Navision, Ernst & Young enter teaming agreement

Navision South Africa has announced that it has entered into a teaming agreement with business advisory firm Ernst & Young South Africa in a concerted effort to further penetrate the local enterprise resource planning (ERP) market. This agreement will allow both parties to offer a complete end-to-end solution and will give them both a distinctive competitive advantage.

According to Navision managing director Keith Mullan, no ERP vendor can work in isolation when providing a total solution to its clients. "This agreement, between two companies that are leaders in their own fields and with complementary products and solutions, will give us both a distinctive competitive advantage in the marketplace to provide a total solution to our clients."

"Although Ernst & Young will work with Navision, where it believes Navision will best suit its clients needs, this agreement will not in any way bind either party to the exclusive service of the other party but rather for the purposes of providing a cohesive service delivery to any client. A reciprocal relationship exists between Navision and Ernst & Young as a result of the agreement, but will be subject to the client`s preferences. Each party will, however, contract separately and maintain its individual status," explains Brian Bownass, senior manager, Information Systems Assurance and Advisory Services at Ernst & Young.

"Navision South Africa provides enterprise business management solutions with staying power. Our solutions are a solid investment because they address issues like integration, flexibility and the needs of growing companies. We also give clients worldwide support, local expertise and functionality that meet the full spectrum of clients organisational needs," explains Mullan.

Ernst & Young will in future work with Navision to jointly develop and market a mutually beneficial array of advisory services that are comprehensive and attractive to current and potential clients. Initially, the basic services envisaged are e-strategy, e-diagnostics, e-business advisory services, e-security, e-business continuity planning and opportunity creation.

In addition, Ernst & Young will provide pre- and post-project process reviews for Navision clients. It will include the evaluation of project methodologies during the project in order to achieve specific project objectives and an assessment of the end deliverables against the project objectives. Any issues found would be highlighted immediately for corrective action during the project or for subsequent resolution.

Ernst & Young will also contribute to the fulfilment of a risk management role to ensure effective and timely issue resolution processes and to make sure a suitable security infrastructure is in place. It will ensure that adequate controls are put in place to manage unnecessary exposure to errors, unauthorised transactions, complete and accurate data conversions, security of transactions at application and platform level and the monitoring of exceptions.

Furthermore, the risk management role will ensure integrity of key management information reports and will include the evaluation of appropriate controls to manage the business and technological risks.

By providing business process control and general advisory services, Ernst & Young will assist clients who are looking to integrate from their existing business processes to new applications or fully automated e-business processes.

"Navision is an international company whose business structure and development environment are geared to keep pace with a world in motion. To this end, Navision has teamed with Ernst & Young as the preferred advisor for its projects. Being a leading developer of innovative enterprise business management solutions, we will recommend Ernst & Young to our clients in terms of its capability to advise on risk and control of information systems and e-business matters," concludes Mullan.