How FTS helps customers during COVID-19 with cloud systems and services of Microsoft Dynamics 365

The luxury of planning digital business projects for the next one, two or three years is gone forever in March 2020. COVID-19 put the adaptability of companies to the test. We realized that leaders in the COVID and post-COVID world will be those of us who are able to make and implement business decisions practically overnight.

In a time of crisis, the first thing a company should do is demonstrate concern for its customers by protecting its staff. In FTS, switching to fully remote work took only a few hours. With strong commitment and no media hype, we assisted many companies in obtaining and beginning to use free licenses for Microsoft Teams. The majority of our customers listened to our advice and, with our help, moved their business applications to Microsoft Azure, thus facilitating the remote work of many of their staff.

The initial predictions of freezing IT projects for implementation of business applications (ERP / CRM / BI) did not come true. What we in FTS saw happening was, that many companies accelerated their digitalisation projects, with some of them reducing the scope and going for faster results.

FTS new projects for the period January – October 2020 are 60% up on 2019.
Over 70% of them are implemented in Microsoft Azure, use many elements of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power platform, and in 100% of them the implementation process takes place remotely.

The above statistics may look strange, but actually there is a logical explanation for it. Turbulent times acted as a catalyst for the migration process of traditional ERP systems into the cloud and clearly outlined the two main benefits of this migration:

Ensuring resilience and adaptability in times of crisis

The past few months have shown that business systems need to evolve at the same speed as the world around us. Microsoft Dynamics 365 gives this adaptability and flexibility through:

• Constant automatic updates

For the period January – October, our customers went through 7 new versions of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations – a process that in traditional ERP systems is often compared to a whole new implementation.

• Dynamic modular configuration

We often liken the modular structure of Microsoft Dynamics 365 to a Lego constructor. The organization decides which modules it needs and can easily add or remove them from its system.

• Integration and connectivity of the application with the entire Microsoft platform and with each of the cloud services

In the cloud, the connectivity of Microsoft Dynamics business applications with other platforms is either built-in (as it is with Outlook, Excel, Teams), or it is a clear and technically feasible task, particularly when having the arsenal of Power Platform and Common Data Model at hand.

Data security, system continuity, predictability and control of IT costs

Moving to a cloud ERP platform minimizes the risks associated with data protection and maintaining continuity of business applications – risks that are valid at all times, but particularly critical at the moment. The cloud model eliminates unplanned costs for server maintenance, backups, air conditioning, updates etc. When working in Microsoft Azure, our customers can manage the number of used licenses, resources and capacity. In FTS projects, it has generally been the case that organizations use cloud resources with increased capacity only in time periods in which the systems get overloaded, such as in the time intervals with the largest number of orders or during month-end closing.

At FTS, we believe that with our knowledge of information technology and business processes we can help companies emerge from the COVID-19 crisis better prepared and with a clearer vision for their digital future.

Interested or want to know more about how you can benefit from FTS Solutions?

Please, choose the office and contact us here.

Read and follow us on LinkedIn.

Next