For an expanding business, it is of utmost importance to maintain pace with the changing market and time. Traditionally most businesses worked on on-premise deployment of ERP solutions, but today, a more flexible and easy to customize, cloud-based deployment is available. For any small to medium size businesses, it is of enormous advantage to move to cloud in terms of productivity and finance. Besides, Microsoft is eliminating its mainstream support for the older versions of its ERP solutions, such as Dynamics AX 2009 and 2010. Thus it is the only way to keep up with the upgrade journey and plan ahead.
Thus, moving to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations becomes a requirement. Here we will discuss in 5 steps, how to carry out a seamless Dynamics 365 upgrade. But before getting into that, it will be smart to look into the benefits that should make you want to leave behind your familiar ERP system.
Benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations:
1. Integration of ERP and CRM solutions: Dynamics 365 upgrade brings together the powers of ERP and CRM. It is the biggest advantage of the upgrade as combining different departments into one system; Dynamics 365 bridges data silos and ensures the best use of resources while also improving customer experience.
2. A Personal Workplace: the replacement for Dynamics AX is programmed such as to boost the productivity of the user companies by providing the employees with a personal workplace which aids them to carry out the day to day activities and complete them quicker and seamlessly.
3. Smart Intelligence: Dynamics 365 upgrade brings you the power of Cortana Intelligence, Power BI and Azure Machine Learning, at one place as a unified solution. So the users can delve deeper into the business metrics.
4. Simplified Data Management: as per the Dynamics 365 demo, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operation simplifies the data management by allowing the users the ability to use data from different systems and applications together.
5. Interlinked Ecosystem: when you opt for Dynamics 365 upgrade, you no longer have to switch between applications. It is pretty tedious and time consuming. Instead you get an integrated system that is seamlessly interlinked.
6. Easy Licensing: Licensing is probably one of the hardest parts of any ERP implementation. However, as you can find from the Dynamics 365 demo, you get multiple licensing options and thus, choose the one that most suits your need.
Transition to Microsoft Dynamics 365 from Dynamics AX in 5 steps:
1. Outline the scope: plan out the background research and decide which features of the new solution are most useful to your company. Also consider how much of the existing data in your system you want to migrate and how you plan to move the modules into the cloud.
2. Hire an implementation partner: migrating to the new solution is an elaborate process. It includes moving the crucial data into the system and thus it needs professional assistance. Considering the complexity of the process, it is in the best interest of the company to engage an experienced Microsoft partner. They can conduct the upgrade with utmost efficiency without any fallout.
3. Build a cross-functional team: you are going to need a cross-functional team that understands the concept of migration and only then you can conduct the migration with ease. People from different departments enhance the process of brainstorming and developing new ideas which leads to better chance of successful upgrade process.
4. Clear your data: it is obvious that years of operation leads to enormous amounts of data accumulation in a company. Most of this data is outdated, redundant and unnecessary. Thus, while deciding on the migration, you must cleanse your data and sort it out before proceeding with the upgrade.
5. Test early and frequently: ERP upgrade is a complex process and texting is a crucial part of it. When you test frequently you make sure of the application quality and also identify the areas of enhancement. Thus, it is a smart move to test the solution for: functionality, how different upgrade tasks affect other system in your test landscape, and the performance of your business.
Thus, in these 5 basic steps you can successfully migrate to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations without losing any essential data.
