The term “digital transformation” has been flying around the internet for years now, and not everyone is clear on the meaning. Take the words for their component parts and you might conclude it to mean a transformation driven by technology. This is an accurate—but incomplete—description of digital transformation. It is not solely technological changes that fill the roster of digital transformation, nor can an organization hope to fully realize all that this movement has to offer if they think within such limits.

Your Microsoft Partner makes just as big of an impact on your business growth as the systems themselves. From system design to implementation, customizations, and ongoing support and user trainings, they get to know your business needs and should play an active role in improving your processes and helping you plan for growth.

An excellent Partner should work with you to help your business grow and achieve long-term goals, but what if you feel like you aren’t receiving the results you need? Here are three signs that your current Partner isn’t setting you up for success:

Dynamics 365 Business Central is Microsoft’s premier midmarket ERP, complete with the features, functionalities, and price tag ideal for organizations of all sizes. Small- to mid-size businesses (SMBs) are at a distinct advantage when considering Business Central for their ERP solution. They get a major upgrade in functionalities often afforded only to large corporations—with the reasonable price tag of smaller accounting systems such as QuickBooks. There are so many benefits of using this robust business app for SMBs, but we’ve highlighted just five game changers.

Looking for new business software can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to something that will hopefully be an all-encompassing solution, like an ERP or CRM system. No matter what kind of system you’re in the market for, there are quite a few options out there, and for such a crucial backbone to everyday business processes, understandably no quick decisions can be made.

If you’re looking to add productivity powerhouses like Dynamics 365 Business Central or CRM applications like Dynamics 365 Sales and Marketing into your toolbelt, read on for some of the benefits you can expect when you join the Microsoft business application ecosystem.

Though the cloud-based ERP market may feel saturated, when the granular details of each solution come to light, it’s easier to narrow the field. Business Central offers high customizability, modernization, flexibility, scalability, security, automation, and seamless integrations with other applications—both Microsoft applications and 3rd party—all built upon a proven, successful ERP solution. As a part of the expansive Microsoft ecosystem, Business Central can be leveraged as a powerful cloud ERP independently, but you will reap unique and calculable benefits from employing other components within the ecosystem Business Central is part of.

It’s time. Time to come together again, in-person, and bask in the connections and momentum that comes from being together and learning together. Community Summit North America 2021 will be held in Houston, Texas from October 12-15, and you’re invited. Summit organizers encourage you to come with questions, and you will leave with answers.

If Summit is new to you, or if it’s been a while since your organization has attended, here are the reasons why you should consider attending and how to make the most of Summit NA when you’re there.

Each small to midsize business faces unique challenges, but perhaps most widespread is a SMB’s struggle to find software that works well for their needs. Often technology SMBs use are made for enterprise-sized businesses, and are therefore inefficient, too expensive, or missing important functionalities the SMB needs. Businesses shift as time passes, and its technology needs to be able to do the same. Let’s take a look at six ways Microsoft Dynamics 365 benefits SMBs.

For the mid-market space specifically, providers like Microsoft, SAP, and NetSuite all have cloud-based ERP applications that offer similar functionality. It can be difficult to wade through the many online resources and sales calls to determine the best solution.

To make it easier, we have put together a high level comparison between Microsoft’s premiere mid-market ERP application Dynamics 365 Business Central, and the most common competitors include NetSuite, SAP, and Epicor.

Time sheets in Business Central are used to track resource time usage. These time sheets are most often used in tandem with jobs to track resource time to a specific job planning line.

Jobs in Business Central are a system that is used to manage projects that utilize resources and materials. Resources in Business Central can be employees or machines. Keeping track of the time used by resources is critical to ensure costs and billing can be properly calculated for each project.

Before making the move to Dynamics 365, Custom Education Solutions kept sales and marketing data in separate systems causing sales and marketing efforts to be slowed and disjointed. With Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Marketing, the sales and marketing teams can work together to reach targeted audiences and focus on the opportunities most likely to close.

Dynamics 365 Business Central is Microsoft’s champion for mid-market business management solutions. Business Central was built around the foundation of Dynamics NAV and brings business processes together into a single, easy-to-use interface. Better yet, as part of the Dynamics 365 platform, Business Central is easily connected to other Dynamics 365 applications such as Marketing and Sales to fully synchronize a business’ functionality.

For companies currently using other Microsoft solutions such as Dynamics GP or Dynamics NAV, an upgrade to Business Central would provide many benefits from both an operational and cost standpoint.

Project management has always been a tricky problem for traditional accounting software to manage. Dynamics 365 Business Central offers options for managing projects using a process called Jobs.

An accounting team may be able to successfully enter sales orders or compile financial reports, but an outside sales team may struggle to interact with prospects remotely. For under-utilized departments like sales that are stuck at home, now is the perfect opportunity to train them on CRM processes that will improve their performance and data tracking when they have the chance to hit the field again.

Smaller retailers like hair salons, auto repair shops, boutiques, and other small to midsize retailers who don’t have dedicated teams to implement advanced COVID-19 response operations can utilize appointment booking software like Microsoft Bookings to safely open their business to their customers.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales is an important part of the Dynamics 365 Suite. It is used to manage leads and opportunities and facilitate more conversions for your business. There are license types that are currently offered which can be somewhat confusing to a first-time buyer who may not know all the different options available to them.

On October 1st, Microsoft released the first patch of their Wave 2 2019 Business Central updates. Business Central, the newest cloud-based ERP accounting solution offered by Microsoft, is designed to provide easy to use, high end accounting tools to small and mid-size businesses. This update features a significant amount of feature improvements and advances in migration as Microsoft prepares to align Business Central on-premises with the online version.

An important consideration to make is Microsoft’s development strategy. Microsoft has reallocated its development resources away from Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL to Business Central. This means that although Microsoft continues to support GP and SL, the majority of new development is happening in Business Central.

Where is Microsoft ERP right now? Walk through install base numbers and deployment options to get a firm grasp at the landscape of ERP systems in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Big changes have been happening at Microsoft regarding its ERP applications over the past three years. This has caused a lot of confusion and uncertainty among current Microsoft ERP clients as well as organizations looking to purchase Microsoft ERP systems.

Business Central may be new, but it has a long, storied past. From PC Plus to Dynamics NAV and NAV to Business Central, there is a whole lot to learn about the newest ERP solution on the market today.