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Love Great Plains, but want to move to the cloud?

15 Mar

Love Great Plains, but want to move to the cloud?

by SMB Suite
in Managed IT, SMB Blog
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Great Plains customers are moving to cloud solutions. However, to take advantage of a cloud offering, these customers don’t have to move off of Great Plains and be forced to learn an entirely new system – one that could slow their business down.  
 
SMB Suite provides the same benefits of the cloud, while allowing customers to continue using Great Plains. With SMB Suite, customers can upgrade to the latest version of Dynamics GP, and experience the benefits of a modern cloud solution without the time and expense of learning a completely different ERP solution, all for one low monthly subscription.
 
In this three part series we will take a look from the perspective of an existing customer on traditional Great Plains, and the benefits of using Great Plains with the SMB Suite cloud as alternative to having to learn another ERP system.
 
If you have an existing outdated Great Plains on-premise solution, the first benefit of moving to the SMB Suite is that you can keep Great Plains, the solution you know and love. Great Plains, now called Microsoft Dynamics GP, is one of the most widely used ERP solutions in North America. If your business isn’t on the latest version, your company could be missing out on improved productivity and greater efficiencies.  To date, Microsoft has made significant investments in Dynamics GP, adding deeper more robust functionality, while improving the user experience with streamlined and personalized home pages. In addition, you can gain greater insight on your business with easy to use reporting, greater integration to Microsoft Excel, plus advanced business intelligence. Perhaps you have been holding off on upgrading to the latest version of Dynamics GP because your annual renewal plan has long since expired, and the cost of updating is cost prohibitive. This is not a problem with SMB Suite – because when you move to the cloud, SMB Suite will automatically update your business to the latest version.
 
Another benefit of the SMB Suite cloud is that it is a fully integrated solution that cuts costs and greatly reduces errors. Our cloud offering features an integrated suite of products that will increase your productivity, reduce cost, and save time. As many traditionally deployed businesses know, the cost of implementation, integration, and on-going application maintenance of typical on-premise environments can be many times the cost of the software itself. However, with SMB Suite you’ll never have to worry about an approach that requires costly integration to get your different applications to work together. Each application of the SMB Suite works together seamlessly.  Gone are the days of separate on premise software packages—one for accounting, one for sales force management and automation, one for ecommerce, one for service management, and perhaps one for warehousing.  SMB Suite has combined Microsoft Dynamics with solutions that add value, all designed to take advantage of the proven Microsoft platform. These fully integrated solutions include customer relationship management with sales automation, service and marketing solutions, ecommerce for both business to business and business to consumer transactions, human resource and payroll solutions, service management, job costing, distribution and warehousing, plus unique Excel based business intelligence.
 
A great benefit of moving to the cloud is the elimination of on-premise IT costs. The cost of using on-premise software includes the buying and maintaining of computer hardware, operating systems, software upgrades, service packs, virus protection, plus daily backup and recovery. For most small to medium businesses, having an IT department is an expensive luxury – yet without at least one IT person there is a very real risk of costly viruses, loss of data, and downtime. Using a modern cloud based solution such as SMB Suite eliminates this concern. All of the hardware and software maintenance is taken care of by SMB Suite. We constantly work to keep virus protection up to date, applying all required service packs, and providing daily backups. Additionally, your business won’t be tying up funds in server hardware and/or paying for additional hardware upgrades as your business grows. This greatly reduces the risk and allows businesses more time to focus on what they do best.
 
In part three we’ll explore how you can move to the cloud for one monthly subscription, how Microsoft Dynamics works seamlessly with Excel and Outlook, and how to gain greater visibility into your company with business intelligence.

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Steve’s been with SMB Suite since 1998 and has been involved with nearly every aspects of the Company’s business as a strategist, professional services executive, cloud solutions architect, and senior consultant. In his current role, Steve is responsible for SMB Suite’s revenue and oversees the execution of ERP, CRM and BI projects for customers across a broad range of industries. Steve combines his expertise in MS Dynamics GP, CRM and other Microsoft products with a strong foundation in accounting and business to identify gaps and streamline customers’ processes. Prior to co-founding SMB Suite, Steve was previously Corporate Controller for MEHLE Behr and, prior to that, Audit Senior for Ernst & Young. Steve holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Jeremy is responsible for SMB Suite’s technology vision, strategy and implementation and is the architect of the Company’s Dynamics Cloud Platform. Highly adept in every facet of managed services, ERP systems and e-commerce platforms, Jeremy’s expertise spans the implementation and support of business and financial software solutions, as well as the customization and integration of SMB Suite’s cloud ERP technology stack. He holds numerous Microsoft and industry-related certifications, and was primarily responsible for designing the Company’s progressive business services platform in the early days of the Cloud. Prior to SMB Suite, Jeremy served as the financial analyst, systems administrator, and information systems liaison for a $2 billion financial services corporation.

Monty is responsible for SMB Suite’s day-to-day operation and, most importantly, its customers. As a leader, motivator and mentor, Monty creates loyal high performance teams willing to “walk through walls” to accomplish their goals. Prior to SMB Suite, Monty served as President of The Bradshaw Group (TBG), a global distributor, manufacturer, and repair facility for digital printers. In this role, he was the Company’s ambassador to its most important domestic, European and Latin American customers and TBG achieved a best-in-class Net Promoter Score of 74 for its superb customer satisfaction. Prior to TBG, Monty served as the General Manager of Sam’s Clubs three highest grossing U.S. stores and was named Regional Operator of the Year in 1999. Monty holds a BBA in Marketing from Texas Tech University and is an active member of Business Navigators. He has been active in Vistage International, Executives in Action, the Dallas/Fort Worth Retail Executives Association, as well as, A.P.I.C.S., the leading professional association for supply chain and operations management. Monty also volunteers with Hunger Busters and ManeGait, a therapeutic horsemanship organization.

David is a proven financial and information technology professional with expertise in providing business accounting software and computing solutions. He began his career by starting and managing a successful independent consulting practice for several years. He then launched the local systems consulting unit of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneurial Services Group, leading the office into the hi-tech consulting arena. After successfully developing the unit for Ernst & Young, David founded NextCorp (which became SMB Suite in 2013) to serve the business software needs of clients throughout the US. David has made SMB Suite one of the best cloud ERP providers in the industry. In addition to being a successful entrepreneur and leader, he is a software and technology specialist, holding certifications in various Microsoft and other technologies.