How To Avoid Inefficiencies Associated With Disparate Systems To Improve Productivity?

By Author: Sapna Gupta
Total Articles: 38
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As your business grows, more employees, more office space, and more technology resources are required that result in existence of a large number of systems to perform xZX tasks. These systems are not designed to communicate effectively with each other.Hence, these systems adversely impact your business, not only causing data silos but also require additional time and money for maintenance. Some of the impacts of disparate systems on your business are listed below:-

1.Wastage of Time in Multiple Data Entry

For instant, if information is stored in a centralized database then anyone who is having access to that information, can easily find that. This eventually makes planning and forecasting easier and simpler. Furthermore, organizations can easily make informed decisions based on data by finding relevant insights, in case, it is stored centrally. However, this is not possible, if you’re using disparate systems. If data is managed at different systems then users need to waste time in searching relevant information as well as manually entering information from one system to other to get the job done.

2.No ...
... Single Source of Truth

Without centralized system, it is nearly impossible to gain accurate picture of your business. Having centralized information enables every user to have clear view about the customer which eventually helps in making more informed decisions. For example, if client asks for order, support staff can easily find the location and deliver instant response to the client if (s)he has access to information through centralized system. However, in disparate systems, same customer may have been passed between different departments and had to wait much longer to get an answer.

3.Cost & Management

Managing & maintaining multiple systems costs in not only time, but money. Customization, upgrade and integration are costly and consume critical time. If you’re using single, centralized system with consolidated information about business, then you can efficiently create future planning, strategy, and perform competitive analysis based on data. Apart from this, single system is easy to manage, maintain & upgrade.

4.Errors due to Manual Entry

As your business grows, more employees, more office space, and more technology resources are required that result in existence of a large number of systems to perform xZX tasks. These systems are not designed to communicate effectively with each other.

Manual entry of data across multiple systems may, at times, leads to inaccuracies. Imagine a situation in which a customer’s order being shipped to the wrong address because the shipping system hasn’t been updated to sync with the order entry system. These mistakes can results in serious financial loses. A centralized, integrated system not only can avoid such problems but also prevents users from double data entry to make data consistent.

How can you avoid such loses?

A single, integrated system that covers different aspects of your business can help in eliminating inefficiencies associated with disparate systems. A centralized system will efficiently connect your business, enabling you to have comprehensive view of your business. Real-time visibility of business, enable decision makers to analyze which areas they need to work-on in order to improve productivity.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central – Eliminating silos to help your business grow

As a true cloud solution, built on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central delivers a 360-degree assessment of all your operations – both front and back end. Designed for small & mid-sized organizations, Dynamics 365 Business Central brings in all the business processes together, helping you to connect with your customers in real-time, and enabling you to make more informed decisions based on analytics and data. Furthermore, Dynamics 365 Business Central enables organizations to upgrade from their entry-level accounting software or legacy ERP system to one single, comprehensive solution to manage finances, operations, sales and customer service.

Dynamics 365 Business Central enables you to conduct business without silos in order to improve business efficiency. With the help of workflows, you can automate tasks and gain comprehensive view of business in real-time with connected data & business analytics. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a flexible platform that can easily be extended as per your changing business needs. By covering every aspect of business – from marketing, sales, service, operations to finance, D365 Business Central helps in maximizing productivity while delivering advanced invoice matching functionality, enabling fully automated invoice processing.

Relationship with Dynamics NAV

Dynamics 365 Business Central has brought full NAV functionality to a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) environment. Dynamics 365 Business Central delivers flexible deployment options that include SaaS deployment, cloud & hybrid deployment option. With SaaS, Microsoft has enabled small organizations to leverage digital transformation at low upfront cost with tight budget. Available as SaaS, Business Central enables organizations to leverage the business intelligence & guidance of Microsoft Azure without investing much in infrastructure, servers, software, maintenance etc.

Availability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Business Central is available in two editions which are listed below
1. Dynamic 365 Business Central Essential
2. Dynamic 365 Business Central Premium

Licensing Model

Dynamics 365 Business Central comes in two licensing models which are listed below

Full User – Having complete access to the functionality-rich business applications, full user licenses are perfect for employees who work with sales, customer service, finance, or supply chain management.

Team Member – This license is perfect for users who need to consume data or reports from the business system and need to complete less demanding tasks such as time or expense imports and HR updates. This license is perfect for users who do not require full user functionality.

Core capabilities of Dynamics 365 Business Central

Financial Management – Business Central comes with a wide range of financial capabilities which anyone would expect from an ERP. With comprehensive functionality Business Central features a range of financial management capabilities that include all the basic features you'd expect from an ERP such as managing payables and receivables, overseeing cash flows, preparing VAT reports, and performing year and period closes, enabling users to quickly set up and start posting to chart of accounts, general journals, and recurring journals. With Business Central, you can efficiently manage inventory costs, operational and departmental budgets alongside keeping track of fixed assets and related transactions like acquisitions, depreciations, write-downs, appreciations, and disposals. By automatically assigning audit trails and descriptions to every transaction, Dynamics 365 Business Central helps in making auditing more intuitive. By consolidating financial data from multiple companies, Business Central delivers a centralized view of all their arms for financial analysis.

Customer Relationship Management – Business Central offers some core relationship management features that enable businesses to organize and optimize their sales efforts. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central enables users to record and manage contact information for all their business relationships. These contacts can be segmented on several criteria and can, further, be used to target marketing campaigns. In D365 Business Central, leads and opportunities can be tracked and entered, enabling sales teams to have real-time view of opportunities in the pipeline, and where they can best focus their efforts. D365 Business Central keeps track of all customer interactions and in-built business intelligence provides guidance on best up-sell, cross-sell, and renewal opportunities throughout the sales cycle. Organizations can quickly act on sales-related inquiries, manage service requests, and process payments with Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Supply Chain Management – With tools to manage supply chain, D365 Business Central enables organizations to process sales orders, and post and manage transactions and receivables. Irrespective of the location of inventory, Business Central helps manage & tracks inventory levels across different plants, distribution centers, warehouses, showrooms, brick-and-mortar stores, or even in transit. Dynamics 365 Business Central ensures warehouse management on several complexity levels while delivering real-time view of inventory for timely order fulfillment. Based on sales forecasts and expected stock-outs, purchase orders can be created automatically. By maintaining right amount of inventory, Dynamics 365 Business Central helps in optimizing resources and manufacturing capacity.

Human Resource – With human capital module, Business Central helps organizations to keep detailed employee records such as contacts, qualifications, and contract information. Furthermore, Dynamics 365 Business Central enables managers to track employee information based on experience, skill sets, training, and union membership. With D365 Business Central, employee absences can be logged, tracked, and tagged. In-built expense management feature ensures that employee expenses can be posted to the general journal, and employees can be reimbursed easily.
Project Management – With Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation, organizations can efficiently management projects in time & budget by accomplishing tasks such as configuring jobs, scheduling resources, managing budgets and monitoring progress.

Dynamics 365 Business Central enables project managers to register, group, and sell resources while also analyzing performance and monitoring estimates. Project Managers can manage and track jobs and can also generate customer invoices based on estimates. With timesheets, users can track the employees and equipment.
Service Order Management – With Service Order Management module in Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium Edition, companies can efficiently deliver excellent service to their customers, helping them to boost customer satisfaction and brand loyalty in the process. With Business Central, organizations can oversee their service management operations, from processing orders, to issuing contracts, and managing technicians. Dynamics 365 Business Central enables registration and tracking of post-sales issues alongside enabling you to manage key components of operations including contract information, components, and warranty information. Users can also record and track information on service levels, response times, and service history of each contract with Business Central.

Manufacturing – Business Central offers wide array of features to help production businesses manage and streamline their output. With Manufacturing Module, available in Business Central Premium, users can create production orders, production bill of materials, and outsource particular operations within a production order to subcontractors. With demand planning capabilities, organizations can schedule production and can create production and purchase orders based on demand forecasts and inventory levels. Users can also manage machine centers to control capacity levels, while ensuring work centers are operating at an efficient level. As Dynamics 365 Business Central supports agile manufacturing, business can plan for peak times, and make eleventh-hour alterations to processes to facilitate changes.

The Bottom Line

Thus, we can infer from the above text that disparate systems result in increasing inefficiencies. Cloud-based business solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central helps in eliminating these silos, ensuring productivity and automation. Furthermore, with flexible deployment options available, organizations can select which deployment option – SaaS, private cloud, or on-premise, best caters to their business needs. For licensing, implementation, integration & customization, you need to connect with Microsoft Partner Organization who has authority to run business.

Sapna Gupta is a technology enthusiast who is passionate to write about ERP, netsuite implementation partners usa , cloud solutions, IoT, Crypto and much more. She believes in delivering content with a pitch that makes topics easy to understand.