Navision heading for huge growth

Speaking at a business breakfast recently, Navision executive vice president and corporate product officer, Niels Bo Theilgaard, said Navision is well on its way to becoming the leading provider of integrated business solutions.

Navision has launched a strategic aspiration for the future and identified a number of sub-strategies that will take Navision towards the vision of being the leading global provider on the market for business solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises. The sub-strategies have been identified with the purpose of sustaining Navision`s commitment to growth with the overall ambition of doubling revenues in fiscal 2004/2005 as compared to fiscal 2001/2002.

Theilgaard says Navision`s growth will be sustained and enhanced on existing and new markets through marketing efforts, sales channel expansion and technology and product development. "The coordinated channel and product growth will be based on the company`s expectation of the market`s needs for several different products.

Navision intends to expand its activities on the company`s existing markets, in particular the US, and increase the company`s presence in new, important geographies such as Japan and China. Navision will consolidate and grow its position in the company`s market segment, the mid-market for small and medium-sized businesses, and considerable resources will therefore go into branding and marketing. Furthermore, Navision will seek to expand by actively contributing to the deployment of industry-specific, so-called vertical solutions based on Navision`s products.

"Navision`s ongoing research and development activities are aimed at capitalising on the development of the technology platform and ensuring the integration into all current and new product lines," he explains. "The current products will be continued and new functionality added to complement and strengthen the company`s total product offering to the mid-market. In addition to this, Navision will offer functionality with access to software services that can be integrated with the customers` existing solutions via the Internet."

In the low end of the mid-market, Theilgaard says Navision intends to strengthen its international position through new solutions based on both existing platforms and new technology platforms that will support traditional client/server environments and multi-tier and hosted environments. "With all product offerings, Navision is committed to maintaining its most important competitive advantage of providing solutions that are specifically customised."

The successful business model regarding sales through the partner network will be preserved. Increasingly, Navision will offer its partners new and improved business concepts to ensure the partners` own business goals and thereby improving their motivation and opportunity for sustained growth with Navision.

Among the international customers in the high end of the mid-market, Navision sees a growing need for closer and more direct contact to the software vendor during the sales process and the subsequent customer service. In collaboration with its partners, Navision intends to provide offerings that meet this need in order to fully leverage the business potential in this segment.

Navision will actively pursue growth through alliances or acquisitions of other companies. Acquisitions will be targeted at small businesses with complementary activities in the form of either technology and products or sales and distribution network.

"Our growth has been based on a strong vision, a clear market focus, innovative products designed specifically for our market, a proven global business model and a strong partner network. Navision`s profitability is among the best in its peer group, [with] five-year CAGR on revenues of 48%. Furthermore, Navision is ranked tenth in the global ERP market and fifth in the European market," he concludes.