Navision bets high on ERP

NEW DELHI: Two years after setting up shop in the country and one year after being acquired by Microsoft Corp, Navision Software India is all set to make it big among the ERP players in the country. After having assiduously built a base of partners, Navision is sure that it will be able to garner at least 25 new customers each month. It hopes to have a total base of 3,000-4,000 customers in the next three or four years. The company also plans to double its base of partners from 75 to 150 by next year. The expansion will be targeted at both increasing its geographic reach as well as vertical expertise.

With 75 customers and an equal number of partners currently this sounds like a tall claim. But herein lies the strength of the company as it has invested a lot in building capabilities of partners over the last two years.

“The strength of the company today is partners as they build niche competencies and build a profile of customers hitherto un-addressed by ERP biggies,” said Navision Software India Pvt Ltd MD Yash Nagpal.
Nagpal said that there was a vacuum in the branded ERP offering for SME customers. As such partners did not have the exposure of selling branded ERP package for SMEs. Therefore it took time to train them. Besides, the company’s positioning was important because it targeted niche segments. For instance, it has installed its packages in the tea industry, construction industry, agriculture industry and even amongst regional distributors. Each of these customers had varied and unique requirements and partners had to know the industry when implementing the package.

Navision’s target audience includes companies with a turnover of over Rs 10 crore to those with a turnover of over Rs 400 crore-Rs 500 crore.

Refuting charges that its market strategy would diffuse the company’s focus making it a Jack-of-all-trades, Nagpal said, “We firmly believe that all organizations buy, sell, have cash and inventory. The basic requirements of all organizations are the same. All that is needed is customization which we are investing a lot in building up amongst our partners.”

Navision’s partners who are currently called Navision Certified Solution Partners are soon going to be renamed to reflect and incorporate the Microsoft brand name. During the last two years Navision has worked closely with its partners and brought about a cultural change amongst them by emphasizing the importance of domain specialists instead of code writers. “We can teach domain experts how to write codes, but we cannot impart domain knowledge to code writers,” Nagpal added.

There are two offerings from the Navision stables: Microsoft Business solution Navision and the Microsoft Business solution Axapta. While the former is targeted at the lower end the other package is positioned at the higher end customers. The lower end package is limited to a maximum of 250 users.

(CNS)