Most of our readers will know that for many years, PowerObjects has focused on CRM-related workloads of sales, marketing, and customer service within the Dynamics family (what was known as Dynamics CRM). As we've grown and the Dynamics product stack has changed, we've evolved along with it. We've added field service and project service capabilities to our CRM expertise. We've built up our knowledge and capabilities around business intelligence and PowerBI. We offer cloud bundles that include Office 365. And we've also evolved our ERP practice. Essentially, we've evolved alongside Microsoft's vision for the Dynamics 365 product to better serve the entire stack, end-to-end.

With that has come a lot of questions that we'd like to help answer. So without further ado, here are the top frequently asked questions when it comes to ERP, Dynamics 365, and the Finance & Operations workload that Microsoft offers within Dynamics 365.

Q: What exactly is ERP?

A: ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Enterprise resource planning is  integrated management of core business processes, often in real-time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as category of business-management software—typically a suite of integrated applications—that an organization can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from these many business activities.

Q: Why is ERP important?

A:  An ERP implementation plays a vital role for businesses. It functions as a platform for streamlining business processes around ranging from Procure to Pay, Financial Management, Order to Cash or Human Capital Management.  When implemented correctly, it can save companies significant time and money, and free up valuable human resources by automating processes. It can also increase collaboration and transparency within an organization.

Q: What offerings does Microsoft have for ERP solutions?

A: For over 15 years, Microsoft has invested heavily to develop the Dynamics family of software.  Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Microsoft NAV were all ERP solutions targeting different types and size of organizations within different industries.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM provided customer relations management functionality for customer service, sales and marketing.  Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition is optimized for 250+ employees and includes the capabilities of Dynamics CRM Online and Dynamics AX products that existed in market pre Q4CY16.

Q. Can I combine CRM and ERP solutions with Dynamics 365?

A:Microsoft provides a variety of licensing solutions, which enable you to have all the functionality you require, including both CRM and ERP within Dynamics 365, Enterprise edition licensing.

Q. What about Office 365—how does that fit in?

A: Dynamics 365 and Office 365 work together to provide seamless workflows, streamlined sales and operations, simplified collaboration, and access to a multitude of actionable insights, all from one application.  Using Office 365 functionality such as emails, tasks, Excel, Word or OneDrive with Dynamics 365 helps simplify ease of use and increase productivity by putting everything they need at their fingertips.

Happy Dynamics 365'ing!