My company (Europe Based - multi sites - sales and rental) is running Microsoft C5 version 4.00.2 unsupported version.
With the rapid growth we have reached the available number of users. Meaning hat often people can't get into the system.
Should we upgrade to Nav or look into another system.
All pro's and con's are welcome.
If I'm not mistaken, Nav is the natural upgrade path for C5 users. I've had solid experience with Nav in the US. I like it a lot. The one disappointment was that the planned convergence between the US version and the European version hasn't seemed to have happened yet.
To answer your question, here are some of the things you need to ask your MS C5/Nav consultants:
1. How much massaging will be required on historical data?
2. How similar is the look and feel?
3. Are the standard modules C5 similar/compatible with the standard modules in Nav?
4. Are the external interfaces comparable? What will you have to do to connect to your bank accounts, customer accounts, and vendor accounts, assuming some or all are run through your current system?
5. How much system modification will be required to keep or improve your current processes under C5?
If you're happy with C5, you'll probably be happy with Nav. A major question will be cost of conversion. Conversion to a non-MS system will likely cost more and require a longer systems analysis (a necessary step with any conversion, even one that takes place moving from one MS platform to another).
I don't know how large your organization is but you can probably expect any conversion to Nav or a comparable system to take six-to-nine months from the moment you begin the analysis.
- a couple months to analyse
- a couple months to decide on path/vendor/installation consultants
- a couple months to prepare data for system conversion and any customization
- a weekend for installation
- a week for data to move over
- a month of parallel to verify results
- three months to work out the bugs
Customization is the most expensive part of the process, of course, and is independent of your solution provider. The closer C5 and Nav are architecturally, the greater impact the cost of customization will have on your decision.
