BlueCherry vs. Microsoft Dynamics AX (discontinued)

Blue Cherry is competitively priced to compete with other solutions. It is well suited where a good training system is in place in the business and where at least a small IT team is present. I also would recommend on-prem installations as opposed to cloud-based as I have heard negative feedback about the cloud-based product. Blue Cherry may be more appropriate for companies that either are still developing their processes and can be tweaked to fit within the Blue Cherry ecosystem, or in larger companies where they can afford potentially substantial costs to customize Blue Cherry to their needs or desires.

Incentivized

It integrates fully with the other Microsoft software we use daily, and this coordination speeds up our work and gives us the agility to run easily. For example, in a purchase inquiry, the customer, after submitting a request, identifies the teams that should work on the project, and if they need further review by other people, they are added to the process, and everything is managed seamlessly rather than the sales process. Get the result as fast as possible.

Incentivized

• Manage production orders which is the primary portion of the business.
• Manage Sales Orders including allocation based on rules so we can manage order fulfilment successfully.
• Manage Designs and promotion to Styles which works so much smoother when integrated in the same base software.
• Manage Invoicing and credit memos and be able to report on NSR and total sales, units moved, etc.

Incentivized

• Pricing: Microsoft Dynamics AX gives us good flexibility in how we price our products.
• UX: Microsoft Dynamics AX has a good user interface to put valuable information on the screen for users.
• Inventory Management: Microsoft Dynamics AX does a great job at giving us insight into our inventory.

Incentivized

• Blue Cherry being so robust can be quite a bit to manage and really requires good training of users.
• Documentation is not the best due to the various possible configurations you can do with this system. It is difficult to document for all use cases.
• Consistency throughout the product as far as language used in different screens referring to the same item, but language can be customized so it can generally be made to match as needed.
• I think some really complete documentation on a few common use cases could be developed to help train users with properly formatted training sessions.
• Blue Cherry Add-Ons generally feel like they have not been well tested before being released and sold to their customers. We had issue (some major where we stopped using them) with pretty much every single add-on we have purchased, from B2b eComm, Shopify connector, CSC (Collaborative Supply Chain), NuOrder connector as some major examples.

Incentivized

• Sales Ledger. Currently, the idea behind the sales ledger module is that the company prepares a sales order for another company. I would prefer the developers consider the scenario where a sales order is prepared for the same company but for another branch or unit.
• Postings of issues items are currently possible but none of the modules caters to "departmental material or item request". Further tweaks have been done on our Project Module to cater for this but it's not entirely perfect. This will enable aid in cost allocation per departmental request of materials or items.
• Challenges with the bank module - does not allow for easily reconciliation as the statement from the banks can not be uploaded except for specific format.

Incentivized

Microsoft Dynamics continues to evolve by bringing more functionality to the customer. Also there are several independent software providers that offer a wide range of solutions for vertical markets.

Incentivized

Overall the product does what we need it to do in order for us to function as a company. While there are some concerns over ongoing costs, the belief is, once we have it fully acclimated to our business the cost should settle into alignment with our original expectations. The new features that are consistently being added do add value to the product as they are usually customer request directed.

Incentivized

Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.

Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.

I give this rating because CGS has a 'by design' policy meaning that if the product has been functioning a specific way for some time....even if that functionality is buggy or simply incorrect...they will call that 'by design' meaning you need to have a MOD (modification) done which means you need to pay for it. They generally seem to start between $5,000 to $15,000 USD even for a simple change like the length of a field that does not match from one screen to another, or adding a simple column to a table which contains a calculated value meaning it does not need to be stored in the database.

Incentivized

We use a 3rd-party Microsoft Partner for the system. They are responsive and very knowledgeable. While costs have been mentioned several times in this review they are very aware of costs and have developers who are more economical they use to help offset the level of work required to meet our changes and fix our issues.

Incentivized

It took a lot of work, but Microsoft ultimately did a good job with in-person training, including being onsite in multiple global locations for extended periods.

Our solution deviated from a number of key out-of-the-box standards that were included in Online training. We just used that for introduction to the general functionality.

Some rough spots, but ultimately worked out. The contract didn't appear to be structured to support the level of overlapping facility deployments required to meet timeline commitments. Merging cultures on the program was also challenging. Overall, not an easy implementation by any stretch. Everyone did the best they could.

Cost and local regional compliance were primary factors in chosing Microsoft Dynamics AX over SAP Access Control for our need. SAP AC would have provided easier integration into our primary ERP system SAP but there were some regional compliance with ASEAN countries as well as the cost of implementation was more over Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Incentivized

• Blue Cherry has been part of helping our company to grow 600%+ over the last 10 years and is able to handle the ever-increasing slope of that upward scaling growth we continue to see.
• Blue Cherry PLM has really helped the design team to work much better with the ERP as it is integrated.
• Reporting and inquiries have been very important to many teams, in particular, the planning & support team to really manage large wholesale customers well.

Incentivized

• Clients have seen better cost containment on inventory based on better on hand management and supply chain visibility.
• Faster closing process for the finance team, where by day 3 of 4 you can generate a trial balance and look to balance ledger to sub-ledger.
• Better reporting allows for real time analysis and can get to predictive metrics in certain areas.

Incentivized