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TOTEM STEEL INTERNATIONAL

Totem Steel International (TSI) is a steel and forest products trading company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. TSI's primary business is trading and distribution of flat rolled steel products. TSI sources steel primarily from steel mills in Asia, in the countries of China, India, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, and Brazil. In addition to buying products from these countries, TSI also purchases products from several mills in the United States as well as Mexico.

Since so much of their business is international, one of TSI's main strategies is to maintain direct contact with the key people at these foreign mills to assure that the supply of steel is continually brought in on a regular basis. Due to the intense growth of the company, TSI was looking for a new ERP system that could work for them in the short and long term.

Key issues stemmed from two limited and partially integrated legacy systems. These systems also offered incomplete and complex reporting that could not be generated in real time, and required significant manual work to present the required information. Lastly, TSI had very limited in-house IT expertise which led to a number of challenges.

After demonstration and review of the Oracle and SAP ERP systems, TSI decided on Microsoft Dynamics AX for their steel trading business. They chose to use Strategic Solutions NW to implement the new system because of their expertise with Dynamics AX; their background in distribution; and the fact that SSNW is the only Dynamics AX partner headquartered in Portland. One of the key differentiator for the project was all inclusive pricing. Keeping in line with TSI's philosophy of outsourcing IT functions, SSNW gave a winning proposal to TSI executives that included not only a fixed implementation cost but also post go-live system support for two years.

Dynamics AX was successfully launched, significantly streamlining the Sales Order and Purchase Order procedure and providing accurate and timely reporting to the business users. In addition, due to the lack of IT experience in-house, SSNW reduced TSI's risk and cost by providing a fixed fee implementation and consulting services as well as a long-term support agreement.

Strategic Solutions NW was able to address all of TSI's specific needs by utilizing their consulting skill sets and industry knowledge; implementing a fully integrated Dynamics AX and a post go-live support agreement, all of which have created immense value for the Totem Steel Company. The success of this project prompted TSI executives to extent AX solution to their Forest Products division with assistance from SSNW consultants.

If your organization is considering SAP or Oracle, please also consider Microsoft Dynamics AX. As Microsoft increases the investment into R & D for ERP software, Dynamics AX is evolving into a realistic option for many mid-market enterprises.