Microsoft controls a substantial share of the enterprise software market. While its suite of Dynamics ERP solutions have been around for 25 years, the company is looking to break new ground with Dynamics 365, its cloud-based ERP and CRM platform that rolls most essential business functions into one solution and liberates organizations from the burden of periodically maintaining and upgrading an on-premises software implementation.
According to Microsoft, Dynamics 365 is a doorway to digital transformation for organizations across the world that turns business processes into business advantages. Let’s take a look at what Dynamics 365 brings to the table and how it aims to truly move the world’s business processes into the 21st century.
Usability and Integration
Expectedly, Microsoft is very interested in making sure that all of their products work well together, and Dynamics 365 is the epitome of hyper-connected software. Dynamics 365 looks and feels very similar to other Microsoft software like Office, which provides a sense of familiarity to most computer users. It also offers significant integration capabilities, which means that you can perform tasks like creating Word documents and emails from within its interface.
Licensing and customization
Thanks to Dynamics 365’s flexibility and modular licensing model, businesses don’t need to burden themselves with a massive suite of apps that they only use a fraction of. Instead, they can choose the Dynamics 365 modules that are relevant to their current operations and create a customized solution that best fits their needs. Dynamics 365 also has its own dedicated app store that helps you find Microsoft-approved extensions and plugins that you can use to further customize your deployment and address specific requirements.
User-driven extension
End-users can also craft their own Dynamics 365 modifications and apps using Microsoft Flow or Microsoft Power Apps. Flow can help you create workflows that use third-party solutions. Suppose you need to use social listening as part of your marketing plan. By using Flow to integrate Twitter with Dynamics 365, you can set up a workflow that creates a new lead in Dynamics 365 for Sales every time someone tweets a particular word or phrase. Similarly, Power Apps helps users build mobile apps using a drag-and-drop interface that doesn’t require advanced programming experience.
Business intelligence, analytics, and AI
Dynamics 365 can integrate with Power BI, Microsoft’s AI-infused business intelligence solution, to provide forecasts and actionable insights that use machine learning to become more accurate over time. This offers your business immeasurable reporting and analytical power. Power BI’s dashboards natively integrate with Dynamics 365 apps, offering a consistent experience across tools and devices.
Microsoft has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence for several years, and now they’re injecting that technology into their Dynamics 365 products. With built-in automation functionality, Dynamics 365 can take care of many of your organization’s repetitive, low-value tasks, allowing you to focus on core responsibilities that add real business value.
Maintenance and Security
Since all of its solution infrastructure exists off-site, your organization isn’t responsible for keeping Dynamics 365 updated and secure. Microsoft takes care of all back-end support tasks so you can focus on your business instead of your IT assets. Running on Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365 also maintains high standards for the privacy and integrity of your data. Downtime is rare and data loss is virtually unheard of in Microsoft’s cloud platform.
Additionally, you have complete administrative control over the data that your users have access to. Restricting users’ access to information they don’t need to fulfill their work responsibilities is generally considered an important information security practice, and also reduces distractions to help your employees focus on their work.
Conclusion
After a close inspection, it’s clear that the advantages of choosing Microsoft Dynamics 365 as your ERP platform are twofold: first, you get a high-performance, intuitive business solution, and second, you have a wealth of options for enhancing, extending, and modifying your specific Dynamics 365 implementation to your heart’s content, either by yourself, or with assistance from a Microsoft-approved partner for Dynamics 365 services.
To learn more about how Dynamics 365 can enhance your business operations with its world-class infrastructure, process integration, and extensibility, contact Visionet Systems.