Would you take a cross-country trip in an old car held together with duct tape? No—but you may be trying to compete using inefficient, cobbled-together business applications that keep your organization from reaching its full potential.
Such systems come at a cost: Time-consuming manual workarounds reduce employee productivity and efficiency. Data is siloed across functions, preventing insights that could make your organization more responsive. IT teams spend their days on maintenance and troubleshooting, rather than on strategic initiatives.
Siloed, outdated business applications make your business less competitive, but a modern enterprise platform can alleviate these risks and give you a competitive edge. Is it time for an update at your business?
This checklist will help you spot eight warning signs that outdated business applications are holding your business back.
1. Your IT backlog just keeps growing.
An overburdened IT team (and budget) with a growing backlog must often choose between critical maintenance tasks and strategic projects such as new products, improved customer experience or automating business processes. That’s likely because your team is working with legacy on-premise applications and infrastructure that must be maintained, updated and patched continuously. Microsoft Dynamics 365 removes those routine tasks from your IT team’s duties, leaving them with more time and resources to tackle strategic initiatives.
2. Increased remote work is creating performance and security issues.
Widespread adoption of remote work can make organizations more agile, but it can also create compliance concerns or expose team members to new cyberthreats. Microsoft Dynamics 365 has built-in enterprise-level security settings and compliance control to help maintain systems and data integrity. Its deep integration with Office 365 and Microsoft Teams simplifies collaboration between remote and onsite employees.
3. Business users are performing system tasks.
When systems don’t play well together, users must rely on tedious manual workarounds. For example, employees laboriously pulling data from multiple systems into Excel to prepare reports could better spend that time accomplishing business goals. A platform that’s fully integrated out of the box, such as Dynamics 365, eliminates time-consuming manual tasks so employees can focus on what’s really important.
4. Systems can’t be easily upgraded, integrated or scaled to adapt to growth.
Business systems that are highly customized to accommodate the unique needs of a specific industry are often “fragile” and difficult to adjust. Changes may break the system or require modifying, so with many applications, the costs outweigh the benefits. Dynamics 365 is scalable to adapt as your business grows. It can be tailored with applications that support critical business processes across the organization.
5. You can’t meet customer requirements.
Many organizations are modernizing their technology and updating vendor requirements to streamline processes, increase efficiency and better meet customer needs. How can you capture new customers—or even retain current ones—if your systems can’t support their requirements? An integrated solution such as Dynamics 365 is flexible enough to easily to meet changing customer needs.
6. Your system can’t support geographic expansion.
Moving into new geographic territories means new demands, including adjusting to new languages, currencies and laws. Systems that can’t be adapted to work in new jurisdictions, or require cumbersome manual accommodations to do so, limit an organization’s growth potential in the global marketplace. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is global by design, with a highly available, high-performance worldwide infrastructure and the ability to handle transactions crossing international borders. You can deploy applications in multiple regions around the globe, and integrate Dynamics 365 with common currency exchange services to automate exchange rates.
7. Merging businesses following acquisition is difficult and costly.
Integrating disparate systems after a merger or acquisition is a daunting process that requires massive implementation and adjustment. Using an integrated cloud solution such as Dynamics 365 streamlines implementation so your IT team can focus on higher-value work. Dynamics 365 can be customized with hundreds of business applications to support a wide range of business functions and help align the merged organizations.
8. You lack visibility into financials.
You can’t maximize value from your financial data if siloed systems prevent you from fully understanding costs and profit margins. Microsoft Dynamics 365’s analysis capabilities are powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to help convert omnichannel data into actionable financial insights in real time. That helps you uncover hidden costs, improve financial transparency and make smarter business decisions to improve profitability.
Remove business barriers with an integrated cloud solution
Cloud solutions featuring out-of-the-box integration help companies be proactive, make data-driven decisions and focus time and resources on growing your business rather than managing your infrastructure. The result is a nimbler, more competitive organization.
Choosing the right advisor to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 can smooth your way and help you go full speed ahead. Look for an advisor that provides a complete range of services and has the industry-specific experience to tackle the challenges your company faces.
