Hello all, I’m a new member; very happy to find such an excellent community of MBS gurus. I’m a middle manager with a company that is an MS partner (non-MBS) - currently looking to get started with Navision. We have a client that uses Navision - that wants us to do Navision related development. (scope would depend on how quickly our company can develop/gather expertise in Navision. We have an excellent track record in IT services with this client; that’s why they are willing to work with us on the Navision side of things.) I wanted to ask…what steps should we take towards developing expertise in Navision as a company? I know my question may sound broad and would probably need clarifying counter-questions. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Adrian.
What kind of services do your company provide? I should say, that my personal oppinion are, that you should do what you do best - and let others do what they do best [;)]…
And - oh - Read this: http://www.mbsonline.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11151 I am not trying to discourage you - I just want you to understand what you are going into 
quote:
that you should do what you do best - and let others do what they do best
Well, i wouldn’t adopt such an extreme point of view (otherwise there would always be the same partners around…), tough I understand very well Henrik’s statement. Getting into an ERP business is not that easy as it might look like - this is not a standard software like Office or even an Windows 2003, there are fewer people aroung that have Navision Programming experience, and you have to know both the customers side (business processes, legal and administrative practices) and the Navision concept (business concept, Navision programming and the whole data structure). You might find posts on this site, where people state that they learnt programming in Navision in 3 weeks, but IMHO it takes at least a year to get to know the information flow, the relationship diagrams and to know “where to put what code” - you might spend a day looking for the correct place where to put that one line of code that solves your problem! And building this knowledge from zero, without any mentor or Navision Pro is a very huge undertaking. Also take into account, that you need a different marketing concept, employees with a different background (business knowledge rather than technical knowledge…). In fact, it’s a complete different business to what you are doing right now. It’s possible, but you have to invest quite a lot of resource (both money and time) and you must be very serious and convinced about this new focus. If you just want to give it a try because of this opportunity with this customer, then I would agree with Henrik’s recommendation. Otherwise, I would strongly recommend to hire at least one person with a lot of Navision experience (hopefully technical and functional) to be able to build starting knowledge among the other team members. Saludos and Good Luck Nils
Nils et all - Please don’t see my first comment totally black and white. Because you are right - if no one takes the challange nothing will happen. I really liked your comment about the learning curve, because you are totally right. One CAN learn the CODING in navision in a very short time span - that is - the syntaxes etc. BUT before you really UNDERSTAND what you are doing and what you SHOULD do - That can take a year - or more. - I have done Navision Development since ‘95 - and I still learn new things to this date. Anyways - I agree with Nils My comment were more ment as a bucket of cold water in Adrian’s Face so to speak. And also as a - shall we say - reminder or challange… - Maybe you want to partner up with a current NCS on this specific project… Adrian - As stated by Nils - Joining the ERP Buisness will be a huge undertaking - If you and your company really think this is a Buiseness Area you want to pursue - Good luck, and take Nils’ comments and run with them - I would concidder getting at least two people though.
Hi Adrian, The reality is that Navision is not so easy to implement. One of the main concepts behind Navision is: Base system has 85% of functionality that average company would need. Remaining 15% has to be developed by the Solution Center who sells the system. Even so 15% looks very little but it is the most difficult task. You have to tailor system to the particular needs of the particular client. So you have to know Business and you have to know the System. The experience tells me that it will take minimum 1 year to be able program in Navision intelligently. (By intelligently I mean do not write what already exist and use Navision methodology that other people will understand what you did.) I think the best for the client if you partner with NSC with good reputation and spend time learning from them. It is very difficult to do everything good it is better to concentrate on what you can do best.