The 3 key pillars of Business Central according to Microsoft
Microsoft’s decision 8 years ago to fully invest in cloud solutions and cloud infrastructure is paying off. The enormous growth that Microsoft is currently experiencing is a result of this.
Mike Morton, General Manager at Microsoft for Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central, is working with his team to further develop and expand Business Central. The goal is to offer existing Dynamics NAV users a smooth and comfortable migration path to Business Central. Here are some interesting ideas and statements from a recent interview with him.
Successful ERP cloud solution
Business Central is Microsoft’s successful ERP cloud solution for small and medium-sized businesses. Mike was asked in an interview about the medium-term vision for Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Morton: “The future for Business Central is clear. We want the business software to be easy to implement and attractive for all stakeholders. For the Microsoft implementation partners, this means the skills they need to deliver large numbers of successful implementations; for customers, it means making it easier to get started quickly; and for the end user, it means making the product even more user-friendly and even fun to work with!”
Improved integration
The second pillar in Microsoft’s vision revolves around integration. “You will see that we continue to invest in improved integration with Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, the Microsoft Power Platform and with the other Dynamics apps. To ensure that our customers create seamless experiences for their customers, we want to bring all the separate parts together ‘end-to-end.’ This is all part of the unique value proposition that only Microsoft can deliver”.
Data & Artificial Intelligence
Data, that’s what the third part of the Business Central vision is all about. “The way people think about data and intelligence is changing at a rapid pace. While a lot of data is still entered manually today, Microsoft envisions a much more automated world. Think about basic activities such as sending quotes and receiving invoices. Here we ask ourselves the following questions: How can we automate the collection of data? How can we then analyze that data and gather new, better insights? And how can Business Central ultimately come up with actions and make concrete suggestions to prevent, for example, errors in order processing?”
On this last topic, Morton expects the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in business software to become increasingly important. “Harnessing the many benefits of AI will no longer be just for large companies, but certainly also for medium-sized companies. Microsoft’s ambition is to make AI accessible to the general public, and to achieve that goal we need to make these powerful tools easy to use.”
If you are a Business Central user, this clear vision combined with Microsoft’s financial strength and innovative power should give you confidence for the foreseeable future.
If you are not yet using Business Central, we would like to invite you to a no-obligation consultation. Please also review our webinar “What does upgrading to Business Central give you?”.
