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Wellspring
When Wellspring Media became an independent company in
2001, they needed a new business solution for a new business
setup. Moving from Peoplesoft to Microsoft Dynamics was
key to a successful fresh start.
Based in New York City, Wellspring is a leading supplier
of visual programming in three complementary niches: international
independent cinema, performance and the arts and holistic
living. The company produces, licenses and distributes programming
worldwide for home video, television, theatrical, online
and consumer markets. Its library of media includes programming
for HBO, A&E, Lifetime, FOX, BBC and others.
Established as an independent company 10 years ago, Wellspring
spent several years as a subsidiary of media conglomerate
Winstar Communications. Last fall, Wellspring once again
became an independent company.
90 days to choose a solution
While the change was exciting, the first challenge was substantial
- 90 days to find, implement and begin working with a new
financial application. Barbara Behan, Wellspring's director
of financial systems, coordinated the search. "We decided
to look at different systems on different levels to see
which one met our needs the best -- both price-wise and
flexibility-wise."
Wellspring had been using PeopleSoft. At first, Behan says
they considered staying with PeopleSoft because "it was
a known quantity." But it was not the best fit for Wellspring's
new structure. In addition to being high-cost, Behan knew
a staff of 15 had supported the Peoplesoft system for Winstar.
Since her staffing options were much more modest, she kept
looking.
Behan also reviewed Lawson, an option she eliminated due
to cost, and Mikola among other solutions.
The case for Microsoft Dynamics
Wellspring finally chose Microsoft Dynamics GP. Several
factors swayed Behan including the "user-friendliness" and
the fact that Dynamics is a fairly self-explanatory product.
She finds it to be more intuitive and simpler than PeopleSoft.
"You don't need 25 classes to be able to get in there and
do something," she says.
Up and running the day after implementation
Once Microsoft Dynamics was chosen, it took Wellspring and
InterDyn six weeks to get the system running. Considering
Wellspring brought over 2-1/2 years of history (equaling
hundreds of thousands of transaction lines) from PeopleSoft,
Behan was very pleased with the timeframe. She said the
implementation was a smooth one, especially compared to
the PeopleSoft implementation three years before. "Our PeopleSoft
implementation took six months from start to finish and
another three months to get to know how to use the product
and become even remotely comfortable with it."
Behan added that months after the PeopleSoft implementation,
the company still struggled to complete some of their business
processes. This was not a problem with Microsoft Dynamics.
"The day after we went live on Dynamics GP we were able
to cut checks, bill our customers, collect our money, apply
the cash and basically do everything we needed to do to
run the business."
Behan says much of the smooth crossover can be credited
to the work of Microsoft Dynamics partner InterDyn who "were
great at walking us through."
Dynamics vs. PeopleSoft
Like other Microsoft Dynamics converts, Behan emphasizes
the simplicity and intuitiveness of the Microsoft Dynamics
solution. Some specific areas where Wellspring has noted
improved functioning include:
Searching - According to Behan, the Explorer function
in Microsoft Dynamics is much better than PeopleSoft's.
PeopleSoft's query function "was never really intuitive
because you had to know the tables and the fields you were
looking for. Now, our employees are able to whittle down
to just the information they need. Explorer is organized
much more logically."
Technical support - The straightforwardness of the
system enables Behan and just one other IT staff person
to support Microsoft Dynamics. "InterDyn can come and help
us if we need it, but for the most part we can do our own
maintenance and write our own reports. Before we used to
have to call corporate headquarters and it could take weeks
to get what we needed."
Data entry - According to Behan, PeopleSoft's tab-based
panels were complicated. "You had to flip from tab to tab
and it had all sorts of extraneous tabs we never used."
Microsoft Dynamics on the other hand, simplifies data entry.
"It's a much better layout and we can go in and modify it
so that we don't have to look at the fields we don't use.
It's great."
Inventory - Microsoft Dynamics system of entering
inventory items is substantially simpler than what Wellspring
experienced with PeopleSoft. "With PeopleSoft [the person
entering inventory] used to have to go to 20 different places
to enter one item and it was very time consuming for him.
It could take 15 minutes to enter a single item. Now, with
Microsoft Dynamics, he can do it one minute," Behan says.
Invoicing - Because Wellspring posts 200 or more
transactions each day in invoicing, they needed real strength
in this area. Behan says that customer often call in for
copies of past invoices. "Reprinting an invoice in Peoplesoft
would take us half an hour. It's much quicker with Microsoft
Dynamics because it's a one-step process."
Confident that Dynamics will grow with Wellspring
As Wellspring looks to the future, Behan is confident that
Microsoft Dynamics can scale with the company. "We're thinking
about doing some custom fields for our cinema business down
the line - things that would completely change the way business
is done in that area -- and we know we can do that with
Microsoft Dynamics GP."
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