Monday, November 30, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted everyday business operations around the world, with a devastating impact on the global economy. The entire business landscape has changed putting digital technology at the forefront to overcome difficulties. As a result, many Dynamics Partners are accelerating technology projects to help customers as much as possible during this challenging time. In this post, we will review the key technological trends that have been accelerated due to the pandemic, and highlight how Dynamics 365 Business Central can help your organization adapt and increase productivity.
Dynamics 365 Business Central Empowers Through Accessibility
Having access to cloud technology has become more important than ever as organizations around the world have shifted to operating with remote teams. Cloud technology not only helps to reduce travel costs, but it also helps to ensure business continuity and fight unemployment rates. Users who can access the Dynamics 365 Business Central App in the Cloud remain productive and engaged whether at their desks or on the go, regardless of their device or platform. According to a recent survey from Microsoft, to ensure productivity at all times, 89% of CIOs will accelerate public cloud investments in the future. The increase in Cloud popularity is not only down to improving connectivity and flexible access, Microsoft Cloud infrastructure also helps organizations to overcome data security vulnerabilities.
Dynamics 365 Business Central Ensures Security
When working with a remote team, having everyone logging in from different locations can put your organization at severe risk of cyber attacks. This vulnerability can easily be combated by Dynamics 365 Business Central’s built-in security system - Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). The Azure AD authentication method is automatically set up and managed for Business Central online users to protect data from unauthorized access.
Furthermore, Dynamics 365 Business Central online data is always encrypted and stored in an isolated database. Business Central online users remain secure with automatic backups that are retained for 30 days. In addition, automated deployment and continuous updates are available with the set Business Central extension lifecycle management, so you can have peace of mind no matter what the future holds.
Drive Growth with Business Insights and Analytics in Dynamics 365 Business Central
As the pandemic continues, the constantly changing business landscape requires fast decision making from business leaders. In order to rethink an overall business strategy and adapt during these testing times, data-based insights become very important. A data insights-based strategy helps to unlock business potential, overcome risks and position an organization for the future.
Dynamics 365 Business Central users can easily access real-time insights with the Business Central apps for Power BI. The built-in predictive analytics helps with data analysis and provides valuable business insights. Power BI retrieves data and builds user-friendly dashboards and reports, all in one place. This provides a sense of where and how the market is changing, so you can optimize business operations and enable a tailored go-to-market approach.
Increase Automation with Dynamics 365 Business Central and Power Automate
Social distancing during the pandemic has reduced human interaction to a minimum, making it more important than ever to automate manual processes. From in-store robots and automated checkouts to improved software functionality to increase productivity, automation can help to overcome challenges caused by the crisis. In order to efficiently adapt to a rapidly changing situation, Business Central users can take advantage of automated workflows with Microsoft Power Automate or within Business Central directly.
Power Automate, a SaaS offering, allows users to automate repetitive, manual, and time-consuming tasks by integrating apps and services such as Power BI. Plus, it can be done with little to no coding experience. Using Power Automate, your business workflows can be enhanced with:
- Prebuilt templates and connectors allowing customizations.
- AI models enabling to simplify mundane tasks such as form processing, object detection, or category classification.
- The robotic process automation (RPA) allows you to accelerate high-volume tasks and handle manual work without the need for anyone to be at the computer. With RPA enabled Power Virtual Agents you can easily build a chatbot to simulate a conversation with the user or for any other interactions.
In addition to Power Automate, you can manage workflow functionality directly within Business Central. Users can create a workflow from a template, and then modify, configure and activate it to automate manual processes. Automation with Business Central workflows saves time, makes processes more consistent, reduces human errors and ultimately increase ROI.
The Rise of Business Applications
The pandemic has accelerated the use of apps. In fact, Business apps have seen 105% rise in sessions compared to 2019 and installs went up by 70%. This has led to the modernization of existing apps and the launch of a number of new apps. Together with other providers, Microsoft ISV partners have been broadening their offerings to meet the rising demand and address different customer challenges. Currently, around 1,000 apps for Dynamics 365 Business Central are available on Microsoft AppSource, allowing users to replace customizations and expand functionality, so they can quickly adapt to the volatile market.
Microsoft AppSource guarantees quality by enforcing high standards throughout the app publishing process to reduce unnecessary risks for users. On AppSource, it is easy to find the right app tailored to specific industry needs. Ranging from vertical to full horizontal, most apps offer a free trial so you can ensure the app adds value to the existing application. Plenty of apps provide in-depth documentation and are easy to deploy/remove at the click of a button, without the need to pay high deployment costs. However, some of the more industry-specific apps can require a Microsoft Dynamics Partner to implement. To further improve the AppSource monetization engine, Microsoft continuously makes investment and adjustments. Today, the increasing Microsoft AppSource popularity amounts to 4+ million active monthly users in 140+ global geographies, allowing everyone to participate in the digital economy.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, it’s crucial that we continue to respond to the crisis together to protect our health and wellbeing. Embracing digital technology and adapting to innovative growth strategies will allow businesses to stay competitive, help overcome the impact of the crisis, empower customers through technology and drive economic growth.
1ClickFactory, along with others, continue to work hard and ensures the safety of its employees. Despite the circumstances, we are proud to be able to deliver upgrade projects and developments on time as well as monitoring and supporting Self Provisioning customers so that businesses can continue to work uninterrupted.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you adapt and grow with Dynamics 365 Business Central, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch today!