

Today’s world is increasingly flattened by technology, global complexity and new global competition - making it critical for a business to be able to rapidly see and react to signals, threats and opportunities. Going one step further, in this world where the pace of business accelerates, imagine being able to anticipate rather than react to those signals. Success today and tomorrow increasingly depends on information insight and efficient business processes.

So what would the next generation of ERP look like? See for yourself!

Did you know that it is possible to create statements with financial dimensions expressed in different columns?

I recently discovered this interesting feature of Microsoft Dynamics AX while I was trying to help a customer with financial reporting focused on different financial dimensions. In our situation, the client is a medical institution with multiple clinicians on staff. The client needed statements calculated per each clinician so they can compare financial results during certain periods of time. For this client, Clinicians are custom made financial dimensions.

As in every other statement, the date intervals and raw definition have to be defined prior to creating the statement. Once defined, we have to generate financial statements and define their basic structures (General ledger>Setup>Financial statement>Financial statement). In the upper pane of the screenshot below, you can see that we give the statement a name and description - and then we can connect it to primary and secondary dimension sets (in this example, we only used primary dimension sets).

In the lower part of the screen, we can create columns that are going to show up on the statement we print out. In this client case, we set the account number in the first column and the account definition in the secondary column. Now, in our next three columns (or more), we can add our clinicians (or dimensions). For each of those columns we choose “current” as “Column type” and setup desired time intervals in “setup” tab.

After the statement structure is created and the columns that will present dimension data are defined, we can go ahead and add dimensions to them (General ledger>Reports>Transactions>Financial statement). The first tab is “Financial statement” tab, and under “Identification” we chose the financial statement we created before, and add to it the dimension set and row definition.

Under the “columns” tab we choose one of the columns we setup before (in General ledger>Setup>Financial statement>Financial statement). Click on the "Select" button in the upper right corner.

A new window will open. The upper pane is a graphical representation of tables and their connections. In lower pane we can add the desired dimensions to the chosen column (in our case that was one of clinicians). First we have to pick the “Field” (custom made dimension - Clinician) and then the “Criteria” (desired clinician to be represented in that column).

This is a great feature to compare and review different dimensions and it can be a great resource when creating complex financial reports.

Merit Solutions has been selected as a member of the Bob Scott’s VAR Stars for 2012, a group of 100 organizations honored for their accomplishments in the field of midmarket financial software.

Members of the VAR Stars were selected based on factors such growth, industry leadership and recognition, and innovation. Selection is not based on revenue and those firms chosen represent a wide range of size and many different software publishers of accounting software.

“Each year, 100 VAR Stars are picked from the best organizations that market financial software. It is always an honor to recognize those who contribute to the development of our business,” Bob Scott said.

There’s plenty of incentive for overcoming today’s business information challenges. Although it can be difficult to put financial values on faster, smarter decisions, the ability to make them is still widely recognized as critical to success in the highly competitive global marketplace. Moreover, it’s not hard to identify organizational dissatisfaction with the relevance, availability, and accuracy of the information people currently do have at their disposal.

Fortunately, new solutions are emerging to help solve these problems. Today, the right BI solution can:

• Provide self-service convenience for the average user, with immediate, out-of-the-box analysis capabilities, while still helping to maintain a secure environment and offer the depth and power necessary for sophisticated analysis.
• Improve business agility with a range of flexible options for generating, viewing, analyzing, and distributing BI.
• Integrate and connect disparate legacy systems and business applications, information sources, departments, and locations to provide comprehensive, one-stop BI for the entire organization that’s optimized for the capabilities of the ERP system.
• Expand in reach and capabilities as the organization grows and its BI demand increases. Ideally, this growth can take place as an integral component of a scalable enterprise-wide solution that also adapts and extends readily as needed.
• Offer a quick return on investment through initial cost efficiency, long-term scalability, and a low total cost of ownership.

The following steps provide a guideline for incorporating BI into your organization. By following these steps, you can identify key business considerations prior to deploying a new BI solution.

Step 1: Replace complex user interfaces with intuitive, convenient self-service

Ease of access is a primary consideration. An inquiry, analysis, or reporting solution that is too complicated may be powerful but sit mostly unused. On the other hand, a solution that’s too simple may not be robust enough to serve the business decision-makers who need it most. But when the BI solution is easy to use right out of the box and users can access information via familiar interfaces, applications, and tools, everyone in the organization can achieve greater insight without relying on costly IT resources to generate reports or run time-consuming analyses. The ideal solution works the way your people want to work.
A self-service–focused user interface also minimizes training costs and startup times and enables team members to work with information in a collaborative environment. At the same time, managers can control information access based on functional roles or individual authorization to help protect sensitive information and prevent inappropriate or unintended modifications.

Step 2: Expand options for analysis, transportability, and dissemination

To turn information into actionable business intelligence, people must be able to extract and analyze the specific information they need, in the order they need it, and with the detail that addresses their interests. Tailored functionality is critical, both for customizing the solution to industry and organizational needs and for adapting operationally to the interests of diverse functional roles. Finally, the right solution can make it easier to share, present, and distribute the results of analysis, not only within the organization but also with trade partners. Therefore, solutions that incorporate Web services, portal compatibility, or other measures to ease communication across platforms provide a definite advantage.

Step 3: Integrate disconnected information and systems into the knowledge base

A strong BI system must be able to incorporate information from across the enterprise while also connecting with line-of-business applications, including document repositories, and the desktop productivity tools employees use every day. The ability to access and consolidate information from multiple production management and manufacturing control systems, warehouses, distribution channels, and companies or subsidiaries is also valuable for providing managers with comprehensive, enterprise-wide insight.

Step 4: Scale to fit changing business models and needs

A BI system is only good while it fits. Given the rate of change in today’s business environment, it’s imperative to find and implement a solution flexible enough to adapt to business growth, whether that growth comes through acquisitions, vertical integration, international expansion, or shifts into entirely new lines of business. To continue supporting personal, team, and organizational BI needs, solutions must be extensible to new users and locations as the company grows. Such scalable solutions, when they also accommodate add-on or tailored functionality, offer strong cost efficiency, consistency, service, and fit over time.

Step 5: Deploy cost-efficiently and with long-term adaptability for a low TCO

For a business solution to be implemented at all, it must be cost-efficient to license, deploy, and maintain, while remaining accessible across the organization. Ideal solutions give all people responsible for strategic, tactical, and operational decisions access to the information they need at a low total cost of ownership (TCO). An effective BI solution can quickly provide a strong return on investment while retaining the

flexibility and scalability for future growth to provide long-term performance that maximizes your investment.

Ivancic i sinovi was founded in 1991 and manufactures and markets pharmaceutical medicines and dietary products - both in capsules and powder forms. The desire to provide consumers with high quality products, created by the latest in medical technologies, in packaging of contemporary design, yet available to everyone, inspired the idea to begin manufacturing.

Prior to selecting Merit Solutions’ MAXLife with Microsoft Dynamics AX, Ivancic i sinovi used a homegrown system that made it difficult to manage business processes across the organization. The system was not integrated with real-time information, which meant executives and managers were often making decisions based on outdated and incorrect data. Ivancic i sinovi also had industry-specific requirements that would not be met with an out-of-the-box solution. With their homegrown system, they could not track or understand the costs associated with quality control processes, which were time-consuming and people-intensive, and resulted in lost productivity, efficiency, and higher costs. And, with expansion and growth plans, the system could not support the expansion of a production plant.

For these reasons, Ivancic i sinovi began looking for a pharmaceutical quality management solution. In the end, Ivancic i sinovi chose Merit Solutions’ MAXLife with Microsoft Dynamics AX because it is simple to use and deploy, is a comprehensive ERP solution that connects all departments with real-time information, and gives them the flexibility to grow, expand, and adapt as needed.

With MAXLife, Ivancic i sinovi will utilize key quality control and compliance management features specific to pharmaceutical manufacturing. Quality incident and non-conformance management processes will be streamlined and automated with MAXLife’s Corrective Action Preventive Action (CAPA) capabilities, enabling Ivancic i sinovi to correct and prevent issues, measure outcomes, and continuously monitor the system. Ivancic i sinovi will also be able to track and analyze all of their costs related to performing quality processes with Cost of Quality Management, enabling them to reduce the cost of quality while maintaining product safety.

“We’re extremely happy that Ivancic i sinovi has chosen MAXLife from Merit Solutions to reduce costs, improve quality, and support their business growth,” commented Petar Miljkovic, Director - Europe, Merit Solutions. “With MAXLife, the company can continue providing high quality, innovative pharmaceutical products while reducing costs, improving efficiency and productivity, and providing safe products to their customers.”

About Merit Solutions:

Merit Solutions is a multinational organization that provides IT services and software solutions to help companies improve their business success. Our industry-specific solutions, MAXFood and MAXLife, along with our core Microsoft Dynamics ERP and SharePoint offerings, enable organizations to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve service - while maintaining profitable growth!

A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Merit Solutions is AMR Research Industry Certified in Process Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX. We have recently been recognized as one of Accounting Today's VAR 100, and had two products named in the Top 15 Add-ons for Microsoft Dynamics ERP. Merit Solutions is a Microsoft Excellence Partner for working successfully and collaboratively with customers and partners across the world.

We are excited to announce the launch of our new MAXFood ERP website: http://www.maxfoodsoftware.com.

MAXFood Safety ERP streamlines how food companies operate according to the guidelines of the Food Safety Modernization Act, and according to Good Manufacturing Processes. MAXFood Safety provides more than just lot traceability and corrective actions; it enables you to identify, document, monitor and follow up on critical control points, thereby supporting compliance with even the most stringent regulations and reporting requirements, including GFSI and SQF protocols.

Learn more about MAXFood Safety:

• Food Safety Portal: Increase control over operations, reduce the cost of compliance, and increase productivity with one integrated quality control and food safety document management solution for HACCP, Recalls, SOPs, Incidents, Audits, Complaints, GMPs and more.
• Food Safety Incident Management: Quickly generate a Corrective Action or Preventive Action request that routes through review, root cause, corrective action taken, and verification stages. Generate multiple Food Safety Incident reports automatically, providing an effective mechanism for tracking the source and costs of problems.
• Food Recall Management Workbench: Streamline and automate the recall process, enabling you to not only perform effective product recalls, but to provide concrete documentation and proof that you followed all FDA GMP mandated recall procedures.

With MAXFood for Microsoft Dynamics AX, food companies can minimize risk, maximize product safety, and deliver greater value to their customers. And with MAXFood Cloud ERP, you can also give your employees real-time visibility and anytime, anywhere access to the critical business data they need to be successful - without compromising functionality or security.

Here’s how Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides business agility:

1. Adapt to changing process and regulatory requirements with model-driven methods: First, improve business visibility with virtually unlimited views on the business via financial dimensions that let you earmark transactions based on system and custom entities. When your business needs changes to business processes, you can configure these with a graphical workflow editor without heavy dependency of IT. In addition, improve product planning and execution flexibility by unifying process, discrete and lean manufacturing operations. And, foster innovation with a unified business process repository. Configure the capabilities supporting generic or industry-specific business processes that you need from a single repository. Lastly, the organizational model help you change your organization structure more easily. For example: a manufacturing organization can implement lean manufacturing for one of the product lines by simply configuring these processes while running the same solution for more classic process or discrete operations.
2. Improve responsiveness to demand: The manufacturing capabilities include a range of capabilities that improve responsiveness to demand. For example: manage customer demand spikes by rapidly onboarding vendors. Or, increase utilization and responsiveness through flexible resource deployments across multiple routings. Fulfill customer demand with the constraints-based product configurator.
3. Enable a green and efficient enterprise: Track waste, water usage, energy consumption, carbon footprint, and related costs with the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard. Gain efficiencies through the “5 R’s” (reduce, recover, reuse, recycle, and renew). Reduce waste and streamline production using lean manufacturing techniques.

Expand business opportunities, modify processes, and differentiate your business with comprehensive ERP software that provides unprecedented agility.

• Natural modeling to continuously plan, visualize, and change your processes.
• Flexible deployment options (such as two-tier ERP, or cloud deployment) that can change as you grow.
• Agile technology that makes it easy to change and differentiate your business.

Learn more about Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Manufacturers are struggling to close the gap between their business requirements and the capabilities of their current business systems. In addition, many organizations lack the insight into their global operations due to the wide variety of legacy systems across the organization. The lack of a single system that grows with the business is evident. In addition, they’re challenged to give their people access to relevant information.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will help you gain more value quickly with a single, powerful solution that supports industry-specific and operational demands across your global enterprise. Let me explain how:

• Purposely built for the manufacturing industry: Meet your manufacturing business requirements with a solution purposely built for these needs. For example: improve production control through a variety of systems: make-to-order, make-to-stock, or engineer-to-order or enhance customer and vendor agreements with flexible contract structures. In addition you can support your organization end-to-end with rich core ERP capabilities, including finance, HR, and compliance management to streamline operations and increase efficiency across your global organizations. All with a single solution!
• Scale your organization quickly with a global manufacturing solution: Run your organization and expand into new geographies using 36 country localizations built into one solution. Packaged localizations to meet local financial regulations in about 36 countries are included and maintained in Microsoft Dynamics AX helping organization meet the changing regulations in specific markets. In addition, it enables entities in your multisite organization to share data, business rules and processes in order to harmonize and streamline business processes. For example, Microsoft Dynamics AX enables global manufacturing planning with a unified operations resources models, or enhance operational efficiency with shared data for general ledger, relationships, and products; and common processes for intercompany trade and shared services. 
• Gain immediate insight and unlock greater productivity with RoleTailored user experiences: Boost productivity with RoleTailored enhancements including new Role Centers, fact boxes, and enriched previews. Provide ad hoc, self-service business intelligence and reporting for key manufacturing operations, including pre-built reports from Microsoft SQL Server® Reporting Services. Provide business process context via notifications and alerts initiated by embedded workflows.

Reduce time to market and respond quickly to changing customer demands with Microsoft Dynamics AX Manufacturing. Real-time insight into business and supply chain information—including inventory, warehouse, and production—helps you optimize production flow by planning effectively, maximizing resource utilization, driving accurate delivery performance, and streamlining business processes.

We've updated our Microsoft Dynamics AX Consulting page!

The new page contains deeper dives into the key functional areas of Microsoft Dynamics AX, along with ROI information, analyst insight, demo videos, and links to other resources!

We'd love you to provide your feedback by commenting on this article!

• Cost pressures: As companies compete in a global market, they are under constant pressure to reduce end-item manufacturing costs as well as plant operating costs. This requires streamlining processes and increasing production efficiency. There is a continued need for insight into cost drivers of the operations.
• Time to market: Getting products to market faster than your competition gives you a competitive advantage. Reduction in product life cycles caused by technology innovation and changes in consumer behavior force organization to focus on reducing time-to-market of products. This requires a good insight into and grip operations.
• Product quality: It is no longer acceptable to deliver defective products. Not only does it damage your reputation but warranty and liability costs can quickly escalate to eliminate all profits.
• Inventory visibility: The risks thus costs of inventory are on the rise due to increasing product assortments, shorter product life cycles, and the importance of a healthy cashflow. The visibility into inventory across distributed organizations remains a challenge and continues to challenge the organization’s grip on inventory.

A world-class software solution should help manufacturers address these traditional challenges - but it needs to do more: it must also help them identify and respond to recently emerging challenges.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 was purposely built for Manufacturing Organizations.

We don’t have nearly enough time (or space!) to review all the capabilities built into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 that can help manufacturers meet the challenges they face and efficiently manage their unique set of manufacturing models across multiple sites and geographies. But I can provide a high-level overview. I’ll start by briefly noting the familiar user experience that fosters adoption and use, the robust set of tools that helps streamline workflow and business processes, and the pervasive interoperability that helps you optimize your investment in other Microsoft products and technologies. With that said, let’s look at some of the key manufacturing capabilities built into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

The following General Business Processes are utilized by all corporations independent of their business focus. They provide the corporate infrastructure needed to operate in a modern competitive business environment. These include:

Financial Management:

• General ledger
• Accounts receivable and payable
• Bank management
• Budgetary controls
• Shared support services
• Compliance management

• Organization and workforce management
• Recruiting and selection
• Development, training and performance
• Skill mapping
• Employee self-service portal
• Expense management

• Standard, ad-hoc, and analytical reports with Microsoft SQL Reporting Services
• Role tailored, pre-defined, multi-dimensional data cubes
• Dashboard views of KPI’s

The following Key Manufacturing Business Processes are purposely built to provide manufacturers with the tools needed to run their discrete, process, or hybrid manufacturing operations. These include:

Procurement and sourcing:

• Direct and indirect procurement
• Purchase requisitions
• Supplier relationship management
• Vendor self-service portal

• Material and capacity planning
• Resource management
• Job scheduling and sequencing
• Product configuration
• Shop floor management

• Inventory management
• Multi-site warehouse management
• Order handling with trade agreements
• Order promising
• Distribution planning
• Quality management

• Sales force and marketing automation
• Lead and opportunity management
• Telemarketing and telesales
• Sales management
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM connector

• Service orders and contracts
• Service calls and dispatching
• Repair management
• Service subscription

• Large enterprises utilize Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 as part of a Two-Tier ERP implementation: Large enterprises are striving to balance business agility and costs by standardizing on two ERP standards. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is used by these organizations in subsidiaries, divisions and specific HQ “workloads” (such as manufacturing plants or corporate purchasing) of large international organizations. These organizations often have a central corporate (Administrative) ERP and are seeking to standardize on a more flexible, lower-cost ERP for use in a variety of units. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is extremely well-positioned for this “tier”. Due to the differences in nature of these units (Retail, purchasing function, plant), the solution has to support these different needs with a single technology to take advantage of the standardization. In addition the organization will benefit from the interoperability with the Microsoft platform. A popular manufacturing scenario involves connecting local manufacturing sites to corporate HQ (see Two-Tier presentation for more details).
• Distributed enterprises support the organization end-to-end: This scenario addresses the needs of mid-market companies and small enterprises that operate global, multi-plant organizations and are looking for a single centralized ERP that can accommodate multiple entities in one or multiple countries. These organizations seek a good match of the ERP solution with the primary business processes. In addition they would like to benefit from the networking effect of ERP and extend the footprint of ERP within the organizations to more business processes and people. Examples of these are the deployment of Human Capital Management, Time and Attendance, Compliance and internal controls, etc….

Microsoft Convergence 2012 is rapidly approaching! Make sure to register before January 26, because you can save $300 with early registration pricing!

Merit Solutions is thrilled for the opportunity to be a Bronze Sponsor at Convergence this year, and we hope everyone can stop by Booth #545 across from the Microsoft Dynamics AX Experience Center to learn more about our products and services!

We hope you are able to join us!

Microsoft Convergence 2012:
March 18-21, 2012 
George R. Brown Convention Center
Houston, TX

Pricing:
Early Bird Price = $1395 - Before January 25, 2012
Regular Price = $1695 – After January 25, 2012

Register now, or visit the Microsoft Convergence 2012 website to learn more.

1. Achieve Fast Time to Value. With prebuilt industry capabilities for manufacturing, distribution, services, retail, and Public Sector, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 helps you meet your business requirements by deploying your solution quickly and delivering results right away. Streamline your organization end-to-end with rich ERP capabilities, including human resources, financials, and compliance management. Support specific business requirements easily with packaged solutions from the worldwide Microsoft® Partner Network.
2. Grow Your Global Solution. Removing barriers to international growth is essential for business development. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 enables you to expand your operations to new geographies with builtin, country-specific localizations in a single solution to meet regulatory requirements for 36 countries. Enable entities across your multisite, global organization to share the same data, business rules, and processes in order to harmonize and streamline business practices. Also support your business growth by easily adding users and transactions, as well as configuring more complex business scenarios.
3. Work Smart and Fast. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 can help you improve productivity by providing RoleTailored access to information, tasks, and business processes along with powerful business intelligence. Gain deeper insight into critical business data across your organization with relevant performance indicators, selfservice business intelligence, and reporting in key business areas.
4. Drive New Business. Take advantage of new business opportunities by improving the insight into your business, and having the ability to implement change more easily. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 offers unlimited views on your business, giving you the visibility you need. Enhanced modeling capabilities, such as the Organizational Model or workflow, then helps you manage changes in the structure and business processes of your organization, and fosters innovation with a central business process repository, including capabilities for five major industries. 
5. Support Business Today and Tomorrow. Choose a flexible deployment model that best supports your organization and can easily be adjusted to meet your changing business demands: on-premises or Microsoft Dynamics AX Cloud. Easily complement your installation with cloud-based services and take advantage of the flexible Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 solution architecture that enables incremental implementations, changes, or upgrades. Choose the governance model that best fits your organization: centrally managed, decentrally managed, or a combination of both. 
6. Gain a Competitive Edge. Differentiate your business from competition. The ability to rapidly implement and adapt your system to support your unique needs can give you a significant edge over your competitors. The model-driven, layered architecture allows you to develop and maintain unique business processes easily and enables a relatively easy upgrade to new releases. 
7. Get Everyone on Board. Employees want to use a solution with a familiar and intuitive user experience that makes their jobs easier, and is simple to use and learn. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 enables people to find, sort, visualize, and use information through an easy-to-use user interface that looks and works like Microsoft Office. Work easily with everyday tools by sharing data between Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and Microsoft Office 2010. 
8. Connect and Collaborate. Easily connect employees, customers, suppliers, and partners through integrated self-service collaboration capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 enables you to streamline basic supply chain collaboration with self-service, Microsoft SharePoint®– based vendor, customer, and employee portals, and end-to-end business process integration through Sites Services. Simplify advanced supply chain collaboration with adaptable web services and share information easily by using collaboration tools such as Microsoft Lync and by creating SharePoint collaboration sites directly from within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.
9. Lower Your TCO. In addition to improved productivity gains, lower your total cost of ownership (TCO) through simplified life cycle management and quick installations. Use Microsoft Dynamics ERP RapidStart Services to help ensure a quick and reliable setup and configuration of your ERP solution. In alignment with the RoleTailored design of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, the simplified Business Value Licensing model ensures that you buy the exact number of licenses you need—no more, no less—with options to easily add more licenses as your business grows. 
10. Leverage the Power of the Microsoft Platform. It’s our fundamental value proposition: The interaction of ERP, business and productivity applications, communications solutions, and the underlying technology platform—that works on-premises or in the cloud. We call it pervasive interoperability. With Microsoft Dynamics AX 2102, you get a business solution from Microsoft that is backed by an ongoing commitment to research, development, and innovation. Combined with a global ecosystem of specialized partners, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 uses the power of the Microsoft platform to deliver a powerfully simple solution.

Learn more about Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012!

Microsoft Dynamics Customers and Partners come to Convergence from all corners of the globe to experience all that the event has to offer. Loaded with a wealth of informative sessions and other creative ways to learn, customers discover how to extend the power of their solution across all areas of their business. They also get a first look at new product releases and hear about future plans for their software. Convergence is the annual event where connections are generated, best practices are shared, and business relationships are built and renewed.

Merit Solutions is thrilled to be a Bronze Sponsor because we have had a very exciting year - one that has seen multiple product launches, experienced an increase in customer satisfaction, and received numerous awards / recognition within the Dynamics Community:

• This year, we announced MAXCloud ERP, our Microsoft Dynamics AX Cloud Solution. MAXCloud enables companies to take advantage of the industry-leading capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 at a decreased cost - without sacrificing security or functionality.
• One of the main benefits of MAXCloud ERP is our Rapid On Deployment and Fixed Price Packaged Services. With Rapid On, you can take advantage of a 30 Day Deployment and the freedom to select only the implementation services you require - all at fixed prices.
• We also had exciting announcements for our Microsoft Dynamics AX industry-specific products, MAXFood ERP and MAXLife ERP. Earlier this year, MAXLife passed the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics AX Software Solution Testing. More recently, it was named one of the Top 15 Add-Ons for Microsoft Dynamics AX. 2011 also witnessed the launch of MAXFood ERP, a Microsoft Dynamics AX Food Safety solution. We are pleased to announce that both products are now available in the cloud! Learn more about MAXLife Cloud and MAXFood Cloud.
• At WPC 2011, we launched the Merit Solutions Partner Program, designed to provide partners with the sales, service, and product support needed to present competitive industry bids and win more deals. We invite you to join the Merit Solutions Partner Program!

We hope you are able to join us this year to celebrate the Microsoft Dynamics Community!

Register now!

MICROSOFT CONVERGENCE 2012
March 18 - 21, 2012
Houston, Texas
George R Brown Convention Center
Early Pricing = $1395 – Before 11:59pm Pacific Time on January 25, 2012
Standard Pricing = $1695 – After January 25, 2012