Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Nonprofit Organization Enhances Operational Efficiency, Cuts Costs
Overview
Country or Region:United States
Industry:Nonprofit
Customer Profile
The American Bible Society distributes bibles to people across the United States and offers domestic and global outreach, online ministries, and other church-related services.
Business Situation
The organization’s existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution was expensive and time-consuming to maintain, yet couldn’t provide the detailed reports needed.
Solution
The organization implemented Microsoft® Business Solutions–Great Plains®, an ERP solution that integrated with its existing Microsoft-based technology infrastructure.
Benefits
Reduced licensing costs by 50 percent
Eliminated annual hardware leasing costs of U.S.$190,000
Saved $490,000 in annual support and maintenance costs / “With [Microsoft]Great Plains, we are processing 12 percent more shipments than we were with our previous solution. And we’re doing it in a quarter of the time.”
Nick Garbidakis, Chief Technology Officer, American Bible Society
The American Bible Society, a nonprofit organization that sells bibles and provides outreach programs throughout the United States, faced inefficiencies due to a complex J.D. Edwards accounting system. Because the system didn’t integrate with the organization’s existing Microsoft® environment, information needed to be replicated, and managers were unable to obtain up-to-date reports. In addition, the system was time-consuming and costly to maintain, wasting both employee time and precious IT funds. To remedy this, the American Bible Society implemented MicrosoftBusiness Solutions–Great Plains®(now part of Microsoft DynamicsTM)as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution and Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000 to generate real-time reports quickly and easily. As a result, the organization has reduced operating costs, increased efficiency, and streamlined business processes.
Situation
Founded in 1816, the American Bible Society (ABS) seeks to make the bible widely available. To that end, the New York-based nonprofit organization publishes and sells different translations and versions of bibles to customers across the United States through its catalog and online store, Donor-supported and interdenominational, ABS also offers a range of outreach and ministry programs, which include literacy, missionary, and charitable activities.
In order to gain greater efficiency within the organization, ABS needed a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to handle all the financial and customer data required to run the organization. Although the ABS used a J.D. Edwards accounting system running on an AS400 platform, the solution was proving insufficient for its needs. ABS used the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server and Microsoft Windows ServerTM 2003 operating systems, Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5 communications and collaboration server, and Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003. As a result, employees wasted time switching between Microsoft applications and the J.D. Edwards solution. Employees also found it difficult to access customer data, resulting in lower productivity, wasted time, and replicated customer information. Meanwhile, a large number of people relied on a small group of experts to run reports, which created a long lag in monthly reporting and limited the organization’s ability to measure overall performance. To make matters worse, the J.D. Edwards solution was extremely time-consuming and expensive to support—and system upgrade costs were driving the cost of ownership ever higher.
ABS knew it was time to find a solution that was easier to use and less costly to maintain. The existing solution had been put in place to support the organization’s business transactions—and ABS was quickly realizing it wasn’t enough. The organization needed better reporting and business intelligence tools to improve its long-term strategic planning. Most of all, however, ABS wanted to standardize its systems on a single operating environment to streamline business processes.
Solution
After carefully evaluating its options, ABS opted to implement Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains® as a comprehensive ERP solution. ABS made this decision for several reasons. First, Microsoft Great Plains was suited to the size of the organization, which consists of about 95 users. Second, the solution integrated with the organization’s existing Microsoft-based technology infrastructure, including Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, the Microsoft Office System, and Microsoft Commerce Server 2002, which was used to manage its commerce Web sites. Finally, Microsoft Great Plains could integrate with Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000—which the organization already used—to deliver detailed financial and business management reports.
Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Business Solutions Partner Interdyn AKA, ABS installed Microsoft Great Plains at its New York office, using Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2004 to connect older systems to SQL Server 2000. Interdyn AKA implemented the Financial Management, Distribution, and Manufacturing modules of Microsoft Great Plains to provide an end-to-end solution.
Interdyn AKA also integrated third-party solutions that ABS already had in place into Microsoft Great Plains. These solutions ranged from programs that print checks and automatically populate zip codes in billing addresses to applications responsible for bar-coding and tracking inventory items in their warehouse.
Today, financial and customer information is readily accessible to employees, no matter where they work in the organization. Salespeople take orders over the phone and enter the information directly into a sales-ordering screen, or customers place orders online. After the order and credit-card payments have been processed, both phone and Internet orders are routed to the warehouse. From there, the order is packed and shipped immediately, and then recorded into the system.
Other departments can view information, such ashow many people ordered a specific item or how much revenue was generated in a particular time period, at any stage of the process, Furthermore, Interdyn AKA also created customizations that allow ABS to refine its sales process. For example, the organization wanted to be able to define how orders are tagged on a sales-order screen in order to view the most popular items.
In addition to implementing a more robust ERP solution, ABS has improved its business intelligence. The company now uses both Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services and Microsoft Business Solutions for Analytics—FRx® Professional to generate real-time reports that can be viewed at any time.
ABS has also created an executive dashboard using Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal. Now executives can view key performance indicators, ranging from top sales items to budget data for each department. Microsoft Business Portal pulls information from Microsoft Great Plains, key reports generated by Microsoft FRx, and the company’s donor system. The donor system, which is currently outsourced, tracks information about people who have made charitable donations to the company.
Moving forward, the organization plans to capitalize on its Microsoft infrastructure. For example, ABS will continue to streamline its operations by implementing Microsoft Business Solutions CRM to manage its customers and donors in a single system.
Benefits
ABS chose to implement Microsoft Great Plains because it was a solution that not only fit the organization’s size, but that also integrated with the organization’s existing Microsoft-based IT infrastructure. As a result of the implementation, the organization has seen immediate benefits, including drastically reduced costs and increased productivity.
Reduced Licensing Costs by 50 Percent
As a nonprofit organization that must economize for the benefit of its cause, ABS keeps a close eye on all expenditures. And one of the main reasons that the organization sought a new solution was to avoid the rising upgrade costs and high licensing fees associated with its previous J.D. Edwards solution. By switching to a Microsoft-based solution, the organization was able to cut its licensing fees considerably. “We were paying $143,000 annually for our previous solution,” says Nick Garbidakis, Chief Technology Officer of the American Bible Society. “With Microsoft Great Plains, our base licensing is half that amount, and we have a much more effective solution.”
Eliminated Annual Hardware Leasing Costs
ABS has also achieved substantial savings in hardware leasing. Because the J.D. Edwards solution had needed an enterprise-sized server computer, ABS leased an IBM AS400—a hardware cost that added up to nearly U.S.$200,000 per year. Today, the company uses the Windows 2000 Server operating system, which has been installed on a storage area network (SAN) along with Microsoft Great Plains. Users access the system with Terminal Services—a feature of Windows 2000 Server—through three different Citrix server computers. As a result of this switch, ABS has eliminated annual leasing costs with a single outright purchase at a fraction of the cost. “By switching to a Microsoft solution, we have a more robust solution—and we’re saving money too,” says Garbidakis. “And for a nonprofit, saving money is huge.”
Cut Support and Maintenance Costs
The J.D. Edwards system had proven to be an extremely costly solution—not just in terms of required hardware or in hardware leasing costs, but also in support and labor. Because the system was complex, ABS had to pay the equivalent of two full-time employees just to maintain the system and run reports for management teams. With a Microsoft-based solution, however, the nonprofit has been able to redeploy employees to other, more important projects.
Enhanced Reporting
Setting up reports under the previous solution was a time-intensive process that required extensive technical knowledge. Only a few employees within the company could set up and run reports. As a result, monthly reports were delayed, and any kind of specialized reports took weeks to set up and run because of the backlog of demands. Today, however, any user can run specialized reports by using the reporting features found in SQL Server 2000—and then they can view those reports in programs already familiar to them, such as Microsoft Office Excel 2003 or Microsoft Office Word 2003. “The built-in reporting features make us more competitive,” says Garbidakis. “Users can run all key aspects of data at their desktops, which shortens the decision-making process and gives them the tools to react immediately to opportunities in the marketplace.”
Improved Ability to Make Key Decisions
Today, executives can view key performance indicators about the company’s fiscal health with a single glance. Microsoft Business Portal pulls pertinent data from the Microsoft Great Plains solution and the outsourced donor system; it even makes detailed Microsoft FRx financial reports available. As a result, executives have greater visibility into the organization’s fiscal health. “With Microsoft Business Portal, executives have the tools they need to make informed decisions quickly,” says Garbidakis. “Furthermore, in the next year, we plan to deploy these features to everyone in the company.”
Boosted Efficiency
One of the most important gains ABS has seen as a result of Microsoft Great Plains is higher efficiency. Under the previous solution, employees were forced to reenter orders and catalog information from Commerce Server 2002 into the J.D. Edwards system, a process that wasted time and was prone to error. Today, however, the entire process is automated. Employees no longer have to cut and paste information; ordering and catalog data is updated in both Microsoft Great Plains and Commerce Server 2002 simultaneously. Furthermore, the company has been able to offer improved services to customers, such as online-order tracking and real-time inventory updates.
Improved Inventory Management
ABS had long wanted to move its warehouses but wasn’t confident about being able to fulfill orders remotely under the old system. With Microsoft Great Plains, however, the organization was empowered to move its inventory from New Jersey to Oklahoma—a move that has centralized all warehousing operations and takes advantage of lower storage and labor costs. As a result, ABS has reduced inventory costs.
Since implementing Microsoft Great Plains, ABS has also improved how it manages inventory. Not only has the organization reduced the amount of time it takes to reconcile inventory by a full third, but also these improved processes have resulted in faster turnaround times for processing and shipping orders. As a result, ABS is now processing more orders than ever. “With [Microsoft] Great Plains, we are processing 12 percent more shipments than we were with our previous solution,” says Garbidakis. “And we’re doing it in a quarter of the time.”
Reduced Time to Adoption
For ABS, an operating environment based on Microsoft technology is a key benefit of the new solution—and was one of the main reasons the organization opted for Microsoft Great Plains in the first place. In addition to integrating with the existing infrastructure, ABS employees were comfortable with the Windows interface.Employees’ comfort level speeded up the adoption rate. “Because the new ERP solution is Windows-based, most of our users were able to use it without any training whatsoever,” says Garbidakis.
Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.
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