A Columbus Company and provider of Microsoft Dynamics solutions, announced today that John Deere Landscapes has selected Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to replace its existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

John Deere Landscapes provides supply chain services for over 400 branch locations throughout North America. The branch locations process upwards of 20,000 order transactions per day and up to 2.5 million line items per year.

John Deere Landscapes was looking to deploy a financial business system that could be easily tailored to their current processes and offer an integrated, user-friendly platform, to further leverage their existing Microsoft investments. John Deere Landscapes will utilize Microsoft Dynamics AX to gain better visibility into operations at all levels to support continued growth and better serve their customer needs.

John Deere Landscapes will be able to leverage flexible user-enabled reporting tools such as MS Excel and Power Pivot as well as the family of MS SQL Server BI tools.

"The Columbus team focused on the business needs and conducted a thorough discovery process that looked beyond the initial goal of replacing an unsupported legacy financial system. This transitioned the project from a 'have to do this' to a 'need to do this' project," said Mark LaBelle, sr. vice president of sales at Columbus.

"Understanding the wholesale distribution industry allowed Columbus to recognize the future potential of Microsoft Dynamics AX for John Deere Landscapes and deliver a strong foundation to exceed the current financial and reporting needs and allow for future expansion if called upon."