REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Pacific Northwest Publishing and its affiliate company, Safe & Civil Schools, both of Eugene, Ore., have chosen Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 to integrate their accounting, scheduling, customer service and marketing capabilities. The Microsoft Dynamics solutions will replace the organizations’ Intuit QuickBooks software and a paper-based system that had been augmented by electronic spreadsheets. Safe & Civil Schools provides behavior-management training to improve school safety and climate in school districts nationwide; Pacific Northwest Publishing publishes books and other materials used in the program and sold separately.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides powerful, role-based customer relationship management capabilities through models that can be deployed online or on premises, or be partner-hosted. The companies will use it to expand their marketing efforts and to automate their previous paper-based systems for tracking projects with school districts. Microsoft Dynamics GP is a complete and scalable business management solution that helps growing and midsize organizations get up and running quickly, with such features as business intelligence, reporting, budgeting and forecasting. This solution will integrate the companies’ accounting functions and replace the QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions software.

Pacific Northwest Publishing and Safe & Civil Schools are working closely with two Microsoft Gold Certified Partners: Gateway Solutions Inc., of Portland, Ore., will implement the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution, and Borek Business Solutions of Eugene will implement Microsoft Dynamics GP. These new systems will be integrated with each other and with the organization’s current Microsoft Office suite.

The organizations work with school districts throughout the United States, including six of the 20 largest districts; much of the scheduling of training and consulting sessions has been handled by one person with her own paper-based file system and intricate electronic spreadsheets. Pacific Northwest Publishing and Safe & Civil Schools were looking for a way to automate these processes in order to ensure they would continue to meet customer needs promptly.

Pacific Northwest Publishing and Safe & Civil Schools selected Microsoft Dynamics technology after evaluating several other solutions, including NetSuite, Intacct and ACT! by Sage.

“We chose Microsoft Dynamics because it offered the best technology for our project scheduling and enabled integration between our two companies,” said Matt Sprick, chief operating officer of Pacific Northwest Publishing. “We were very impressed by how Microsoft Dynamics is able to adapt to our way of doing business.”

The organizations expect that their Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP technology will produce a number of key benefits to support their operations, including the following:
• Company growth. “We’re looking to allow growth without breaking our system,” Sprick explained. The previous system was unable to bring together the large amounts of data needed for the companies to expand. The Microsoft technology integrates that data, making it available in a powerful fashion.
• Improved data accuracy. With their previous system, Pacific Northwest Publishing and Safe & Civil Schools needed to enter the same information four or five times to record schedules, expenses, bills and invoices. Now data can be entered just once, reducing the chances of input error, and it becomes available for all accounting and operational functions.
• Better tracking of time and expenses. Pacific Northwest Publishing will be able to track its inventory more easily and thoroughly than it could before, and to manage projects better by tracking the time and expenses involved in getting its books to market. Safe & Civil Schools will be able to do a better job of tracking expenses related to each consulting job.
• Improved revenue. Microsoft Dynamics CRM will allow the organizations to organize marketing campaigns that are more focused than before. The solution will allow the publishing company to directly market books to individuals who have attended training; in turn, it enables the training company to offer sessions only to those who have bought its books. Workflows will be built to take advantage of these opportunities. The technology also will support the organization in tracking products and services customers have used so that it can show customers logical services that complement and expand the improvement they have begun.
• Improved business intelligence. For the first time, the organizations will be able to see the true profitability of long-term projects by aligning costs with revenue. Safe & Civil Schools also anticipates that Microsoft Dynamics GP will allow it to prepare better projections of the ultimate profit on a project at various stages of its completion. Also, Pacific Northwest Publishing will be able to initiate inventory reporting for its books, improving its ability to manage costs and delivery.
• Better project scheduling and planning. As the corps of consultants expands, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will provide a complete — and previously unattainable — view of any number of consultants. With this view, planners can determine who is available for engagements. The new technology also will provide information on which consultants are associated with each school project and the stage of each project. Moreover, these new capabilities can be implemented promptly and cost-effectively because only minimal training is required, because Microsoft Dynamics CRM employs the familiar Microsoft Office Outlook interface.
• Better financial insight. The accounting department will be able to keep separate income statements and balance sheets for each of the two companies but also consolidate them in reports. Since most customers work with both companies, and the organizations will be able to track revenues and expenses by customer, the integrated data will provide a more holistic view of the organization’s customer relationships, profitability and potential than its previous methodologies could.
• Supply-chain management benefits. Most publication projects need to be sent out for bidding individually, because paper prices fluctuate. With the integration of all bidding and contract data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP, Pacific Northwest Publishing can track the vendors for each of its products and determine which printers have the right equipment to run specific jobs, as well as maintain a history of where various jobs have been printed in the past.

“These two Microsoft Dynamics solutions provide us with a strong and comprehensive foundation for continued growth,” Sprick said. “They will scale with our business as we expand our market.”

“Corporations with multiple companies, business units or locations find exceptional value in Microsoft Dynamics solutions,” said Michael Park, corporate vice president for the Microsoft Dynamics business in the U.S. for Microsoft. “By integrating data within and across the organization, Microsoft Dynamics technologies provide greater visibility and business intelligence for superior planning and business management.”

About Safe & Civil Schools and Pacific Northwest Publishing

Based on Dr. Randy Sprick’s 30+ years in education and behavior management, Safe & Civil Schools offers a full range of consulting, training, workshop, and coaching services designed to assist all school personnel in implementing research-based strategies to structure all school settings for success.

In the effort to improve school climate and culture, Pacific Northwest Publishing is dedicated to producing practical, high-quality, research-based books and programs to help educators create positive, productive environments where children feel emotionally and physically safe, and as such, actively engaged in the learning process.

About Gateway Solutions
Gateway Solutions combines 11 years of experience in implementing technology for salesforce automation to help your CRM system work for you, not the other way around. Our goal is to go beyond simple customer satisfaction. We strive for satisfied customers with whom we can develop long-term partnerships. In turn we enable our clients to secure customers for life.

About Borek Business Solutions
Borek Business Solutions delivers comprehensive business technology and related services to provide businesses with easy access to critical information, connect operations across their organization and help staff perform key tasks more efficiently. Borek’s premier business product is Microsoft Dynamics GP, which automates and streamlines financial and supply chain processes. Borek helps clients save time and money while improving their ability to compete.

About Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that helps businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. - Oracle today announced that Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, a member-owned electricity provider based in Livingston, Texas, is implementing the Oracle Utilities application suite - including Oracle Utilities Network Management System, Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management, Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing and Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management - to help improve operational efficiency and control costs for its members.

Sam Houston Electric Cooperative ranks as one of the largest of the 66 electric cooperatives in Texas, maintaining over 6,000 miles of line and serving more than 51,000 members. Because it is a not-for-profit organization, the Cooperative maintains a very lean workforce and relies on technology to help keep its costs low. In addition, its rural service area requires Sam Houston Electric Cooperative’s field service representatives to travel more than two million miles on the road each year. The utility needed an integrated application suite that would help it to realize new efficiencies, lower costs, manage its workforce more effectively and provide excellent customer service.

Sam Houston Electric Cooperative has already implemented an integrated Oracle Utilities Network Management System and Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management solution in Phase 1 of the Oracle Utilities product suite deployment. With Oracle Utilities Network Management System, Sam Houston Electric Cooperative has reduced the duration of outages and improved customer satisfaction by providing customers with up-to-date and accurate information regarding outages and restoration times. The Oracle Utilities Network Management System accepts trouble-call input to identify probable outage locations and then the system automatically notifies Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management so the Cooperative can immediately dispatch crews to restore service.

Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management has helped Sam Houston Electric Cooperative improve route planning, as well as communication between its operations and field personnel, mobilizing the right technicians for each job to efficiently complete repair and maintenance work.

Sam Houston Electric Cooperative is implementing Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to improve visibility into customer data, allowing its customer service representatives to improve service and reduce issue-resolution times. The integrated Oracle system is expected to greatly reduce the flow of paperwork for Sam Houston Electric Cooperative. The Cooperative will also use the application to streamline bill printing and distribution.

The Cooperative will also implement Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management to gain a comprehensive view of its infrastructure assets to more proactively plan maintenance and repair work thus enabling it to reduce long-term repair costs.