Distributor of “Green” Products Picks Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Support Its Growth

Seventh Generation finds that Microsoft solution meets 95 percent of its business needs right out of the box.

REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 29, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Seventh Generation Inc., the nation’s leading brand of nontoxic, environmentally safe household and personal care products, has selected Microsoft Dynamics NAV as its business management solution. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is an enterprise resource planning system built to help small and midsize companies streamline their business processes by providing specific functionality based on the needs of individual industries and regions.

“We found that Microsoft Dynamics NAV straight out of the box covered 95 percent of our business needs,” said Nancy Stoddard, vice president of Information Technology for Seventh Generation.

Burlington, Vt.-based Seventh Generation has experienced unprecedented growth in recent years, generated by distribution and consumer demand for its products. Previously the company relied on numerous spreadsheets to track its business, requiring data to be re-entered multiple times; and the system encountered difficulty keeping pace with the expansion of the business. The company also wanted technology that would be responsive to its intent to upgrade its internal business processes.

“We needed a solution that was flexible, easy to tailor, and accommodating to our future growth,” Stoddard said. “ Microsoft Dynamics NAV gives us those features. Seventh Generation will be able to adapt its Microsoft Dynamics NAV system as the company grows and can shape its look and feel.”

Microsoft Gold Certified Partner SCS, in Santa Monica, Calif., is implementing the solution, integrating it with all of Seventh Generation’s existing Microsoft products: Windows XP, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Common interfaces and shared data will allow Seventh Generation to adopt the extensively integrated system easily and will centralize information that previously was being transmitted internally through e-mail.

Critical to the selection process was identifying a like-minded partner with a commitment to environmentally conscious behaviors. In accordance with that requirement, SCS will use “green” techniques for shipping products, reduce travel requirements by meeting with Seventh Generation through Microsoft Office Live Meeting via the Internet, and track the carbon footprint of the implementation to subsequently publish a white paper on the process.

“In order for environmental solutions to be effective and sustainable, they have to be integrated with economic solutions,” said Helen Russell, chief executive officer at SCS. “Seventh Generation has been an exemplary industry leader in the environmental arena for two decades. Microsoft Dynamics NAV’s flexibility can allow Seventh Generation to track and instantly report on virtually unlimited data points: profitability by product, customer, vendor, and sales region, as well as environmental qualities by item, carbon footprint and more.”

Microsoft Dynamics NAV will provide a number of benefits that enable Seventh Generation to manage its future:
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Support for growth. Microsoft Dynamics NAV has a familiar Microsoft look and feel, so it is easy to adopt. With a high level of functionality, it also offers flexibility and ready customization as the company expands.
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Planning and supply-chain management. Seventh Generation will be able to engage in much better planning, for the first time being able to see available and capable-to-promise inventories. Now the company can provide better data to its manufacturing partners, warehouses and customers and much better tracking of inventory. As a result of being able to predict how much product it needs for whom and by when, the company will be able to deliver product faster.
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Integration. Microsoft Dynamics NAV combines the various business functions of Seventh Generation, providing a single place for people to see what is going on in the business, instead of being compelled to turn to many different places. They will have a complete view from prospective customers through the supply chain to product delivery.
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More environmentally friendly reporting. Because it offers the ability to drill down and find data fast on the screen, Microsoft Dynamics NAV will lessen the need to print written reports. This is an important feature for Seventh Generation, which wants to minimize the use of paper for environmental reasons.
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Time savings. The time from order to delivery will be significantly reduced, as will the time spent on data entry — running the company on spreadsheets — now that information needs to be entered only once and then is shared by all the applications in the system.
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Revenue improvement. The better data and better tools to analyze the business will allow Seventh Generation to respond to opportunities more rapidly and to move product faster to meet growing demand, leading to increased revenue and cash flow.

“Microsoft Dynamics NAV will allow Seventh Generation to move from entering data and managing spreadsheets to proactively making business decisions that are formed by accurate, insightful information,” Russell said. “This will be a model green implementation, which will hopefully generate a blueprint for other companies around the world to save and make money with Microsoft Dynamics NAV while at the same time being socially conscious stewards of the Earth.”

Seventh Generation will employ Microsoft Dynamics NAV not only for production and customer-relationship processes but also for managing its human resources activities.

“Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a perfect business-management solution for rapidly growing companies such as Seventh Generation,” said Michael Park, corporate vice president for U.S. Microsoft Dynamics business at Microsoft. “It’s a nimble, comprehensive, very scalable and easy-to-use technology that is built for business expansion.”