It’s no secret that the business landscape is unpredictable. That’s why it’s more critical than ever to secure an overview and structure regardless of location or device. After all, market and regulatory requirements may change radically from day to day.
However, for many organisations with an antiquated business system, there can be no real alternative as all core functions are centrally managed.
The cloud offers flexibility and visibility
For companies with a cloud-based solution, it doesn’t matter if it’s a flooded office, a global pandemic or merely a need for field workers to access key data while on-site. It’s no problem for employees and managers to access the information they need and continue working despite changes in circumstances.
The cloud makes it easier to adapt to situations where demand, trade patterns and priorities change dramatically.
For example, if you didn’t have an efficient, flexible e-commerce solution up and running in March 2020 when the pandemic hit, you certainly had to get your skates on and set it up. Likewise, many people urgently needed to adapt their existing web shop to cope with a situation in which customers were sitting at home for months, not going to work, not going out and not going on holiday.
Learn how flexible IT and Columbus support increased agility and resilience for Eton despite unforeseeable events.
Constant patches improve the application – and present new challenges
At Columbus, we saw how much better it was for our D365 customers when they could act flexibly on all parameters than for organisations with outdated, legacy ERP systems.
You might be happy with your older, on-premises ERP system and it still works very well for you. But in the face of the rapidly changing business environment, does it offer the flexibility, scalability and accessibility that a modern, evergreen organisation needs to thrive?
There are more qualities to D365 than the fact it’s run in a cloud infrastructure and can be accessed from any device.
First of all, the application is constantly evolving. Microsoft deploys update rollups eight times a year, which fix bugs, strengthen security and expand core functionality. This means your company is always in the best position to evolve.
There’s also a very large and increasing number of features in Microsoft’s D365 platform and modules from third party developers to click on or off.
This simplifies operation, administration and the customisation of the application to an almost revolutionary degree. But it also places demands on testing and governance.
There are two main reasons for this:
- The underlying code for D365 is rather complex. That means errors or performance issues can occur if an update conflicts with the company’s database structure or with a module you have clicked on. Although it may not happen often, if it does, it can present significant challenges for your company
- It’s very easy to turn on functionalities. You can access this in the Feature Management panel of the basic application – but it’s not always possible to turn them off again. This can also cause problems
Columbus D365 Secure Update safeguards process, overview and transparency
This is one of the main reasons why, over the past year, we’ve established and gradually expanded our Secure Update service for D365. We now provide a combination of framework tools and expertise.
Our customers can benefit from:
- A structured, proven and transparent process for testing, validating and implementing updates – both technically and functionally. This includes planning of service windows so that business operations are minimally affected
- Release Notes Assessment including full, targeted reporting for each customer. Well in advance, you can find an evaluation of which specific bug fixes may be relevant to your company and suggestions for which future or changed functionalities it may be relevant to activate (or avoid)
- Our knowledge about the challenges and possibilities Microsoft’s annual updates offer. We have a deep, specific knowledge of how D365 performs across a wide range of customers. We can help you understand where best to optimise the solution and where to take precautions
By nature, D365 is a far more powerful, flexible and secure platform than its on-premise-based predecessors in the AX family. But it’s hard to get around the fact that frequent and mandatory updating of complex code – cloud-based or otherwise – can lead to inconveniences.
Secure Update helps minimise the risk, while also ensuring your company gains the maximum benefit from all the ongoing improvements made to D365.
Are you unsure on how to handle the continuous updates? We have gathered our best tips and tricks in an eBook.
