Tax season is marching its way inexorably toward us. It might be the perfect time to consider software alternatives to the old stand-by, QuickBooks.

Let’s cut right to the chase in this blog; yes, your business needs ERP training. In fact, it’s likely that you’ll never reap the full benefits of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software without it. That’s because ERP software is one of the most sophisticated digital tools in the marketplace today.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is some of the most complicated on the market. Even with loads of design-friendly tricks and intelligent interfaces, the best ERP platform can be difficult to deploy without lots of training and support. 

The enterprise resource planning (ERP) software market is now worth more than $82 billion globally. Companies are dependent upon this software, which collates a number of business systems under one integrated dashboard. The complexities of today’s business markets make using ERP software an imperative for 2018, especially mid-market to enterprise level companies seeking a 360-view of operations and sales.

The worldwide public cloud market is projected to hit the $411 billion mark in 2020. That’s great news for software developers like Microsoft, whose Azure cloud storage platform has been named to Gartner’s coveted Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service Worldwide. In fact, Microsoft is currently the only cloud-based software provider recognized by Gartner for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Today, business moves at the speed of the cloud. That means companies that don’t have a handle on the big picture will quickly fall behind. If the productivity tools you use to run your business are separate silos, it’s likely that you will not have an efficient way to analyze information like sales or inventory trends and respond appropriately to improve the bottom line.

When you think of office productivity tools for business, it’s accepted that Microsoft continues to corner the market. Tools like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have become some of the most commonly used software programs in the entire world. In fact, you may have a hard time thinking of an office that doesn’t use Microsoft products regularly.

Microsoft just announced they’re making big changes to their Dynamics 365 offerings for next year. What this illustrates is that technology giant Microsoft is listening closely to what consumers are clamoring for. This latest effort to repackage and streamline their services and software shows that Microsoft hasn’t lost sight of what’s important to their business -- you.

There has been a head-to-head competition between Microsoft Dynamics vs. Salesforce CRM for years. That’s because the makers of both platforms continue to try to rule the market with their customer relationship management platform.