COSMO CONSULT Awarded Microsoft ERP-System Provider of the Year

At this year’s IT & Business fair for digital processes and solutions in Stuttgart (Germany), the COSMO CONSULT Group, Europe’s leading Microsoft Dynamics ERP partner, has been elected Microsoft System Provider of the Year 2016. The title, which is awarded by the Center for Enterprise Research (CER) of Potsdam University, is part of the well-respected “ERP System of the Year” competition where ERP system providers from different categories and industries are qualified by an expert panel of consultants, media representatives and scientists.

Offerings for business solutions and the appropriate consulting markets are sometimes difficult to overlook for customers. Today, the functional standards are generally high, and this is why additional factors more and more come into place. Therefore, the focus of the “ERP System of the Year” competition especially lies on the consideration and validation of non-functional ERP criteria like for example the practical customer benefit, technological and integration coverage, progressiveness or manageability of the solution.

It is for the 10th time already that the competition, conducted by the Center for Enterprise Research of the University of Potsdam, has been taking place. Its initiator is business informatics professor Dr.-Ing. Norbert Gronau: “The motivation for our competition is to finally validate systems on soft factors. Of course the functional dimension is important and has to fit, but there are a lot of further criteria which are of significance for a successful ERP implementation. Considering these factors and establishing an expert panel of consultants, journalists and scientists enables us to give a comprehensive and convincing evaluation.”

In a first step, based on their professional insights, the deciders invited ERP vendors and specialists in the categories supply industries, make-to-order manufacturers, service providers, retailers, food industry, public sector, “Microsoft System Provider of the Year” and “SAP System Provider of the Year” to qualify for the challenge. After that, 15 candidates were selected to face the jurors’ questions at the IT & Business trade fair, where COSMO CONSULT finally has been awarded Microsoft System Provider of the Year 2016.

The COSMO CONSULT Group convinced the panel particularly with its holistic concept that not only focuses on technology, but also and foremost on the real customers benefit and cooperation based on partnership. Especially the transparent COSMO CONSULT implementation methodologies for local, global, central and distributed ERP concepts were appreciated by the experts. Also highlighted were the numerous standard enhancing and industry specific solutions and COSMO CONSULT’s Industry 4.0/IoT initiatives in cooperation with Fraunhofer Institute, where ground-breaking ERP concepts are set into operation. Last but not least the jurors underlined the pre- and after sales business consulting services, aiming to a long-term partnership with the customers.

“Often ERP solutions are only considered to be technical or commercial components. But this is just one side of the medal,” states Uwe Bergmann, chairman of the COSMO CONSULT Group. “Not less important for a successful ERP commitment are the people, tugging at the same rope. Therefore, we are very pleased and proud, too, to be awarded Microsoft System Provider of the Year and officially confirmed to be right with our holistic concept and our idea of a human kind of technology.”