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“We were all in a physical lockdown but many of our customers found themselves in a technological lockdown as well.”

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When COVID-19 forced employees into remote work for the first time, many businesses with fragmented data and legacy systems ran into major hurdles.

By integrating the right technologies with Microsoft Dynamics 365, small businesses can transform at the same scale as larger enterprises.

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Digitisation enables growth

The Microsoft SMB Voice and Attitudes to Technology Study 2022, which collected research from over 3000 SMBs from 10 different parts of the world, echoes this sentiment.

“Putting everything on one cloud-based system means everything is available on any device at any time. It enables a business to perform decentralised work much more easily.”

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Charlie Wood, CEO at Wiise – a cloud Enterprise Resource Planning provider, primarily for Australian inventory-based small to medium businesses – saw many companies struggle with this first-hand.

“We had customers who couldn’t get into their offices to update data, secure systems and to understand what was happening from a business point of view,” says Wood.

“We were all in a physical lockdown but many of our customers found themselves in a technological lockdown as well.”

From Wood’s perspective, this problem was borne out of reliance on legacy systems and a tendency to operate from multiple environments. This could mean, for example, that a company uses one system for bookkeeping, another for taxation purposes, and another for data storage.

One solution to these problems lies in moving to an integrated ERP system. As a Microsoft implementation partner, Wiise is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

“The technology enables our customers to operate their businesses securely and centrally from one single place, and stay abreast of business operations in real-time,” says Wood.

Darren Oxlee, SMB Lead for Business Applications at Microsoft ANZ Australia and New Zealand has observed the benefits of Microsoft 365 in real-time.

“Businesses that were digitally enabled were very quickly able to adapt their businesses and keep going during COVID-19. Those that weren’t either had to scramble and force that technology as a knee-jerk reaction, or change happened so quickly that they couldn’t keep up.”

Nearly 70% of businesses consider growth as their primary driver, and technology ‘early adopters’ see faster and higher growth.

The research also found that early adopters are twice as likely to have achieved their past business objectives and higher revenue growth over the past year, and four times more likely to be confident in their future business success.

One of the major reasons for these findings is that cloud solutions such as Business Central give businesses a single and coherent view of their operations across disparate locations, says Wood.

“Putting everything on one cloud-based system means everything is available on any device at any time. It enables a business to perform decentralised work much more easily.”

Having a low code app solution like Power Platform also helps to complement your back office solution.

“The Power BI functionality that integrates with Business Central enables you to get a real-time analysis of your business and generate reports,” says Oxlee.

“For a manufacturing business that wants to measure inventory levels, it can extract that data out of the system without having to look at multiple disparate systems. It’s giving you coherent data with reporting functionality that then enables a leader to draw insights into what’s actually happening in your business.”

Power Automate can also benefit businesses by automating manual processes.

“A classic example is something like a leave request,” says Oxlee. “That process is still very manual for a lot of businesses. But with Power Automate, businesses can automate multiple repetitive tasks.”

This provides a huge advantage for companies, enabling them to free up employees to perform higher-value work.

Security: A top priority

Although data protection has always been a major concern for companies, the transition to hybrid work has increasingly put security front of mind.

According to the Microsoft study, 80% of businesses expect to have a hybrid workforce for the next two years. It’s critical that companies have reliable technology that enables employees to work securely across disparate locations.

“A major downside of legacy technology is having data in multiple places. It means the surface area of where your data is stored is not only very wide, it’s also very complex and often insecure,” says Wood.

“When small business owners move their data and operating systems onto a trusted cloud platform, they get a whole team of dedicated people who are there to defend their data.”

Businesses need to take extra precautions to ensure company data is kept secure. Many precautions are available in Microsoft Dynamics 365 such as Azure Active Directory’s multi-factor authentication which helps safeguard access to applications and data.

“Everything is considered through a security lens. Making sure we make security a priority is essential for our customers,” says Oxlee.

Seamless integration

In Wood’s experience, many small business owners aren't technology experts, nor do they have large teams to manage technology matters.

This means they typically benefit from technology that’s familiar to them, easy to integrate and time-efficient.

“A lot of our SMB customers are already accustomed to Microsoft Exchange and Office 365. Integrating Dynamics 365 is easy for small business owners because it lives within the tools they already use,” says Wood.

Receiving support from a Microsoft implementation partner such as Wiise can also help SMBs integrate the right technology for their business needs.

According to the Microsoft study, almost half of SMBs choose technology partners.

“These are trusted technology enablers who provide the technological know-how to help smaller businesses integrate solutions that will enable business growth,” says Oxlee.

He also says businesses tend to fare better when they have a coherent IT strategy in place from the outset, rather than treating technology as an add-on.

“A lot of entrepreneurs will start with an idea and the operational pieces will follow. But the businesses that embed technology into their strategy are the really agile ones able to meet changing external circumstances forced upon them. They’re also the ones that are able to grow, be agile and achieve their business objectives.”