We have three areas of focus at Gensmann Consulting:
In our experience these are the main parts of any enterprise software implementation.
To manage this focus we employ different well known frameworks. Below you will find a description of each of the three areas:
Business And Processes
When we engage with a client, our primary aim is to contribute to the client’s business through our assignment. This focus on business will lead to constructive discussions about proposed solutions and through these discussions we should be able to determine what is relevant and needed. Without this focus, solutions easily end up adding no value to the enterprise. To succeed with an enterprise software solution, the overall business strategy as well as the focus of specific departments must be understood.
When running a business, working with customers, vendors, products and a wealth of other areas specific to a company, repeated tasks occur. In time these form processes and the understanding and optimization of these is important when considering an enterprise software implementation.
- Support processes are often similar across companies and industries, perhaps with national differences, and they are in place to support the main business. Using Michael Porter’s value chain, we define firm infrastructure, human resources, technology and purchasing as areas providing supporting processes.
- Core processes fall within the areas of sales and marketing, in- and outbound logistics, operations and service. It is the actions that are repeated to add value to the customers and the business.
Most businesses of a certain size want their enterprise software to support the processes they perform. A typical approach is to first identify the processes with a potential for improvement, e.g. those that are taking long a time, requiring input from several sources, are repetitive or tedious.
Some processes can be optimized, some can be automated, some retired or radically changed. Usually we engage key business users through workshops to both determine what processes are relevant to work with and to optimize, validate and implement the processes. We base out work with processes on the Object Management Group’s Business Process Model & Notation (OMG BPMN). From the BPMN2 specification:
“The primary goal of BPMN is to provide a notation that is readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts that create the initial drafts of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor those processes”
When relevant, we combine this with ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and to manage the projects we use PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) and if needed MSP (Managing Successful Programmes).
We also work with audits, compliance, business strategy, budgeting and other relevant areas.
Technology
When it comes to technology we base most of our solutions on Microsoft’s enterprise software solution Dynamics NAV. Dynamics NAV contains a full range of modules supporting many standard business processes.
We have extensive experience with Dynamics NAV, ranging from the earliest versions to the newest NAV 2015 and we cover all standard modules within Dynamics NAV.
In addition to the standard modules, we have extensive experience with the development and use of custom made modules and integration to other systems, such as purchase order systems, invoice scanning and work-flow systems, websites, reporting systems, private and public data providers and we are comfortable with technical issues relating to installation and configuration, security, migration between database platforms, upgrades and C/AL development.
We confidently cover the business-side of technology such as requirement analysis and design and the whole process around large projects including development, backup, disaster recovery, testing, user acceptance and go-live.
We also work with different open and closed source content management systems, customer relationship management systems, database and server setups.
People
We find it important to highlight and focus on people during implementations.
Key questions that must be asked are
- Is the organisation of resources a good fit for the new and optimized business processes?
- Do the business users, the support personnel, the IT department and management have sufficient understanding and skills to leverage the new set-up?
- What workshops and training events should take place?
- How will management evaluate the project? What is the desired outcome and how do we make sure that these objectives are met?
The subject people and organisational dynamics play a significant role in any organisation. It is important to understand and manage the dynamics that occur during a change process such as a new enterprise solution implementation. We have experience and academic understanding in this field and will apply this knowledge in projects.