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How Microsoft Business Central is Powerful & All in One Business Management Solution

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Run your business anywhere with Microsoft Business Central Choose cloud or on-premises. Business Central runs where you need it, offering the same user experience no matter how you deploy. Take your business on the go.  The mobile version supports both cloud and on-premises users with a consistent experience across Windows, Android, and iOS devices. Remove language barriers. Business Central supports 25 languages to help increase your productivity. Store and transmit data across your systems. Help protect your data from unauthorized access with automatic Microsoft datacenter encryption Read more about Business Central Capabilities Manage your financials Make informed decisions using connected data from reports, charts, and Microsoft Power BI dashboards across finance and accounting, sales, purchasing, and inventory. The late payment prediction extension helps you reduce receivables. View charts and reports in real time through built-in reports, Excel, or Power BI. Use unlimited dimensions for your data to identify patterns and trends. Accelerate financial closing and reporting by using the integrated accounts receivable and payable capabilities. Streamline the process with approval workflows and Microsoft Power Automate integration. Track financial performance with custom general ledger (G/L) and account schedules reporting. Evaluate cost, revenue, or profit reporting in the cost accounting module. Learn more about financial management capabilities Optimize your supply chain Predict the best time to replenish stock using built-in intelligence. Use sales forecasts and expected stock-outs to automatically create purchase orders. Get a holistic view of your inventory, and use the same costing method or different methods for your inventory items. Freely move items between locations, and control the quantity on hand using cycling counting. Engage with your suppliers proactively and cost-effectively. Register potential suppliers, send inquiries, and convert the best offers to orders. Configure required approvers to help ensure compliance with internal and external policies. Use system-generated suggestions to replenish inventory based on actual and forecast demand and availability. Learn more about supply chain management capabilities Accelerate your sales process Prioritize leads based on revenue potential. Keep track of customer interactions and get guidance on the best upsell, cross-sell, and renewal opportunities throughout your sales cycle. Optimize revenue and address customers’ needs, with flexible pricing and discount structures for individual customers and customer groups. Keep an overview of agreements with sales order and blanket sales order processes. Quickly give customers details about prices, discounts, delivery dates, product availability, and fulfillment status. Address customer returns with sales return order management, including credit notes, repairs, or replacements. Learn more about sales management capabilities Deliver projects on time and under budget Create, manage, and track customer projects using timesheets and advanced job costing and reporting capabilities. Develop and modify budgets to ensure project profitability. Manage resource levels by planning capacity and sales. Track customer invoicing against planned or actual costs on orders and quotes. Make effective decisions using real-time insights on project status, profitability, and resource-usage metrics. Learn more about project management capabilities Run your warehouse efficiently Optimize your storage facilities by setting up bins and zones in Business Central to reflect the layout of your warehouse and its racks and shelves. Streamline receiving and storage by using a template to determine the best placement of items based on type, size, and bin capacity. Get recommendations on where to move items to optimize the space and the picking process. Speed up shipments and reduce friction caused by cross-docking. Use real-time data on every item’s zone, bin, and quantity to better fulfill your customers’ orders. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Case Study on Microsoft Dynamic 365 from Leading Automotive Industry

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Toyota Industries Corporation improves service operations to maximize uptime for their customers Toyota Industries Corporation (“Toyota Industries”) is Toyota group’s head company, with 90-plus years of history, and offers products that account for the world’s largest shares of the following three fields: forklifts, compressors for auto air conditioners, and air-jet looms. Toyota L&F Company, which develops, manufactures, sells, and after-sales services forklifts, plans to improve the quality of their after-sales services by leveraging telematics and IoT for visualizing service operations. The company promotes the project and the introduction of Global Mobile Service Solutions (GMSS), together with Microsoft Enterprise Services. GMSS uses Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service, and with telematics linked to Microsoft Azure to improve preventive maintenance and move further towards predicting failures. We strive to provide uniform, quality after-sales services in a global partnership with Microsoft. Going forward, I want to create a mechanism to collect forklift data by using IoT and telematics to prevent failures. Mr. Michio Yonezawa: General Manager, Services Department Toyota Industries Corporation Maximize Uptime by Leveraging Forklift Data Toyota Industries aims for further growth in the business of industrial vehicles that have grown into a business that accounts for 60% of the company’s. Mr. Michio Yonezawa, General Manager, Service Department, spoke of the significance of maximizing forklift utilization by offering after-sales services that meet the business needs of their forklift customers. “The mission of the Service Department is to improve our after-sales services and establish strong relationships with our customers, so that we can receive additional orders from them. We think that offering satisfying after-sales service ultimately contributes increase sales.” The company wanted to offer high quality services globally, and decided to introduce Dynamics 365 for Field Service as the primary tool for managing the after-sales service skills and operations for those distributors offering services to forklift customers all over the world. They wanted to improve their operational management accuracy, shift to a paperless process, reduce man-hours, and increase efficiency. They would do this by visualizing business KPIs in digital form, and laying out a framework to help boost their strengths and compensate for any weaknesses in various regions. Mr. Yonezawa explained the reasons for selecting Microsoft Enterprise Services as their partner in achieving their objectives, as follows. “Microsoft has many great accomplishments as a global IT company, and, above all, Microsoft Enterprise Services made an achievement to implement our systems to our European sites. In addition, Microsoft Enterprise Services not only understands the latest technologies, but they also develop systems based upon our after-sales service operations, and they provide global assistance. They will help us achieve our goal of global expansion.” Further, Toyota Industries plans to perform maintenance prior to the occurrence of failures, which also necessitates linkage technologies between the Microsoft cloud and IoT. The company uses Azure to collect machine information of their forklifts in operation. Linking information related to after-sales service from GMSS to the machine information in the cloud is expected to assist the Service Department in performing the right maintenance at the right time, preventing forklift failures from occurring at minimal cost. “Sudden failures greatly hinder the customer’s business activities, and generate extra-budgetary expenses. Previously, we conducted regular inspections in accordance with the guidelines based on how long the machines had been operating. By leveraging the machine information collected via telematics, inspections can be carried out in response to the customer’s usage, thereby reducing their burden,” explained Mr. Yonezawa. Visualization of Business Operations, Improvement in Productivity, and a Shift to a Paperless Process with GMSS Toyota Industries chose Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service – which is already in worldwide use, cooperates with the latest technologies including IoT, AI, and machine learning, and enables practical applications – to visualize and improve after-sales service operations for GMSS development. Mr. Senichiro Kondo, who directs the global expansion of GMSS as the General Manager, Overseas Service Operation, Service Department, stated the reasons for selecting a cloud-based system for improving their after-sales service operations. “Since we manage operations in countries except for Europe and North America, the cloud enables us to facilitate management in a unified manner, and lay out a framework that helps provide the same services world-wide. In addition, Toyota could differentiate itself from its competitors by being first to introduce IoT to the service operations. Our competitors have not done this yet. The Microsoft cloud meets our security guidelines and we did not hesitate at all to use the cloud.” India was selected to be the first country for the deployment of GMSS, which occurred in February, 2018. “One reason we chose to deploy GMSS to India first is that we directly manage the distributors with standard service operations and it would allow us to examine their cost-effectiveness in detail. Another reason is that, if it is proven cost-effective in India, where wages are low, we could promote the deployment of GMSS to distributors in other countries,” said Mr. Kondo. In India, approximately 80 field service technicians had been receiving instructions on after-sales service operations in written form or manually. Technicians’ visit plans had been written on white boards, and material preparation before the visits was time-consuming. “The introduction of GMSS based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Services enabled the dispatchers to prepare and allocate instructions to give to the technicians. A mobile device app scheduled customer visits, periodical inspections and repair work for the technicians. Service reports can now be displayed on a screen, explained to the customer, signed by the customer, and submitted to the technician’s superior in a paperless stream, resulting in a significant improvement in work efficiency,” said Mr. Ryo Makino, a core member in charge of GMSS deployment in India, and Group Manager, Planning Group, Overseas Service Operation, Service Department. Various materials, including service materials, check sheet for maintenances, and visit histories that were used to previously store in separate locations can all be accessed from mobile devices, helping reduce the time taken to prepare them before paying the customer a visit.

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How to reduce queues in your retail store and keep customers safe

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Consumers hate standing in line at the store. This is nothing new. Nine out of ten UK shoppers interviewed by Box Technologies and Intel revealed they avoided stores with long queues. When Amazon opened its cashier-less, checkout-less store Amazon Go, many hailed it as a much-needed revolution exactly because it eliminated the need to queue to check out. Since Covid-19 hit, long lines have gone from being simply a nuisance and a waste of time to a potential hazard. As a retailer, how can you reduce the risk of lines forming without going the Amazon Go route? Here are six ideas. 1. Bring the register to the customer with mobile POS Today, the most advanced retail software solutions enable you to run the Point of Sale (POS) on mobile devices like tablet computers or smartphones. Your staff can look up information, scan items, close transactions, accept payments and print receipts anywhere the customers are, both inside and outside the store premises. No need for customers to line up at the register and wait for their turn. Another advantage of mobile POS is that you can easily add more devices when needed, without having to devote space to extra registers. [Download our whitepaper “No more strings” to find out more benefits of adding mobile Point of Sale to your in-store experience] 2. Add special stations for complex processes Simple sales are usually fast to handle, so a line of customers simply buying items usually flows rapidly. On the other hand, more complex processes like returns, custom orders or loyalty program signups can take longer, and slow down the line significantly. Since simple sales usually outnumber complex ones, you can reduce the average waiting time having a special service station for shoppers who need extra help, for example those needing refunds, exchanges, special orders and more. 3. Experiment with virtual queues With a virtual queue machine, customers can take a number and secure a place in a queue without actually having to stand in line, close to each other. Although these kind of machines are common in service centers like post offices and banks, they are not as widespread in retail stores, especially at the register. My local electronics store, for example, uses virtual queuing for customers looking for assistance, but relies on traditional lines at the register. Are they missing an opportunity? An added reason to try out virtual queues is that they give customers the time to wander around the store while waiting – a great opportunity for them to see extra items they might want to add to their cart. 4. Set up one-to-one appointments Not all retail store visits need to be unplanned walk-ins. If a consultation or special attention is required, more retailers are encouraging people to book a time beforehand, so they can be given the time and attention they need. Jewelry chains Watches of Switzerland and Goldsmiths, Mappin & Webb started booking one-to-one appointments with customers as soon as they reopened their stores after the temporary pandemic closures. Craig Bolton, executive director of The Watches of Switzerland Group, says that his company set up 13,000 one-to-one virtual and in-store appointments in the last two weeks of July alone. Although this format may not fit retailers in all industries, reservations can help organize the flux of incoming visitors and ensure that you have the time and space you need for your customers. 5. Add “scan and go” tech The latest revolution in Point of Sale technology sees the POS move into the consumer’s hands. Scan and go mobile apps allow consumers to self-serve in the shop, using either their personal mobile device or a provided handset to scan items and pay. The process is different from traditional mobile POS, not just because customers take care of the scanning themselves but also because items are scanned as they are added to the cart. Although for now Scan and Go technology is most common in grocery stores, there is no reason why retailers in other sectors shouldn’t take advantage of it. In a fashion, health, electronics or DIY store, customers would benefit from the ability to add items to the basket at their convenience while limiting human-to-human contact. Scan and go apps have other benefits, too. When they scan aa barcode , customers can see all the product details, including information like nutrition, components or ingredients and care instructions– a great way for shoppers to get all the extra information they need to make a buying decision without having to touch the product. 6. Empower your staff with intuitive, reliable tech Is outdated, slow technology one of the causes of long lines in your store? One of our customers told us a horror story of their old POS breaking down during the Christmas Eve rush. “It was a nightmare: one of our cash registers locked up, causing all of the systems in our main store to go down. Lines wrapped around the store because we had to process all transactions manually by writing everything down. We easily lost $20,000 that day, and who knows the long term effects it had on repeat business.” His conclusion? “The most important criterion when choosing a system is reliability.” Take a hard look at your technology: is it still serving your customers adequately? When selecting new software, look for systems that ensure short transaction times. Long queues used to be a luxury problem for a retailer; not anymore. Do you need help finding the right technology to give customers a safe, pleasant experience in your stores? Do not hesitate to contact us.

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6 strategies to boost sales productivity – Microsoft Dynamics 365

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Read here How Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps in Sales, Read 6 strategies to boost sales productivity.

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8 tips to build a successful restaurant experience in times of crisis and beyond

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Digital transformation is no longer a choice. That’s the key message from the experts who spoke at “How to build a successful restaurant experience in Covid times,” an online event organized by LS Retail and Microsoft. The panel included industry experts from Microsoft and LS Retail as well as Leon DeWet, a CIO with decades of experiences in the F&B industry. The group discussed how restaurants can build competences and resilience to maintain customer loyalty and thrive, now and through the next crisis. This blog is mainly for Restaurant management software & tips for Successful restaurant experience Restaurant Management Software Here are 8 tips from the experts to help you approach this digital transformation, so that you can ride the next wave of change instead of being crushed by it. 1. Rethink every step of the journey Yesterday, you had to deliver convenience and hospitality; today, you must also guarantee customer and employee safety. Many restaurants have added quick fixes, such as covering payment devices in plastic, so they can easily be sanitized. “How often does the reader on the contactless device not work, now that it’s covered in plastic?,” Minicola asked attendees, adding “And how often do restaurants ask me to touch the screen anyway to provide a tip?” The boom of contactless payments, home delivery, drive-thru and curbside is not temporary. Restaurants must step back, rethink the whole journey, and implement solutions that are effective and designed to last long-term. Two examples that were mentioned of additions that will bring a benefit now and tomorrow: Menus that can be accessed via a QR code are useful now – paper menus are hard to sanitize – and will provide a value later on, as they enable restaurants to make quick menu changes without wasting time or printing costs. Software to manage tables and seating plans can help you easily redesign your floor plan, with safely distanced tables and clear tracking of who is seating where and when for contact tracing purposes. In the future, table management software can help you optimize seating space, track the status of each table (who is waiting to order, who has been served) and easily accommodate last-minute guests, all the while keeping your service flawless. 2. Focus on mobility Mobility should be a priority in any digitization project. Running your Point of Sale on mobile devices helps you manage the flow of guests and staff inside the restaurant premises. Your server can take an order from a group sitting on the terrace, and then go to another table, take their card payment and see them out. Service is faster and more convenient for your guests, who can stay seated throughout. At the same time, you reduce the risk of contagion by reducing needless walking around and queuing at the till, and by letting servers using a personal device instead of sharing a standard till. And if your POS offers a two-way connection to the display systems in the kitchen, you get a whole set of extra benefits. “With our restaurant software, when you punch in an order at the POS, the order is sent automatically to a digital display at the correct kitchen station. Your front-of-house staff is spared all the needless back and forth from the table to the kitchen and to the register. The result is less risk of contact, and less time wasted,” said Eric Miller, Regional Director at LS Retail. But this is just scratching the surface. Mobile POS, especially when part of an interconnected technology platform, also enables more precise communication between front of house and kitchen, reduces the risk of production mistakes, and helps speed up table turns. Michael Mento, Surface specialist at Microsoft, described how eagerly restaurants have adopted the Surface tablet devices, which also come with accessories specifically designed for use on the restaurant floor. 3. Build your experiences on a strong technology platform Customers demand consistent experiences, and these can only be achieved through a unified approach to technology. Unified software solutions are increasingly replacing traditional fragmented IT setups. The benefits are well known: Managers geta 360-degree view of the organisation, with all business and customer data accessible in one place. Decision making is faster, as managers can get actionable reports, accounts and statistics exactly when they need them. Implementation and management costs are lower, as you don’t need to integrate separate systems and to maintain these integrations. You can transmit information quickly across the company, from the dishes on today’s menu to recipes, prices and nutritional content. So everyone can always perform at the top of their abilities. And if you run your unified software in the cloud, you can grab opportunities as they arise. As the pandemic hit, companies that run their software in the cloud, and who were not burdened by traditional on-prem infrastructure, investments and timelines, have been able to add innovative technology and transform their business models faster. “For many restaurants, the ability to add systems for pickup, delivery, and curbside made the difference between success and closing up doors,” Miller pointed out. Leon DeWet, former CIO at F&B enterprises Cracker Barrel and O’Charley’s, reminded business to consider how well the selected software and hardware work together. “If one works, but the other one doesn’t deliver, the project fails,” he noted. “Look for a solution that is proven for software and hardware working together.” Mento, from the Microsoft Surface team, echoed DeWet’s words. 4. Track changes in customer behavior With people working from home and stuck in lockdowns, restaurants have seen tremendous changes. They have lost old customers, gained new ones, and seen regulars approach them at different times, with new needs. These are changes businesses must pay attention to. “You need to capture this data, or you have no way to build your strategy on driving loyalty now and into the future,” said Minicola. “You cannot establish and foster loyalty without data,” she added. Access to data that is both reliable and timely is necessary for action. You need to clearly see what is happening to react, and prevent issues and waste. “During the pandemic, many restaurants have had problems sourcing specific ingredients,” said Miller. “With our software, you can do predictive cost analysis, and experiment varying prices, menus and recipes. The system helps you find the sweet spot with optimum benefits. You can then use this knowledge to

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Customer Story : CRANE Worldwide Logistics centralised their sales platform with Microsoft Dynamics 365

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As it approached its 10-year anniversary and its first billion in revenue, global logistics and freight company Crane Worldwide Logistics looked for a modern platform that brought all its sales tools into one place. With the Microsoft Relationship Sales solution, which brings together LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, its salespeople have the tools to drive more meaningful engagements with customers, convert opportunities faster, and create more revenue. Just by getting the team using the platform, we’ve seen an uplift in activity in all areas. We’ve had record growth since implementing Microsoft Relationship Sales—the last quarter was excellent for us. John Jergens: Vice President of Global Sales Crane Worldwide Logistics A global sales team From a startup created in the risky business climate of the 2008 recession, Crane Worldwide Logistics has become a major player in the global transport and logistics industry, on track to hit USD1 billion in revenue in 2019. Created by former Eagle Global Logistics executives and headquartered in Houston, Texas, Crane Worldwide aims to provide customers with full transparency into its supply chains by coupling talented people with game-changing technology. But with salespeople spread across the globe, Crane Worldwide found itself with a visibility problem. “We weren’t all working on a common platform, so we were lacking in visibility,” says John Jergens, Vice President of Global Sales at Crane Worldwide. “We knew we had a vast sales pipeline out there, but there wasn’t much data available on it—so we couldn’t see how robust it was.” From data silos to connected visibility A key part of the Crane Worldwide ethos is providing customers with meaningful interactions—and that relies on having a customer relationship management (CRM) solution that salespeople can use to build and maintain relationships and convert opportunities more effectively. But, with a seven-year-old siloed CRM system that it had simply outgrown, the company lacked the tools its salespeople needed. “The previous system never had very good adoption,” Jergens adds. “It just wasn’t very functional.” So, the team went looking for a platform that could replace it. With implementation support from Microsoft Partner Network member PowerObjects, Crane Worldwide deployed the Microsoft Relationship Sales solution, a powerful combination of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, to support personalized, meaningful customer engagements. The team was already using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Microsoft Office 365, so Dynamics 365 for Sales was the ideal addition to the Crane Worldwide ecosystem. “We saw how Microsoft Relationship Sales could help us focus on being easy to work with from a customer’s perspective,” explains Jergens. “So this whole deployment was part and parcel of becoming easier to do business with.” Now, just six months into deployment, Crane Worldwide has 300 Microsoft Relationship Sales users in its ranks, including 150 direct sellers along with employees from its marketing and account management teams. New processes, simpler sales Using the Microsoft Relationship Sales solution, Crane Worldwide salespeople have already changed the way they work. And they’re reaping the benefits of the visibility they’ve gained into the sales pipeline. “Once we rolled out Microsoft Relationship Sales, the overwhelming response was that it’s really easy to use, and it doesn’t take much time,” says Jergens. “We created a very simple weekly routine where our sellers spend about 30 minutes adding new data into Dynamics 365 for Sales. That’s just six minutes a day to keep everything up to date.” With faster processes freeing up more time for the sales team, sellers can focus their energy where it matters most—building the customer relationships that turn into revenue. And, at the end of each week, management can analyze activity through a global dashboard, which combines CRM and customer interaction data into detailed executive reports that show how salespeople are turning relationships into revenue. “With Microsoft Relationship Sales, we can generate KPIs that tell us what a healthy pipeline should look like. We look at the number of prospects and targets, how long the sales cycle takes, and the time from when we close an account to the time it generates revenue,” explains Jergens. “And if the pipeline isn’t where it should be, we can support the sellers with the resources that they need—it’s more productive all around.” A centralized sales platform Because Microsoft Relationship Sales brings together so many sales capabilities, Crane Worldwide sellers have everything they need to do their jobs in one place. Previously, they had to manage a relationship from scoping to sale across disconnected tools and platforms, far from an efficient process. “It’s difficult to put a number on what it’s like to manage 30 or 40 customers with an email folder and a spreadsheet,” says Jergens. “Now, once the salesperson finds a prospect using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, they use Dynamics 365 for Sales to easily track those conversations. Instead of creating and referencing a lot of notes, they can quickly link activities and discussions through Microsoft Relationship Sales.” With LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 for Sales together, salespeople can start building the context they need to deliver a meaningful interaction before the first contact even occurs. Insight into potential prospects’ roles, connections, and priorities through LinkedIn Sales Navigator is fed straight into Dynamics 365 for Sales—increasing conversion chances from the very start. “It’s had a direct impact on the time it takes to develop customer relationships, because we have true visibility into those opportunities now,” explains Jergens. A built-in assistant also sends prompts to help sellers accelerate the sales cycle, reminding them to contact a lead that might go cold or nudge an opportunity as it approaches its estimated close date. A roadmap for integration In businesses the world over, sales and marketing teams struggle to communicate and collaborate effectively. As the sales team adapts to Microsoft Relationship Sales, Crane Worldwide is already adopting more of the solution’s capabilities to help sales and marketing stay on the same path. “The marketing teams are able to work in tandem with the sales team to help them understand how marketing activities can help nurture their

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Dynamics 365: 2020 release wave 2 plan

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The Dynamics 365 release plan for the 2020 release wave 2 describes all new features releasing from October 2020 through March 2021. You can either browse the release plan online or download the document as a PDF file. The PDF file also includes information about Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, Power Platform governance and administration, and Common Data Model and data integration. The Microsoft Power Platform features coming in the 2020 release wave 2 have been summarized in a separate release plan as well as a downloadable PDF. 2020 release wave 2 overview The 2020 release wave 2 for Dynamics 365 brings new innovations that provide you with significant capabilities to transform your business. The release contains hundreds of new features across Dynamics 365 applications including Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Finance, Supply Chain Management, Human Resources, Commerce, Fraud Protection, and Business Central. Marketing Dynamics 365 Marketing improves the customer journey canvas experience and adds integration with Microsoft Teams for virtual events. Segmentation is enhanced with a new natural language experience to create and consume segments, helping eliminate the specialized skills needed to build complex segments. Sales Dynamics 365 Sales continues emphasis on simplified experiences, app integrations, gamification, a new mobile experience for quick access to customer information, and new enhancements to forecasting to natively create and manage bottom-up sales forecast processes. Dynamics 365 Sales Insights continues investments across multiple areas: sales acceleration, conversation intelligence, relationship intelligence, and advanced forecasting and pipeline intelligence with predictive lead and opportunity scoring to help sales teams uncover top deals. Dynamics 365 Product Visualize empowers sellers and accelerates complex sales processes by showcasing and customizing products in their real-world environment. Sellers can place a 3D digital twin of a product in their customer’s environment and make detailed notes about their requirements. Service Dynamics 365 Customer Service expands agent productivity capabilities enabling agents to engage in multiple sessions simultaneously. Omnichannel for Customer Service is enhanced with additional extensibility options to enable integration with mobile applications, Microsoft bot framework, and outbound messaging channels. Dynamics 365 Customer Service Insights adds new capabilities to help agents using similar case suggestions to resolve customer issues quickly and easily. A new analytical view for customer service managers helps them focus on key support areas that need attention. These highlights will also be included directly in the core Customer Service Hub app so that users can get insights in context without having to switch between applications. Dynamics 365 Field Service continues to add intelligence capabilities including a new Field Service dashboard for monitoring key KPIs and work order completion metrics. There are many user experience enhancements to enable proactive service delivery. The Field Service mobile app is enhanced with capabilities such as push notifications and real-time location sharing. This release wave also includes scheduling enhancements such as multiday manual scheduling and enhanced skill-based matching. Dynamics 365 Remote Assist expands its range of scenarios beyond calls, allowing technicians to perform activities such as capture service and repairs data, perform surveys and walk-throughs independently, and derive service insights from their service operations. Finance and Operations Dynamics 365 Finance continues to focus on automating common tasks to reduce the number of manual processes and add insights and intelligence in Finance. Asset leasing enhances the core capabilities of Finance and the global coverage for Finance continues to expand in this release wave. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management expands planning optimization for Manufacturing to perform supply and production planning in near real time with in-memory services. Enhancements to Product Information Management include engineering change management and product versioning capabilities. Cost Management includes new features that will enable global companies maintain multiple cost accounting ledgers by allowing dual currency and dual valuation. Enhancements to the job card device include a new user experience and a new feature to enable reporting serial numbers. Dynamics 365 Guides is focusing on intelligent workflows in this release wave. By taking advantage of data and AI innovations, work instructions can be configured to adjust on the fly based on operator inputs. In addition, insights will make it easier to use time-tracking data and connect that data to your business. Dynamics 365 Project Operations unifies operational workflows to provide the visibility, collaboration, and insights needed to drive success across teams from sales to finance. Project Operations connects your sales, resourcing, project management, and finance teams within a single application to win more deals, accelerate delivery, empower employees, and maximize profitability. Human Resources Dynamics 365 Human Resources expands leave and absence and benefits management capabilities to transform the employee experience. Employees and managers will be able to manage leave and absence directly from Microsoft Teams. This release wave enables streamlined integrations to recruiting and payroll partners, thereby building a Human Capital Management (HCM) ecosystem. Commerce Dynamics 365 Commerce continues to expand capabilities enabling non-developers to easily design and manage digital commerce experiences. Customers can increase lift online and in store with “Shop similar looks” for recommendations. Customers can discover and deploy third-party services, connectors, modules, and themes from Microsoft AppSource. Dynamics 365 Connected Store adds a number of new capabilities such as integration with Dynamics 365 Commerce, front-line worker task assignment and tracing with Microsoft Teams, integrated workflows with Microsoft Power Platform, intelligent command center, store analytics, and store insights solutions such as anomaly detection, inventory recommendations, and shift management recommendations. Fraud Protection Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection adds integration with Dynamics 365 Commerce and a new “manual review” capability that allows customers to use the Fraud Protection rules experience to flag transactions for review, and then allow expert human agents to consume and adjudicate those transactions. SMB Dynamics 365 Business Central investments for this release wave include service enhancements to meet the demands of a rapidly growing customer base, improved performance, handling of file storage, geographic expansion together with support for Group VAT, top customer-requested features, and deeper integration with Microsoft Teams. Customer data platform Dynamics 365 Customer Insights enables every organization to unify disparate data—be it transactional, observational or behavioral sources—to gain a single view of customers and derive intelligent insights that drive key business processes. Dynamics 365 Product Insights enables organizations to understand their customers’ journey, usage,

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Why it makes sense to move your retail management software to the cloud

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As a successful retailer, chances are you are already running some of your IT functions in the cloud. That’s smart. The next logical step is to move your entire retail management system to the cloud, and go from the on-premises version to its software as a service (SaaS) one. But even if you know that the cloud is experiencing exponential growth, and that you will, one day, take the leap, you may be hesitant to do it now. Perhaps you are afraid you’re not ready for the change. Perhaps you have security concerns. Maybe you can’t clearly identify which practical, day-to-day benefits you’d get from moving to the cloud. Whichever your reasons, you want the best for your business, and you care about staying competitive. You want to make the right decision, and employ technology that will propel you forward today and tomorrow. While you are debating whether the cloud is for you, here are 8 good reasons why you should consider migrating your system. 1. Stay up to date, automatically With traditional on-premises software, businesses are responsible of keeping their hardware and software up to date. In order to stay current (and safe), they’d need to purchase new hardware every few years, and to update their software every few months. But in reality, retailers usually have more pressing concerns than keeping track of the latest software patch or upgrade. And if the company is using multiple software solutions and there are integrations in place, a system upgrade can become a costly and lengthy project. As a result, many companies end up with outdated IT environments that work, but don’t really support the business, and may even hinder it. In the worst cases, this old tech might reduce the company’s ability to grow and take on new projects, or stay on top of consumer demands. When you are using SaaS in the cloud, all these concerns belong to the past. You don’t need to worry about periodic maintenance, or to budget for expensive and complicated software upgrades. Instead, your supplier takes care of updating your software regularly. And if you have configured your add-ons correctly, you can maintain all your extensions, and even your configurations. SaaS software guarantees that you are always, automatically, on the latest version, and can use all the new functionality that comes with it. 2. Enhance productivity with intelligence One of the biggest advantages of the cloud is the advanced computational power it offers. Tasks that until yesterday were too complex for even the most powerful computer, for example predicting future sales patterns, are now within reach of any retailer. Businesses can run their data into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) powered tools available in the cloud, and without having to pay for extra servers or data scientists, they can get the answers they need, with minimal effort, very rapidly, and at a fraction of the cost than comparable on-prem technology. There is a wide variety of AI tools available in the cloud, giving businesses infinite possibilities to improve their effectiveness and productivity. AI can also help make smarter decisions, and deliver more personalized, to the point customer service. Would you like to send personalized promotions and special deals to your customers based on their shopping history and specific tastes? Are you thinking about adding a chatbot or virtual agent as a first-line customer support? Or perhaps you’d like to offer intelligent search on your e-commerce site? When you run your software in the cloud, all these initiatives are accessible to you, and can be started within a very short timeframe. But AI can do much more than help deliver bespoke customer experiences. You can use optimize your inventory with advanced forecasting that can factor seasonality, promotions, trends, and product substitutes and complements into your forecasts. You can refine your hiring practices with intelligent talent acquisition solutions. You can simplify searches across your catalog for both staff and customers using AI-powered accurate product tagging applied to images. When you infuse your business with intelligence, you also make it more proactive, agile, and profitable. 3. Guarantee business continuity with a reliable infrastructure With traditional in-house IT setups, businesses are at constant risk of downtimes and failures. On-site servers can’t usually guarantee a consistent performance, and if a key piece of your hardware breaks down, you may be left unable to serve customers or close sales – and could even risk losing your business data. As regards reliability, a traditional infrastructure usually necessitates a disaster recovery plan, requiring you to build redundancy, carefully monitor conditions, having dual firewalls and more – in short, you need to budget for time-consuming, expensive, complex monitoring. Switch to SaaS software, and you can step away from all of these problems. Even if you experience a hardware failure – say your computers or servers break down – you won’t lose your data, as it is safely stored in the cloud and can be accessed when and as you need to. The cloud also guarantees higher reliability. Large cloud services like Microsoft Azure, with expansive resources and entire dedicated teams, have already built in redundancy, from failover hardware to datacenters located across the world. As a result, Azure, the service where the cloud-based version of LS Central resides, can guarantee 99,995% uptime, and top security features. 4. Respond quickly to changing market conditions You know how important speed of action is in the retail industry. Yet, traditional IT environments are all but agile: even a project as simple as adding new servers or applications can be very time consuming. First, your IT staff needs time to procure the hardware or software that will fit within the current infrastructure. Then they have to set it up and test it, and finally, they’ll have to go through implementing it. In the past, this process was the only way to implement change. Today, this is an outdated and ineffective way of operating – especially when the businesses you are competing against are agile and unburdened by traditional infrastructure, such as e-commerce players. To stay

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Case Study : Abu Dhabi government builds one-of-a-kind integrated customer service platform using Microsoft Dynamics 365

Uncategorized / Trident Information Systems

Established to lead excellence in government services, Abu Dhabi Digital Authority (ADDA) strives to lead the digital future of Abu Dhabi. Taking advantage of Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power BI, and Azure solutions, TAMM integrates Abu Dhabi government services to provide communities and businesses with a seamless, proactive, and personalized customer experience, one that promises to change the way UAE citizens and residents interact with their government for the better. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Abu Dhabi as a digital innovation destination Abu Dhabi Digital Authority (ADDA) has a vision that offers a new way of interacting with the citizens and residents in Abu Dhabi and throughout the world. ADDA’s vision embraces technology that delivers value through innovation and service excellence. ADDA is building a digital hub that integrates Abu Dhabi’s 1,600 government and business services with over 55 entities into one central platform. This modernizing journey toward global competitiveness means citizens can look forward to a smarter, happier future with better quality of life—all thanks to the TAMM integrated services platform. Digital smart government, powered by Microsoft The TAMM integrated service platform is an intelligent customer support center. Taking advantage of Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power BI, and Azure solutions, TAMM unifies Abu Dhabi’s government and business services into 80 integrated journeys. This integration merges a 360-degree view of customers’ information and their interactions across the government into a seamless, proactive, and personalized customer experience. It promises to completely revolutionize the way citizens interact with the government. Dynamics 365 creates a seamless omni-channel experience. The portal provides United Arab Emirates (UAE) citizens, residents, and visitors with a range of government services through one access point. Operating with Azure and AI increases efficiency and improve customer experience through fast, agile responses to citizen information requests. It provides stakeholders and field workers with decision-making capabilities through in-depth business intelligence on customer behavior. “Through Power BI, we are now able to ensure that all government data is viewed, including our services that are unified and user-centric,” explains Fatima Al Obeidli, Director – Contact Center Business Management Department at ADDA. “This drives our commitment to superior customer service. The Power BI unified dashboard replaces the multiple reports of the past, ensuring one-of-a-kind customer service experience.” Microsoft’s customer-first approach has been proven by its profound understanding of ADDA’s vision. “The aim is to establish a unique service model for Abu Dhabi government. Microsoft is a trusted partner, providing us with tools and mechanisms that empower us to lead the digital future of Abu Dhabi,” explains H.E. Saeed Al Mulla, Director, Government Services at ADDA. Powered by innovation, inspired by society “By leading with a modern, reliable, and integrated digital system that serves all walks of life in society, ADDA supports the business environment, attracts more investments into Abu Dhabi, and enhances the Emirate’s global competitiveness,“ says Ali Nimer, Strategy Advisor to the Director General and Head of Digital Excellence Office at ADDA. Through Power BI, we are now able to ensure that all government data is viewed, including our services that are unified and user-centric. This drives our commitment to superior customer service. The Power BI unified dashboard replaces the multiple reports of the past, ensuring one of a kind customer service experience. – Fatima Al Obeidli: Contact Center Business Management Department

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