This is how Microsoft continuously improves her Dynamics 365 Business Central cloud ERP solution
Last April, Microsoft released the new version of her successful cloud ERP solution, Dynamics 365 Business Central. Microsoft publishes new versions of her popular ERP solution every 6 months and the amount of innovation increases with every new release. It’s not just improvements in the ERP domain itself. But also in the integration and cohesion with surrounding solutions, such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams. To continuously improve its solutions, Microsoft actively uses the brains and creativity of its implementation partners and end-users worldwide.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is a comprehensive business application solution that is designed and optimized for small and midsized organizations. In April 2021, Business Central exceeded 15.000 customers worldwide and the solution is currently growing at more than 1.000 customers per month.
Since Microsoft’s start in the cloud ERP arena, the company changed her version- and release policies. Traditionally, Microsoft was used to launch new major versions of her on premise ERP and CRM solutions every two years. During the past years, the company changed that rhythm to annual basis and eventually to the semi-annual schedule that is pretty much the standard in the cloud world. What is by no means standard is the extent of innovation that Microsoft publishes in her new versions.
Based on Microsoft’s huge Research & Development budgets, the company can afford to have large numbers of developers work on the further improvement of her business solutions. This results in a continuous flow of innovations – often with a (much) greater volume and more business impact than her competitors. And these innovations are not limited to the ERP domain only. They can increasingly be found in the integration with ‘surrounding products’ like Outlook and Teams.
Especially the improved integration with Teams is important these days now that most organizations have their staff work from home office. Clearly, it’s a huge advantage that Microsoft is not just a vendor for business applications, but also has a leading position in office automation with Outlook and collaboration tools like Teams. Of course, other ERP vendors will be able to connect their solutions with Teams as well. However, the deep integration between Business Central and Teams is built up from the drawing board. And that brings much more value to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 customers.
To continuously improve its Dynamics 365 solutions, Microsoft implemented a so-called feedback-loop. And promoted this new way of working in the market. This structure allows her thousands of implementation partners as well as her tens of thousands of end-users worldwide to propose product improvements. In the past, the development department was hidden in a kind of ivory tower. And it was hard to get new ideas accepted. Today, the Microsoft product managers check these feedback loops on a daily basis. And with every new product release, they report a fast growing number of ideas from partners and customers that were included as part of the solution. This is a great new way to further grow Business Central into the best ERP system for SMB companies in the world!
