An ERP (short for Enterprise Resource Planning) is a software solution designed for managing a company’s material and human resources. As its name suggests, an ERP is a comprehensive system for managing all resources and the business as a whole. It enables the administration of the organisation’s key processes — including sales and purchasing, finance and accounting, inventory and warehouse management, production management (in manufacturing companies), service management, human resources, and more.
An ERP should not be confused with simple accounting software. Beyond containing the necessary modules to be considered a complete management solution, an ERP aims to achieve objectives that cannot be met by a basic application addressing only limited needs. Typically, these objectives include:
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Simplifying administrative operations
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Reducing time spent on routine tasks
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Speeding up information flows within the company and with its partners
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Improving control over business activities
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Providing management with real-time access to accurate data and enabling informed, up-to-date decision-making
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Increasing the company’s ability to respond quickly to changes in the business environment — legislation, partners, or competition
In particular, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central includes all these modules and generally delivers all the mentioned benefits. It is an adaptable solution suitable for a wide range of industries and types of companies.
A company that aims to grow successfully in an increasingly competitive environment needs tools to help it manage its activities effectively. Every company operates by providing certain products or services to its clients, using resources — whether internal or acquired — to do so.
Small companies often reject the idea of investing in an ERP system, believing that such solutions are only suitable for large enterprises. However, if better resource management and improved operational control lead to higher sales, reduced costs, or increased efficiency, then any company — whether it has just a few employees or thousands — should seriously consider investing in an ERP.
Elian Solutions offers companies a pre-configured and pre-parametrised version of Dynamics 365 Business Central, designed to be implemented and used with minimal effort and cost. For the first time, a solution that was once available only to large enterprises is now accessible and affordable for virtually any business, with reduced implementation effort.
See above for the difference between an ERP and accounting software. Although financial and accounting management is a component included in any ERP, an ERP is a company management system — its implementation should not be viewed as a necessary evil (“I need a program that can generate the reports required by law”), but rather as a tool for business efficiency: I need a system that helps me make more money.
An ERP system is chosen based on the size of the client company. Naturally, a complete and adaptable solution for a large organisation with many users and complex business processes will have a cost to match.
At the same time, if an organisation estimates that implementing a software solution will bring a series of benefits that can be quantified financially (such as increased sales, reduced customer receivables, decreased inventory levels, lower administrative costs, elimination of unprofitable activities, and focus on the most profitable ones), then the cost of investing in that product should be assessed in relation to the expected financial benefit following implementation — the return on investment.
Therefore, before deciding whether an ERP system is expensive or inexpensive (a notion that is obviously relative and practically meaningless without a proper point of comparison), a company should start from its current situation and challenges, and try to identify how such software can help it become more efficient and thus justify the investment.
An ERP system introduces a way of working that generally follows what are known as best practices — the methods used by mature and successful companies within a given industry to carry out their operations efficiently, and whose advantages have been proven over time.
At the same time, every company may have its own way of managing data flows and relationships with its partners. An ERP implementation seeks to harmonise the standard practices embedded in the product with the way the company currently conducts its operations.
This process, which is in fact a preliminary stage of implementation, can influence the duration of the project — making it longer or shorter. The project will take longer when the harmonisation of workflows mainly involves organisational changes, as this process can be complex and time-consuming.
Once the workflows and precise requirements for the new system are defined, the implementation itself can take very little time — sometimes just a few days.
It is worth noting that Dynamics 365 Business Central is both an ERP solution and an open platform, allowing for great flexibility in adapting to the specific needs of an organisation. As a result, implementation is carried out by tailoring the product to the company’s particular characteristics, avoiding the disruptions typically associated with major organisational change. In this way, the duration of the project can be more accurately anticipated, and delivery deadlines are easier to manage.
A Secure Future
Like any Microsoft product, Dynamics 365 Business Central guarantees long-term support and gives you confidence that your investment will deliver value for many years. Microsoft publishes detailed product roadmaps, so you will know how the product will evolve over at least the next five years. Microsoft’s strategy of unifying its business solutions under the Dynamics brand ensures continuous improvement and regular release cycles for new versions.
Powerful Functionality
The solution offers strong, native functionality covering key areas such as finance, distribution, manufacturing, and CRM (customer relationship management).
Unique Scalability
Dynamics 365 Business Central can meet the needs of companies with as few as five users or as many as three hundred. This allows organisations to invest in the system without the risk of facing a costly migration to another solution if the company grows rapidly.
Flexibility
For large enterprises, Dynamics 365 Business Central is an excellent choice for subsidiaries thanks to its integration capabilities and adaptability to the diverse requirements found across different business segments within a group.
Integration with Office Tools
Its familiar interface and integration with common Microsoft Office applications (for example, export/import to Excel) significantly reduce learning time and allow users to continue benefiting from the tools they are already accustomed to working with.
An Open Platform
Dynamics 365 Business Central includes a robust built-in development environment that allows easy adaptation to a wide variety of requirements and straightforward integration with third-party applications or systems.
The main risk, in most cases, is choosing the wrong solution. The company should start from a set of general requirements and try to define them in enough detail to assess how well a given solution fits its specific context. Management involvement in this process is essential, as this is the stage when it must be decided whether the company needs a simple financial–accounting application or a management product that covers all or most of the organisation’s key processes.
From the perspective of Dynamics 365 Business Central, this risk is very low for small and medium-sized companies (up to about 100 users), as the solution was designed specifically for this segment.
Once the solution has been chosen, other common risks include:
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Lack of management involvement in preparing the transition to the new system. Without active support from management, it becomes difficult to engage the necessary internal resources in the project.
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Insufficient attention to the initial analysis phase, or weak user involvement during this stage. This often leads to change requests during implementation, which can affect the project’s budget, schedule, and quality.
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Late preparation for data migration from previous systems. Transferring legacy data often reveals inconsistencies or anomalies caused by poor control in earlier systems. In such cases, data migration may be delayed by an additional data-cleaning process, potentially causing unforeseen delays in the final implementation stage.
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Inadequate training of future users. This can lead to operational difficulties during the initial period after go-live, possibly disrupting normal business operations.
Those who are interested to know more about Dynamics 365 Business Central and ERP systems may consult various articles from our blog:
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