Microsoft Business Solutions has taken another avenue with branding and product strategy. Over the last 10 years Dynamics NAV has transformed into one of the most popular business solutions on the market. However, Microsoft did not stop there.During recent years Microsoft has focused strongly on its hosted solutions such as Office 365 and Dynamics 365 (and now Business Central) with the goal of bringing its entire business offering together into one integrated solution. Microsoft call this their ‘Cloud First Strategy.’
Dynamics 365 Business Edition was the first attempt made by Microsoft at bringing its solutions online, and as with all first attempts this was achieved with limited success. Combining the functionality from Dynamics NAV and Dynamics CRM,Dynamics 365 Business Edition’s goal was to give business all the tools needed to run any number of business avenues.
Learning from the experience, Microsoft has now gone a step further with Dynamics 365 Business Central.
So what is Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Business Central, released in April 2018 offers a full Azure hosted version of the Dynamics NAV application with low-cost subscription licensing. Dynamics 365 Business Central is hosted by Microsoft. Microsoft hosting is a relatively recent development, but the actual application behind the product has the same code-base as the on-premise version of NAV. So, it’s not that recent from a functional point of view. Delivered as a SaaS ERP system, it is offered as a more economical cloud based application developed and hosted on Microsoft’s cloud service Azure. Dynamics 365 Business Central provides functionality in finance, procurement, sales and inventory and is intended as a cloud based solution designed for companies that have outgrown applications such as Xero, Sage 50 and Quickbooks. For larger organizations requiring an ERP solution which can be integrated with other business software and can be customized to meet specific operational requirements, Dynamics NAV is still available as an on premise solution.
Dynamics 365 Business Central has two specific modules: Essentials and Premium – and includes:
Financial Management
Project Management
Sales and Service
Reporting and Analytics
Supply Chain Management
Dynamics 365 Business Central offers:
Unify your business, and boost efficiency with automated tasks and workflows—all integrated within familiar Office tools like Outlook, Word, and Excel.
Actionable insights: Achieve greater outcomes and gain a complete view of your business with connected data, business analytics, and guidance delivered by Microsoft’s leading intelligent technologies.
Solutions built to evolve: Start quickly, grow at your own pace and adapt in real time with a flexible platform that makes it easy to extend Business Central based on your changing business needs.
