The decision to implement a new business management system is one challenging process that requires careful research and foresight, and most businesses are often confused when it comes to Microsoft Dynamics VS Oracle, as they often don’t know what to consider before making the critical decision.
Microsoft Dynamics VS Oracle
Differences Between Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle
Oracle E-Business Suite is a comprehensive suite of integrated, business applications that allow organizations, globally, to make better decisions, minimize costs and increase performance. It helps customers manage complexities of business environments globally, whether a small, medium, or large business.
Microsoft Dynamics AX, on the other hand, is a business solution that enables operational and administrative functions and processes of global organizations. Moreover, this single solution allows localizations, for 36 countries. It mainly focuses on manufacturing, service industries, retail and public sector. Other capabilities include financial management, supply chain management, human capital management, business intelligence and reporting.
While both solutions support Fixed Asset Tracking, Microsoft Dynamics goes a step further to enable Depreciation Tracking. When it comes to reporting – especially financial reporting – both can process crucial financial reports such as Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement, and Budgeting & Forecast.
In addition, their Auto-Tax Calculator feature is impressive. However, Microsoft Dynamics can process multiple Sales Tax, a feature that financial managers consider critical in their financial analysis and financial forecasts (and sales forecasts), and how it affects tax overall.
Cost Factor
To begin with, cost majorly differentiates between Dynamics GP and Oracle E-Business Suite. Dynamics GP, for instance, offers both a flexible and robust business solution more affordably, Oracle also does offer more flexibility across industries, however, this area requires one to exercise caution.
While implementing a solution like Oracle provides you with several options to use your own way to implement right from the beginning, it could also mean higher implementation costs for you. Dynamics GP also offers this flexibility, but at a more “out-of-the-box” solution that you can implement quickly for your basic accounting needs via process engineering or customization to the code.
Integration with Other Software
In addition, unlike Oracle, Dynamics GP allows easily integration with regular day-to-day software like Microsoft Office. It is ideal for businesses looking for a solution that would not only allow fast growth and expansion, but one that is also agile. When it comes to affordability and flexibility to upgrade as your business grows, the value that Microsoft Dynamics offers far outweighs what Oracle puts on the table.
Time to Implement
While it takes longer than planned to implement Oracle and even Microsoft Dynamics, the two vary in the time it takes for implementation to complete. It is also true that ERP implementations involving any of these vendors would take longer than expected. However, Oracle implementations will take 18 months instead of the planned 14 while Microsoft Dynamics installs will only take 13 months instead of the planned or anticipated 11 months.
This may be because ERP vendors, their sales reps, and system integrators tend to grossly underestimate the total time required for them to implement the solutions. Regardless, one thing is clear…Microsoft Dynamics implementations take a short time than Oracle implementations.
Organizational Change Management
Some of the main reasons ERP implementations take a little longer than expected for these ERP products are: increased project scope and lack of proper organizational change management. One in every 5 companies will admit that organizational issues is the main reason implementations take a little longer than expected. Therefore, change management approach of “banging in the system and having employees trained fast through some canned training materials” may not work after all.
Scalability to Meet the Needs of your Growing Business
Any business at startup or capable of growth must be concerned about scalability. In analyzing Microsoft Dynamics vs Oracle, you will realize that the former can easily scale with your business. Microsoft offers affordable scalability for a growing business.
This is because of its benchmarked performance (up to 2, 250 users), coupled with its rich functionality across financials, customer relationship management, and supply chain management. Therefore, you can be rest assured that it has the ability to meet all your business growth needs. Through Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, it delivers enterprise-level reporting, relevant and timely business insight, and flexible decision-making support at a low cost, but with significantly high flexibility and usability.
Cost of Ownership
Another reason why businesses would prefer Microsoft Dynamics over Oracle is because it provides a low cost of ownership. It is carefully engineered to cost-effectively support the dynamic or ever-changing requirements that are often necessary to encourage customers to adapt, grow or expand, and maintain a competitive edge in the business or industry they operate in.
Ideally, Microsoft Dynamics offers businesses a high return on investment (ROI), but at a generally low cost of ownership than Oracle does. Its licensing is designed for cost effectiveness. Moreover, it is typically based on concurrent users vs named users and generally has no imposed maximum or minimum; evolving with you for the better life of your business.
However, even though Microsoft Dynamics might come out as the better ERP solution and a great financial fit for your organization, remember that the success or failure of this solution greatly depends on its implementation – even if your company is implementing Microsoft Dynamics, the implementation itself plays a major role in the success or failure of the entire process.
Conclusion
The decision to implement or adopt a new business management system or software solution requires one to be as discreet as possible, often requiring research and foresight in order to select one that most suits your organization’s needs.
This decision requires an organization to consider a number of factors: flexibility, scalability, the time it takes to implement, organizational change management, cost of ownership, payback period, return on investment, and more. In analyzing Microsoft Dynamics VS Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics emerges as the winner by demonstrating that it can return a higher ROI with a low cost of ownership, takes shorter time to implement, easily integrates with regular software, has low cost of ownership, and more.
