Hi
I'm curious to know how a business would make a decision whether to go with AX or NAV. Would it be number of users - ie NAV if less than 200 and AX if more than 200, on the basis that AX is a more complex implementation? Any views or links to further information would be welcome. Thanks
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Microsoft Dynamics AX is difficult to learn, more complex to implement and less easy to succeed on than Microsoft Dynamics Nav. Microsoft Dynamics Nav is far more populous than Microsoft Dynamics AX and is for small and medium businesses when AX deal with large companies with multiple subsidiaries, several dimensions, many domains, locations and warehouses. If you have less than two hundred employees, Microsoft Dynamics Nav is best for you, otherwise, it would be preferable to choose Microsoft Dynamic s AX which can take in charge a very big number of users.
Thanks Vishal, I think I will look into this.
If you are AX functional consultant, it should not take much time to learn NAV. NAV is much simpler to learn having few parameters & less complexity.
You can easily go through the NAV SCM, Warehouse functional within 2-3 weeks' of time.
Thanks for the information, very interesting. The NAV market does seem to be growing, and I'm wondering how easy it is to x train from AX to NAV so that I have both sets of skills
NAV has a VERY limited number of global dimensions...2.
NAV has difficultiy with companies that may want to track multiple corporations within one NAV "company".
NAV's intercompany (Inbox / Outbox) transaction processing is an absolute joke. Cannot drilldown from the consolidated company.
NAV is messy; window after window opens, and remain open. Horrible design, especially on small-format screens. Every hour (or more often), you need to go through all the open windows and close them, dozens or more.
NAV, despite the apparent root of its name being "navigate' is incredibly hard to navigate, it is hard to find the path to your desired result. If you don't know the precise phrase to search for in the search box, it won't give you what you're looking for. Apparently no intelligent search algorithym. And don't get me started on the inscrutable error messages.
NAV has lost its ability to allow users to customize and produce their own reports (gone away with 2009's Classic Client); off-loading report-building to $$$$$/hr consultants or simplistic Excel worksheets.
NAV cannot deal with non-contiguous data ranges; chart of accounts, and hence, financial statements, need to be in chart of account order. And, also, since 2009, chart of account "numbers" need to be alpha, numeric number series, anywhere within NAV, are not handled well (actually, not handled at all, it's all alpha sorting and range selections).
Data entry speed is not a consideration according to NAV developers. Hands are constantly moving from numeric keypad to alpha area and back, eyes are roving up and down, tabbing across non-entry fields, dropdown lists of 5 selections at a time...
NAV does not allow for wildcard selections in report filters.
NAV is slooooooow. Things (like location codes --- see other posting above) disappear.
There are so many flavors, versions, customizations, of NAV that finding experienced people for your particular installation becomes a situation of just finding someone who can deal with messy software. Customization becomes a crutch for a poorly written and maintained underlying structure. Not to mention, you start to wonder just how many times 'your' customization has been billed out to other customers to deal with still another inadequacy in NAV.
Historically, NAV indeed has "reputation" of system for smaller companies than AX, e.g. - AX "for production companies". However nowadays the border is more diluted.
Earlier NAV had performance issues on big volumes of data. But, since NAV 2013 version the performance started to be limited by real SQL performance, as a new way of communication with SQL has been introduced. So there would be basically no big difference (however locking issues in NAV still bother more than in AX). We have a customer with 5 million active items in product matrix and it works fine on NAV.
The default functionality in AX is in general a bit more rich, if you compare e.g. logistics and production functionality. However there is nothing in one system that you could not program additionally in another.
To me, NAV is more interesting to use for financial people: the finance module with its easy drill-downs provides better transparency and usability.
NAV is much easier to deploy (in its most primitive way, few clicks in Wizard and here it is!). Try installation of AX to compare :-).
NAV offers subscription licensing and earlier than AX appeared on cloud and on mobile devices. But, with current perpetual license prices, NAV can be even more expensive than AX :-).
Generally, Microsoft tries to unify both systems as much as possible, especially in user interface. I remember in early 2000th Microsoft has a project called "Green Wave". The idea was to have one ERP system, merged from both NAV and AX, but it has been cancelled. Microsoft was afraid to loose current market, as users would need to switch to "new" ERP and in this case they might not go to Microsoft at all. So, they decided to merge them evolutionally. I would not be surprised if in some years there would be anyway one Dynamics ERP solution, cloud and .NET oriented.
Hi,
Ideally, NAV is the best possible option having single country roll-outs with 100-200 users. If you want to go with Multi-Country, having 200+ users, AX would be the right option. NAV has bit constraint with scalability when volume of transactions comes into the picture.
NAV has the concurrent licensing which would give substantial pricing benefits v/s named licensing of AX.
NAV is simple to manage, easy to implement and adaptability is much better. AX is having bit complex architecture.
NAV has almost 120,000 implementation across globe V/s 20,000 for AX.
NAV average implementation time frame is half than average implementation time frame of AX and hence the implementation service cost will also have impact accordingly.
Infrastructure investment for AX is very high V/s NAV. This is due to AX architecture, which is bit complex in nature.
NAV has completely web based solution where as AX has limited functionality available over web.
NAV has mobile APP (entire ERP can be accessed over mobile) where as AX has very limited functionality available over Mobile App.
NAV has very strong add-on built by LS retail for retail domain, where as AX has built-in module for Retail industry.
On the other hand, if you are planning to have complex multi-country implementation, strong budgeting, workflows, Project Management, Advance Process & Lean Manufacturing, RFQ & Requisitions, Warehouse Portal (Web based), Case Management, Audit Control etc. modules, advance system security and multi-country localisations in single platform, Microsoft Dynamics AX would be the right option.
Regards,
Vishal Salot
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It totally depend on various factors. As Jonathan said early days people used no of license as the deciding factor of NAV and AX. However with the growth of Dynamics NAV that barrier is no longer considered (in most of the cases).
Dynamics AX is good if your company is diversified and you need to manage all these within a one system then you can go for AX. If your business focus is on less than 5 sectors you can go for Dynamics NAV (My personal view).
As jonathan said functionality wise both the system has the capabilities and separate add-ons developed by various partners. If you are not sure on which product to go, best solution is to talk to a Microsoft Partner and let them evaluate it for you.
in general it's said, that dynamics nav is meant for small to mid sized companies with more or less international presence and contacts, dynamics ax for large companies. but that's more from the histotic point of view and a marketing message ... in terms of popularity dynamics nav is the no. 1 and it's a very modern ERP system.
dynamics nav was originally developed in denmark and has a long tradition in europe. the no. of localised nav versions provided by microsoft is not big, but there are many localisations provided by nav partners. in the ax world the localisation list is quite long. both erp systems are used nearly around the world. usa has more tradition with dynamics gp. depending on your location(s) it should not be a problem to get in touch with a capable partner. if you are not sure what's best for your company talk to different nav and ax partners, describe your situation and what you need. many partners provide more or less ready-to-use solutions for branches/industries and additional helpful modules, e.g. for planning, job/project management, service management, etc.
for a detailed comparison follow
www.erpsoftwareblog.com/.../the-real-difference-between-microsoft-dynamics-nav-and-ax
www.elvadms.com/differences-microsoft-dynamics-nav-dynamics-ax
www.tvisiontech.co.uk/.../dynamics_ax_v_nav.html
www.tvisiontech.co.uk/whitepaper_erp_solutions.html
to find a capable partner you could start with microsoft pinpoint
also follow my according posting: https://moxie4nav.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/differences-between-dynamics-nav-and-ax/
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