What if Homer Simpson became a Navision consultant?

The Homer

At first look, this sounds like a rather bizarre proposition that Homer would be a Navision consultant, yet in reality most new consultants that join the world of Dynamics NAV think exactly like Homer. ;)

Take a look at the episode Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Homer finds that as a child he was separated from his brother. His brother as it turns out is very wealthy, and "owns" a large automobile manufacturer; Powell Motors.

Define the base standard.

The most common trait that most new consultants have when they first work with just about any product is to make a comment something like "But XXX should be standard, YYY product has that feature". This is not just a Navision trait.

So in reality what should be standard, and what should be left out. This balance is a very complex line and very hard to determine. Let's say you add every possible feature as standard, this implies that the client wanting simple accounting must carry the dead weight of all the functionality they don't need. On the other hand if the functionality is not there then the market for the product becomes limited.

Bring on the Add-Ons.

So in its wisdom many years ago, PC&C decided that Navigator (now Dynamics NAV) would have a core suite of functionality, and that the entire product development environment would be open for partners to develop Add-Ons or custom functionality as required for their clients. This allowed the core Navigator product to be extremely simple, fast and most importantly; reliable.

For about 20 years now, Add-Ons have been the way to get a light product that is customizable to deliver what the customer needs. If we didn't have this ability to modify the core code like we do, we would need to have a base product that contained every legal and business requirement of every country in company that we wanted to sell to. What we would have then is The Homer, a huge ugly product that is; impossible for anyone to use because of its complexity; slow because of all the dead weight it is carrying; unreliable because of all the interactions between mismatched code; and expensive, because every client would be paying for every "feature" even if they didn't need it.

Some advice:

• Advice to new consultants entering the NAV arena;
• Advice to those buying NAV, and asking for every possible feature;

buy the DVD and watch Oh Brother Where Art Thou?

Customer it will save you a lot of money that you will otherwise spend six months down the track when you ask the partner to remove all those mods that you really didn't need. Consultants it will make your life easier, and maybe help you understand The Beauty Of Simplicity

PS I think that watching this episode of the Simpson's should be a mandatory part of Navision consultant training. Maybe Microsoft could buy the rights to the episode and put it on every Dynamics NAV install CD J

The most powerful tool that a Dynamics NAV consultant can use.

So you are planning to become a Navision consultant. You are going to show people how to use Navision, how to run their business, and more importantly how to make their business run better.

Of course you already know that NAV application from start to end. You can post any Sales Order, and know exactly how it will affect the G/L. You know exactly which tables will be hit and what the entries will be. You understand Business Process Re-engineering. You are able to perform an ROI on any request that a client gives you. You have studied the clients business model, sought out its weaknesses and strengths, found where those strengths best work with which Navision functionality, and how to best utilize Navision to circumvent the weaknesses. You will be able to guide the client not how to mould Navision to fit their business, but how to best tune their business process, and tune Navision to an ideal balance.

But still we have not gotten to that most powerful tool that you have in your Navision Tool box. That tool is of course.

The word NO! Ne! Nein! Non! Nej! Nyet! Nie! Nem!

There is nothing else that will make the implementation more success full, nor give you a happier client than the proper use of the word no.

Generally one of the golden rules of sales is "The Customer Is Always Right". Well in the ERP world, that just isn't true. Of course as Dynamics NAV Consultant, you arrive on the scene after the sales process. So you have some work to do. When you get assigned to a Navision project, the first thing you must do, is go through all the paperwork, and review all the promises that the sales person made, and then get out a big NO from your tool box, and start using it.

All too often, one or two yes's sneak through the early project phases, and yes's are like rabbits, they bread like crazy. At first it all sounds great and happy, but a month or two down the line when you are trying to work around all these promises, you will realize that it would have been better to have been up front at the beginning. You will read some humorous statements like "We want to use pop-up to speed up data entry and make it more accurate". As a consultant you know that pop-ups make data entry much slower, and reduce accuracy, so say NO now, don't wait till the customer is live six months and then finds all the data errors.

Clients respect honesty.

This seems to have been lost somewhere, but if a customer makes a suggestion, that is just wrong, then … Just … Say … NO … ! it won't hurt you. When you tell the client why their suggestion is wrong they may react with disbelief, but give it time and that disbelief will grow to respect. It is very important to understand that your client most likely does not know Navision very well. That is why they engaged your services. They need you to tell them the best way to use the system. And sometimes that means just saying "No that just is not the right way to do this". Suggest to them the proper way.

I don't know.

Also don't be scared to say "I don't know", just make sure to follow-up with a "I will discuss it with the team back at the office and get back to you on ..." Just be sure that there is a team back at the office, and at your weekly team meeting don't forget to throw the issue around for ideas.

Anyway I just wanted to have this little rant, because I believe that if you are not capable of saying "NO" sometimes, then you are absolutely not capable of working with Navision, and you should leave and go to a different industry.