There’s one thing that just about everyone can agree on when discussing cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software – it helps small businesses compete against bigger organizations.

The newest member of Microsoft Dynamics 365 family is called Dynamics 365 Business Central, which is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform designed for the small to mid-sized business. It can get confusing because Dynamics Business Central is essentially the successor of Dynamics NAV. Microsoft has also rebranded, tweaked, and issued new versions for their middle-market ERP platform, including:

The cloud migration is well underway. Gartner says the worldwide public cloud revenue will take another 21% jump this year. According to MarketWatch, the category of platform experiencing the biggest growth in the cloud in the coming years is enterprise resource planning or ERP software. They predict, “that the global ERP Software market will register remarkable success in the coming years.” With revenues expected to exceed $47 billion by 2022, the growth of cloud-based ERP is a virtually guaranteed. In fact, Panorama Consulting’s latest ERP report shows cloud ERP adoption rates have surpassed on-premise deployments for the first time in history.

Everyone is moving to the cloud. Right Scale released their annual state of the cloud survey, where they polled IT professionals on their use of cloud services for infrastructure, platform, data storage, software, and more. Their survey found 2018 to be the year of the cloud for even the most reluctant and slow to switch enterprise organizations:

Rolling out any new software requires planning and finesse. Dynamics 365 implementation is a tricky process no matter the size of your business. That’s because this sophisticated software could impact many areas of your business. Dynamics 365 migrations are particularly tricky at the enterprise-level, as the rollout could encompass dozens of corporate departments. But having a process in place for Dynamics 365 implementation is important even for a small business.

Understanding whether your small business needs an ERP is the first step. If you’ve done due diligence on enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, you already understand the efficiency and cost savings they can bring to any business. Small business owners are increasingly adopting these sophisticated platforms because they’ve become less cost prohibitive under the newer cloud-driven software as a service (SaaS) subscription models.

If you’re planning on transitioning from your legacy accounting platform to Dynamics 365 Business Central, this post is for you. We’ll look at how the migration can be easy – but you’ll need the right tools to make it happen.

One of the questions we’re asked by small to mid-sized business clients is why they should consider investing in enterprise resource planning software. The chief question seems to stem from the idea that ERP software is overkill for such the small company. But here’s the rub; small businesses often teeter on the edge of insolvency; Small Business Trends says more than 50% of all small companies fail in their first four years. We believe any software that helps these ventures achieve competitive advantage during this treacherous time is a necessity.

The 2017 Report on ERP Systems and Enterprise Software surveyed organizations on their ERP experience to determine best practices that could be utilized by others in their implementation journey. Here are some statistics that will give you a sense of how often the transition to ERP can go poorly:

“ERP systems are essential to enterprise operations. Yet this core organizational workhorse may not get as much attention as your other systems. That’s a mistake, as significant opportunities to improve cash flow and reduce risk await those who attend to the health of their enterprise resource planning systems.”

CIO