Dynamics

Sonata Software earned a ‘Certified For Microsoft Dynamics’ accreditation, as Brick & Click and Modern Distribution, digital platforms for the Retail and Distribution industries respectively, have realized Microsoft’s highest standard for partner developed software solutions. This is a momentous occasion for us because this signifies that the solution has met Microsoft Corp.‘s tallest standard for partner-developed software.

Brick & Click is the only integrated digital retailing Platform, providing digital ready unified operations capabilities and best-in-class digital engagement in-store and online.

Modern Distribution Platform wedges together a comprehensive feature set that allows B2B Companies enhance delivery efficiency, maximize B2B digital commerce, tie in supply chain performance with their profit goals.

Solutions that have been Certified for MS Dynamics, have shown inexplicable compatibility and development quality with the MS Dynamics product on which it’s borne by passing rigorous VeriTest software solution testing for MS Dynamics, which are catalogued in the MS Partner Solution Profiler tool. Further, the MS Dynamics partner must have customers who have successfully implemented the certified solution and are willing to recommend it, enroll in a Partner Service Plan with Microsoft and be a Gold Certified Partner in the Microsoft Partner Program.

What’s doubly advantageous for customers, is that Certified for Microsoft Dynamics helps narrow down Microsoft Dynamics solutions and identify the best one after testing it for compatibility. This also serves in meeting high quality standards, which is then successfully used by existing customers.

“Sonata’s admission into Inner Circle, Microsoft’s highest membership 2018-2019 for MS Dynamics is testimony that it (MS Dynamics) is at the heart of our Platformation methodology which enables enterprises in transitioning to a digital environment. Sonata has a track record replete with its portfolio in several Dynamics-led global transformation(al) projects, especially in our focus verticals of Retail and Distribution – that helped us to achieve the Certified For Dynamics accreditation,” Srikar Reddy, MD & CEO, Sonata Software.

Sonata Software has some of the largest Dynamics 365 customers across the globe with a strong Dynamics 365 team, together with AX and CRM consultants. In addition, it is a Tier-1 CSP for Microsoft in many countries. Take a peek at our core IPs on the Dynamics platform, see Brick & Click for Retail and Modern Distribution for Manufacturing and CPG.

A global manufacturer and provider of precision component packaging, is looking to modernize their ERP systems to leverage industry best practices, ensure business process standardizations and increase of automation and productivity across all geos. The key goals were operational efficiencies and Digitization (Industry 4.0) to increase market share & ensure a competitive edge!

They chose to upgrade from the existing on-premise systems to the Cloud and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, embracing a complete Digital Business Transformation.

The first step was an in-depth assessment phase to proactively arm the customer with sufficient data to strategize the upgrade, plan the digital transformation with clear ROI and predictable costs.

Strategizing With An Assessment Phase

Assessment workshops covered Functional Analysis of the current business processes and detailed, at a high level, the Fit / Gap, the regional & BU concerns for efficiencies, data visibility needs, and end user engagement requirements. This was done to crystalize the features of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations to uptake the digital transformations needed and future proofing recommendations.

A detailed code level technical assessment of the existing systems, with purpose-built tools, helped evaluate the customizations critical to business and determine the code health and delta of customizations that can be leveraged to avoid re-development costs.

With recommendations on the new Architecture, Business Intelligence and Reporting strategy and a data migration strategy, a complete plan for the modernization with high-level effort & cost estimates was presented to all stakeholders.

The highlight of the assessment was recommendations to leverage standards, reduce customizations and ISV solutions, harvest existing key customizations and a detailed programmatic upgrade plan with predictable costs and demonstrable savings.

The business benefits of the new technology platform of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations are the digital capabilities, both for customer experience as well as employee productivity with assured lower TCO. The recommendation of a ‘Base Template’ establishes a standard for all geos and economies of scale for new acquisitions. Streamlined & consolidated financials and operations assures efficiencies and visibility of data across geos and BUs for crucial business insights. The co-creation and collaboration ensures adoption and success for the upgrade program.

‘Why can’t ERP solutions provide CTRM Management?’ or ‘Why do I need CTRM and ERP solutions?’ are questions often asked. To date, the reasons have been because many CTRM requirements require flexibility not always available in ERP solutions and depend on external factors that are not always known at the time of entering business agreements. CTRM solutions with architecture built around the operations and business processes required when trading or procuring Commodities

The top 5 differences are as follows.

1. 1- Fixed vs Commodity Based Pricing: Many CTRM businesses use ‘Commodity Based’ Pricing to minimize risk of doing business in potentially volatile markets. The final price of the commodity depends on the Market price. Most ERP solutions cannot deal with such pricing and therefore do not provide accurate reflection of potential exposures and risks for an organization.
2. 2- Complex Contract Management: Complex terms of business, including pricing, costs and quality pricing variations , are dealt with through Contract management. All transactions are related back to a Contract with focus on profitability. Traditional ERP solutions have difficulty in handling these requirements. CTRM is designed with these as core.
3. 3- Trading and Risk Management; ERP solutions do not address the core concepts and constructs of Commodity Trading and Procurement. Concepts such as Mark to Market valuation, Commodity Hedging and Position reporting are not dealt with in ERP solutions. Using CTRM tools that are designed to properly value commodity exposures and measure risks from the trade level up can help reduce supply costs, accurately value intermediate products and provide a true financial picture and forecast.
4. 4- Risk calculations: The commodity markets are just different. Seasonality, methodology, holiday calendars, averaging conventions, settlement rules, terminology, and even weather...ERPs are unable to capture, track and account for these subtle differences but CTRM inclusive ERPs has the flexibility to manage this.
5. 5- Position management: ERPs are designed to capture and quantify the actual current state of resources in an enterprise. They are by nature designed to capture a static snapshot. CTRM inclusive ERPs are designed for more dynamic risk analysis and allow companies to measure what probable outcomes should be expected given their current state.

Are you looking for integrated CTRM solutions inclusive of ERP? Sonata provides scalable CTRM solutions inclusive of ERP solutions. Watch it here to know more

‘One Version.’ That’s what you need to wait for. Why? Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations’ innovation will help customers get swifter access to One Version’s new capabilities. This will negate exorbitant costs and change the disruptive nature of enterprise software upgrades, something that used to be a clincher in the past.

Gone are the days when customers needed to wait with extra patience to experience the benefits of the new capabilities, as well as live without the challenges that came with the deployment of upgrade projects. For instance, customizations and complex integrations will no longer see bottlenecks and adapting to new capabilities will be, yes, “easy” and evolutionary.

Further, increased expenditure and the high-end disruptive façade of upgrade projects, coupled with the slow pace of innovation will see marked changes in One Version’s launch. Business application vendors are now much more at par with capturing the dichotomies between ‘tailored service updates’ and enterprise business software that is overtly mission critical.

How so? By revolutionizing ERP updates through Microsoft Dynamics 365’s Finance and Operations’ One Version; and its rapid delivery, regularized and streamlined for customers to adapt to capabilities that are both new, and completely operational. For eg., making the transition to One Version helps in delivering customer enhancements of our solution. The regression suite automation tool allows clients to take these updates with absolute clarity.

Need more? Touche. The far-sighted customer today is deliberating on the enduring quality that will be present in their enterprise software. So in addition to the new capabilities and operationality, superior quality is what is white in their minds. What is black and white to us and what should be divulged to you, is the secret of what those ERP updates are and how the quality is completely distinct in One Version.

You will need to wait for Part 2 of Revolutionizing ERP Updates With Dynamics 365 F&O for that. However, what we can say is that the quality is so cutting edge, that what took a mighty set of different combinations of software versions and hot fixes, which made the rendering to customers difficult, is now passe.

One Version has a multilateral approach to serve its customers’ needs. With One Version, when Microsoft ameliorates an issue in a particular environment, the very same solution can be applied across multiple scenarios to all its customers. For eg., the DXC Eclipse ISV extensions in One Version helps customers to incessantly keep up with Microsoft’s newest fixes and features with least manual effort and is one of the exceptional solutions provided to all its customers.

With this particular version of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for F&O, they have raised the bar for quality for business software which belies mission-criticality as emphasized earlier.

Veering with One Version spells vim and vigour to your ERP updates and you can verily count on it. So what are you waiting for? Your visa? Well, this is it!

Read on for more on Dynamics and get a hawk’s view on our other blog pieces in this space.

Digital transformation is one of the favourite terms in the industry for the last few years. About “86% of the CEOs say a digital transformation is their top priority,” reports a recent Price Waterhouse Cooper study. However, the term digital transformation means something different to almost everyone. Do investments around Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud make one a digital enterprise? The answer may not be a “yes” always. However, when enterprises invest in “SMAC” and decide to relook at its existing business processes with customer engagement in mind the digital transformation gives a very different perspective and looks more complete.

CXOs are acknowledging the benefits of looking beyond SMAC and are evaluating technologies that can drive this. Now the question is, has the technology matured enough to meet this expectation? How about the Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that handles the core functions. The answer is yes!!! Technology providers are moving swiftly, and are providing a range of solutions such as commerce, analytics, mobility and IoT which can be accessed by upgrading the current enterprise resource planning software.

Looking at the evolution of Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software would help us answer - Why the inclusion of ERP software in your digital transformation is key to your success:

Like Digital transformation is now, ERP used to be the favourite kid in the block in early 80'. Then considered to be a silver bullet for all issues to the Financial / Accounts departments. Designed as a commercial off-the-shelf solution to replace in-house organization-specific application suites.

Sure, there was a need for such systems which had the ability to act as a single source of information.  The technology companies were under immense pressure to expand this to other departments. However, with the invention of new technologies and an increase in the data volumes the existing ERP are not able to live up to the expectation of the users.  “Collaboration” has become the new Jargon.

The expectation is for a system that can seamlessly engage different departments within the organization and the modern world, including the customers, partners, and suppliers to name a few... While the leading vendors such as SAP, Oracle, and their enterprise customers are looking to get the best of the existing traditional ERP solutions by cloud-enabling and integrating the Social, Mobile and Analytics onto their established systems. Agile organizations like Microsoft and Salesforce have launched cloud-native solutions that are developed on the principle of platform engineering. These solutions are engineered to be intelligent, integrated, infinitely scalable and connected.

Let us look at Microsoft’s ERP “Dynamics 365” which has caught the attention of the analysts. Microsoft has made huge strides towards achieving its vision of delivering a modern and smart ERP with Dynamics 365. All the enterprises' capabilities in Microsoft dynamics for field and operations support over 60 language localization across 36 geographies. Customers can also subscribe Microsoft business application platform delivering capabilities such as Power BI, PowerApps, Common data services helping customers collect and analyze data. Offering a single system that lives up to the true essence of “Collaboration”.

With technology being made available, it is key for enterprises to put together a digital mandate, evaluate the technology and identify a right partner who can support and guide throughout one’s digital journey.

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