reality and others that are more complex than necessary.
FIGURE 2.2 Combination of Dynamics 365 Power Platform with other components
Source: Used with permission. Created from a presentation that was given at Microsoft Ignite.
The negative impact of these business processes includes wasteful time management due to manual processes, manual or lack of integration between two systems, and in some cases systems prone to human error, which overall leads to a negative customer experience or demotivated system users. Efforts to improve business processes are costly in time and resources, especially if we think of business processes that involve various channels, systems, and areas of the company. It is also costly in time and resources to keep these processes up to date, to be prepared for constant changes, new products and services, new channels, technologies, sales methods, and market conditions.
Part of the digital transformation refers to the improvement of business processes, to improve the value proposition toward the client, improve the experience of the client, and also of the users, so that it is transformed into a better service. In other words, within the digital transformation strategy of a company, it must be considered a high priority to make key processes more efficient for customers and employees of the organization. Customers and employees expect fast, modern applications that can be used on mobile devices, and that are safe and easy to use.
Automation is not a choice any more but is a compulsion in today's digital age. Customers are not willing to listen to the justification of a business working in silos that are not integrated. Businesses cannot justify lost opportunity due to lack of a holistic view of the customer and their preferences when other businesses are disrupting the market and predicting real-time opportunities and increase of sales efficiently and repeatedly with the knowledge of data.
The Microsoft platform allows you to design and implement business processes that involve different technologies, integrations, channels, and types of applications, without the need to develop code. Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform help to improve and make more efficient business processes in different ways:
It natively contains a series of processes already included in the different products, whether for sales, marketing, customer service, logistics, purchasing, manufacturing, among others. These processes can be modified, without the need to develop code, to adjust to the particular needs of each company.
The platform allows new data models and business processes to be designed from scratch, in such a way that we can digitize processes quickly and easily.
It allows us to automate processes, through workflow engines and integration mechanisms. The Microsoft Power Platform's workflow capabilities allow integration of more than 400+ services, such as DropBox, Salesforce, SAP, Azure, Office, among others.3 These automation capabilities allow us to integrate diverse channels, systems, and applications quickly and easily.
The Microsoft Power Platform on which the business processes are built allows maintaining and modifying them in a simple way, and thus the business can update them as necessary.
The Microsoft Platform allows you to create different types of applications to model business processes, oriented to the channel and the needs of each company. For example, a business process that is initiated by a client through the web channel can then be worked on by a customer service agent through a browser or a mobile device, which allows sending a response to the client through an SMS message or involving a chatbot from the web channel to solve a customer problem.
Is There a Choice: Cloud or On-Premise?
Traditionally companies use systems implemented in On-Premise mode. In particular, legacy systems are implemented on-premise. The term on-premise refers to the type of installation of a software solution and, in this case, the software is installed on the client's servers or on a third party contracted by the client. The client is responsible for the administration, updating, security, backups, and maintenance of the software.
In a Cloud implementation, in particular, in a SaaS service (Software as a Service), the company consumes software and can always stay current with the upgrades and maintenance releases per year by Microsoft.
There are many variables to consider in order to decide on the best suitable option for a particular company, which includes the following factors but is not limited to:
Costs
Compliance
Scalability
Features
Update frequency
Security
Performance
Data integration with other systems
Resources and skillset
Change capabilities
If there are no legal or technical restrictions, do not hesitate to go for the Cloud-based online option as this will be the most viable, maintainable, and scalable option.
I will argue about this recommendation with some relevant aspects:
Features. Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a series of functionalities that can only be implemented on the On-Line option. These features are proactively announced in Microsoft's portal and public announcements; therefore, the client can plan well ahead of any changes in the utilization of these features to improve their day-to-day activities. The On-Line option will always have a competitive advantage due to richer and technologically advanced functionality. With On-Premise, customers have to wait much longer before being able to take advantage of them.
Update frequency. As mentioned in this book, the Microsoft update rate of On-Line applications is every six months, while updates of On-Premise versions are once a year. In the real experience, customers don't update their software every year as there is no direct push from the vendor. Therefore, On-Premise clients frequently have very old installed versions, which are obsolete as they have not taken advantage of many of the new features.
Resources and skillset. To keep the software updated in the On-Premise mode, it is necessary to have access to specialist resources that have these skills. This means that either you should hire full-time staff or contractors or be dependent on hiring an external resource/vendor to complete the software update on your behalf. In the On-Line mode, Microsoft's dedicated team of engineers take care to run all relevant updates.
Infrastructure. On-Premise solution implementations essentially require the purchase and installation of a series of servers. In addition, if the solution needs to be made redundant, a full lifecycle of duplication should be made that adds a stream of requirement time, resources, cost, and risk. In the On-Line mode, creating new environments and redundant environments, increasing storage capacity, and making backups are very simple, along with quick administration and configuration tasks.
Alistair
