With its promise of efficiency, flexibility, and improved productivity, just to name a few, it’s unsurprising why so many businesses all over the world consider migrating to cloud for their enterprise resource planning (ERP) needs.
But for a lot of businesses, especially those that are small- and medium-sized, the most common barriers that hinder the implementation of migration to ERP remain, preventing them from harnessing the benefits. And as the clock ticks, there is mounting pressure on these businesses to catch up. If they don’t, not only do they risk losing to the competition, they might even lose their business.
Among the biggest barriers to ERP migration is cost. ERP implementation and migration require investing in digital technologies, which can be expensive for small and medium businesses depending on their nature and the industry they are in. Moreover, they may also need to worry about investing in the infrastructure needed to accommodate these new technologies.
Another detriment is reliance on legacy systems. A lot of small- and medium-sized businesses are hard-wired to function on old enterprise platforms. This over-reliance on outdated systems makes it difficult for them to let go of their old ways, which is a crucial component of IT migration.
In addition, these organizations would need to worry about gaining the new skills necessary to operate new systems and software. This means taking time out of their valuable business hours just to accommodate the training of employees, which may negatively affect their overall productivity, and in turn, their bottom line.
This is where Dynamics 365 Business Central on the cloud (SaaS) comes in, not just your usual ERP. Launched officially in the Philippines, tax, and payroll localized for Philippines businesses by homegrown IT firm Kation Technologies, Inc., the first-in-market service brings together all the capabilities of multiple systems and applications into a single platform, providing an all-in-one cloud ERP solution that is streamlined and scalable.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is built within Microsoft’s ecosystem. With this comes a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud-based ERP solution that is secure and robust. This allows business owners to focus on what they do best, which is their business.
The platform makes migration to cloud easier for small and medium businesses by making ERP applications, typically locked behind steep price tags, more accessible. Because it’s cloud-based, the platform can be used even with just a smartphone.
“For example, normally, if you buy a POS (point of sale device) terminal, you'd have to pay hundreds of thousands of pesos. With Business Central, all that is possible with just a smartphone,” said Kation Technologies President Andoni Albert. “Also, there’s no need to install software because it's there on the cloud."
Albert cited several applications that are widely used by today’s businesses such as Word and Excel—which he called citizen technologies—saying that with the platform being compatible with these applications, it can provide a new level of personalization never been seen before.
“These citizen technologies are connected to this heavy lifting ERP, giving users access to productivity tools whether they’re using web or mobile, and more importantly, allows them to personalize the user interface and the user experience,” Albert said.
In terms of the time needed for new users to acclimate to the interface, since Dynamics 365 Business Central utilizes applications that businesses may have already been using, learning to navigate through the platform can take less than a day.
“There’s no need to allot a significant amount of your valuable business time to learning how to use the platform, as it’s designed in a way that makes it easy for everyone in the organization to learn, whether they’re a back-end worker or a front-liner,” Albert said.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is now available in the Philippines and is being offered by Kation Technologies, Inc. in partnership with Microsoft. To learn more about the platform, visit Kation Technologies’ website at https://kationtech.com/.