DQS: Management Partner for Certification-Seeking ...



Overview

Country or region: Germany

Industry: Management Consulting, Occupational Training & Certification

Customer Profile

DQS assesses the capability of organizations and offers a wide variety of assessment services. DQS is part of an intercontinental network of partners with the objective of ensuring the mutual acceptance of each partner's certificates. DQS offices are located in Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, USA, China, Iran, Korea, and Pakistan.

Business Situation

DQS needed a software system that could support management of existing customers and recruitment of new customers. The software also needed to have bilingual communication and networking capabilities to support DQS’ worldwide presence.

Solution

DQS selected Microsoft® Business Solutions—Axapta® for its bilingual user interface and ability to support network communication necessary for the network setup across all locations. Other critical factors in the choice were the graphical user interface and the transparent and unified workflows.

Benefits

■ User acceptance

■ Integration with Microsoft Word

■ Capability to communicate across many locations

■ Bilingual capabilities

| | |"Very gratifying is the development of the environment standard DIN EN ISO 14001. Its distribution has doubled worldwide over the past year. Also the reforms in the public sector and the health care lead to an increased demand on respective vertical solutions certificates,"

Christiana Rambow-Krummeck, Marketing and Sales Director, DQS

Ed Simnick, Tech Support Manager, Allison Payment Systems, LLC

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| | | |DQS is an organization founded to assess companies worldwide that seek to obtain process and quality |

| | | |certifications. DQS needed a software system that could support their expansion and the recruitment |

| | | |of new customers. They also needed sophisticated bilingual communication capabilities to support DQS'|

| | | |worldwide presence. DQS selected Microsoft Business Solutions—Axapta. In addition to its ability to |

| | | |support recruitment of customers and its bilingual capabilities, users liked the integration with |

| | | |Microsoft Word, its rich graphical interface, and its unified workflow capability. |

| | | | |

|[pic] | | |[pic] |

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Situation

Founded in 1985, DQS is a leading registrar for management systems in Frankfurt, Germany. DQS specializes in assessing companies to attain certifications, such as ISO 9000. The services of DQS are comprised of assessment services in the entire range of quality, environment, security, and management system certification. DQS concentrates on benchmarking of management systems. Christiana Rambow-Krummeck, Marketing and Sales Director at DQS, says, "We indicate weak points and improvement possibilities."

The customer register of the company represents a compendium of the German economy. The 850 auditors worldwide have assessed management systems at about 6,500 companies at 21,000 sites over the past few years, among them such well-known German companies as Deutsche Telekom, ABB, Siemens, and Degussa. DQS derives 20 percent of its revenue from abroad.

Certification Anticipated as a Coming Trend in 1985

At the time of the formation of the company, widespread certification of companies was anticipated as a coming trend. Eighteen years later, in 2003, significant adoption of certification had become a reality. Now there are few large-scale international enterprises that do not use regulations, such as the DIN EN ISO 9000 standard. There are now 560,000 certifications currently in use in approximately 160 countries.

There are several obvious benefits of certification:

A flexible management system helps achieve company goals while continuously increasing company profitability.

A clearly structured workflow guarantees a rational order processing in administration and production.

A clearly structured workflow also prevents double work or questions of authority and thus anticipates the dissipation of valuable resources.

Smaller Companies Are Seeking Certification

While larger companies have been the first to adopt certification, the trend has recently become more noticeable among smaller enterprises. "In the beginning it was overall the pressure of big enterprises which helped the certificated management systems in mid-market vendor enterprises on the road to success. Today, most of the companies appreciate the potential of documented workflows and continual improvement, and certification has become the market trend," says Rambow-Krummeck.

At the top of the popularity scale is the DIN EN ISO 9000 standard that plays an important role for vertical supply chains. "Very gratifying is the development of the environment standard DIN EN ISO 14001. Its distribution has doubled worldwide over the past year. Also the reforms in the public sector and the health care lead to an increased demand on respective vertical solutions certificates," says Rambow-Krummeck.

The Basic Requirements

The company had several business needs that a potential software solution needed to satisfy.

Support for customer recruitment—It is important to cultivate existing contacts via active customer care, but more importantly, by means of a pro-active effort to acquire new customers. With the old system, recruitment of new customers was a task that could be realized only sub optimally with the existing software, as Irmi Otto, employee in the IT development project of DQS, explains. "So far, we have been working with a custom-made solution. In the operational services, this software met our expectations but did not really have an integrated structure.

Integrated functionality and management reporting—other weak points were the missing connection between the order processing and the financial management as well as the restricted management reports.

Integration of contact management and e-mail—Furthermore, there was no integration between the contact management and the e-mail client. When an additional investment demand became apparent due to the euro conversion, we decided to implement a new software.

Support for bilingual communication—The Company looked for a scalable, modern system that adapts to the growing demands of the company. In addition, the new software should be able to communicate with the existing system.

At the end of 1999, the go-ahead for the project was given. By way of attending industry fairs, making on-site inspections of reference installations, and by reading product information, the project team fought its way through the dense software jungle.

Solution

In the spring of 2000, Microsoft® Business Solutions—Axapta® was discovered. "We mostly liked the bilingual user interface, which was very favorable for the implementation of the system at all international subsidiaries. In addition, Microsoft Axapta provides the type of communication necessary for the network setup across all locations.

Other criteria were the graphical user interface as well as the transparent and unified workflows. The location of the implementation partner was also of great importance. Especially in the critical initial phase, the proximity of the partner was desirable. With the assistance of Microsoft Business Solutions reselling partner, Seelhof SystemBeratung GmbH, DQS purchased Microsoft Axapta. As to the security of their software investment, the market position of the software provider was of great importance. "With well-known solutions, unexpected events can be more easily compensated," Otto says.

A Made-to-Measure Solution

In the late summer of 2000, the implementation phase began. As professional perfectionists, DQS placed comparably high demands on the internal project that they place on the certification of a management system. This is why the project team, consisting of five employees of DQS and the software specialists of Seelhof SystemBeratung, was complemented with an independent consultant, who exclusively took care of the quality assurance. The project plan called for a multi-stage implementation.

The first action implemented was to upgrade Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta with a tool for auditor management and administration. "Besides the common contact information, it was important to them to retrieve the qualification, background knowledge, and the admission of the auditors for the different standards. Furthermore a curriculum was attached to each data record. Thus account executives can retrieve the auditor directory according to criteria such as assignments abroad, foreign languages, or vertical solution specializations via a multi-stage search routine," says Otto.

Microsoft Word Integration

Developers also had their sights on the integration of Microsoft Word. It was necessary to establish links to an individual wizard program for the document design. When creating a certificate, the wizard queries the single components and enters these in the corresponding fields of the template. For accessing all these data, the entire database of Microsoft Axapta can be used. The old software could only access single data areas. This explains why in the past only a half-automated entry was possible, according to a DQS IT specialist.

There were relatively few problems during the implementation, and when there were problems, they were mostly in the communications area.

Benefits

Within six months following the implementation, the software found great acceptance among the employees. The initially doubtful attitude of many of the colleagues was eliminated once they experienced the integration capabilities of Microsoft Word. "Standard templates, text blocks, reuse of templates, and the possibility to attach Word documents to contacts might not be overwhelming functionalities, but they simplify everyday business considerably", says Otto.

Currently, 120 workplaces are connected to Microsoft Axapta, which is not the end. DQS plans to involve all departments that are still not working with Microsoft Axapta, such as their print office. The international subsidiaries are following this example.

Microsoft Business Solutions

Microsoft Business Solutions offer integrated business applications and services that allow small and midsize organizations and divisions of large enterprises to connect employees, customers, and suppliers for improved efficiency. The financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications work with other Microsoft software, including the Microsoft Office System and the Windows operating system, to streamline processes across an entire organization. This gives businesses insight to respond rapidly, plan strategically, and execute quickly. Microsoft Business Solutions are delivered through a worldwide network of channel partners that provide specialized services and local support tailored to a company’s needs.

For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions, go to:

businesssolutions

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| |Software and Services

■ Solutions |Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta | |Software and Services

■ Products

− Microsoft SQL Server 7.0

− Microsoft Business Solutions—Axapta

− Microsoft Business Solutions Analytics

|Microsoft Business Solutions Financial Management

− Microsoft Business Solutions Supply Chain Management | |

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Axapta, Navision, BizTalk, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation or Microsoft Business Solutions ApS in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft Business Solutions ApS is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published June 2005 | | |

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:

For more information Seelhof SystemBeratung GmbH products and services, visit the Web site at:

seelhof.de

For more information about DQS products and services, visit the Web site at:

dqs.gr

. "With well-known solutions, unexpected events can be more easily compensated,"

Irmi Otto, IT development project , DQS | |

"In the beginning it was overall the pressure of big enterprises which helped the certificated management systems in mid-market vendor enterprises on the road to success. Today, most of the companies appreciate the potential of documented workflows and continual improvement, and certification has become the market trend,"

Christiana Rambow-Krummeck, Marketing and Sales Director, DQS

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