How to use AI and Automation in Dynamics 365 Business Central Solutions?

You may want to hire Business Central developers to customize solutions for your specific needs.

Business management can feel like a wild beast at times – difficult to control, demanding attention, with processes spread haphazardly across different systems and stacks of paper.

However, by implementing intelligent solutions, you can rein that beast in, directing its energy to propel your organization to new levels of efficiency.

Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Business Central provides a flexible platform to consolidate and connect workflows while leveraging cutting-edge AI and automation.

Here, we’ll explore how Business Central’s latest features can help you in various tasks.

The solutions are customizable to companies of any size or industry. Let’s examine

Some specifics on how they work.

Automate Repetitive Human Tasks

Many job functions involve repetitive clerical duties like data entry, filing paperwork, or updating customer records.

Business Central turns those tasks over to AI, freeing up employees for more strategic work.

• Intelligent data capture – Scanner apps and optical character recognition (OCR) extract info from documents for automated handling. No more manual data entry!

• Personalized process automation – The system learns employees’ daily processes and builds automated workflows around them. It handles the routine stuff so workers can focus on high-value activities.

• Predictive recommendations – Employees receive suggested actions or documents relevant to the task at hand, based on historical data and patterns. This makes operations more seamless.

• Smart task assignment – Based on employee workload and expertise, the system automatically assigns tasks to the right personnel to maintain workflow efficiency.

• Expense report automation – Details from credit card charges and mileage logs are extracted and pre-populated into expense reports with one click to submit.

• Contract highlighting – Key dates, terms, and renewal options from customer contracts are visually highlighted so nothing gets missed.

By removing routine jobs, your staff may focus their abilities on creativity rather than being bogged down in repetitive tasks.

Automation also reduces human mistakes, which are frequently caused by exhaustion or boredom.

Extract Powerful Insights from Data

Business Central taps into data analytics and machine learning algorithms to spot

Crucial trends and performance indicators.

Rather than simply providing numbers, it delivers contextualized insights you can act on.

• KPI dashboards – Key metrics are tracked and visualized on role-based dashboards, giving personnel real-time visibility. Drill into specifics to identify root causes behind the KPI fluctuations.

• Intelligent lookups – When accessing customer names, sales orders, inventory items, etc. the system presents likely matches to accelerate lookup. Recommendations improve over time. 

• Anomaly detection – The machine learning tools automatically flag unusual patterns that may signal emerging business threats or opportunities. No more waiting until month-end to catch problems.

• Sales activity analysis – Granular tracking of sales interactions, deal progression, and pipeline velocity exposes lead conversion bottlenecks to address.

• Predictive modelling – Using advanced regression analysis and simulations, analysts can model different business scenarios to quantify expected outcomes from capital investments, marketing spending, hiring changes and more.

• Market basket analysis – Retailers gain insight into which products customers frequently purchase together so those item pairings can be promoted in-store suggestions, offers, and catalogue layouts. 

Rich data insights enable your various departments to pinpoint areas for improvement, capitalize on new profit avenues, and link business outcomes to operational activities.

Over time, the system’s analytical capabilities scale across your organizational data for a unified strategic view.

Predict Outcomes to Guide Better Decisions

Rather than relying solely on past data, Business Central employs predictive algorithms to forecast future scenarios.

Those predictions steer impactful decisions across management, planning, and operations.

• Projected cash flow – Based on historical income and spending patterns combined with your budget priorities, the system predicts upcoming cash flow highs and lows. You’re alerted to potential shortfalls ahead of time.

• Inventory optimization – Advanced supply and demand analysis, accounting for external factors like seasonality and marketing campaigns, keeps inventory balanced and reduces unnecessary stockouts or write-downs.

• Predictive lead scoring – Drawing on your customer profile data and pipeline momentum, the machine learning assigns a lead score indicating deal probability and sales readiness. Sales can pursue hot leads first.

• Risk forecasting – Predictive algorithms estimate project completion dates and costs based on ongoing progress metrics. You can course-correct projects veering into too much risk.

• Dynamic price optimization – Machine learning spots price sensitivity thresholds for different customer segments to continuously tune pricing for maximizing profit. Pricing stays aligned to the market. 
• Predictive hiring analysis – Based on projected sales growth and historical productivity data, the algorithms recommend upcoming hiring needs by role and location to support scaling.

Build strategic plans and daily decisions on data-supported predictions rather than best guesses.

You minimize risk, align tactical work to long-term goals, and devote resources where they’re primed to deliver maximum impact. The flexible algorithms accommodate new data patterns as your business evolves.

Streamline Cross-Department and Field Communication

With numerous employees, stores, vehicles, and systems in play, smooth communication is essential yet difficult.

Business Central consolidates activity into a common data framework with channels catered to each role.

• Organization-wide visibility – All personnel access the same data specific to their job function, fostering coordination rather than departmental silos. Teams stay on the same page. 

• Mobile access – Field technicians, delivery drivers, and offsite retail employees can input transactions, gather schedule updates, and sync orders via mobile apps. No more being disconnected out on the road.

• Automated alerts and notifications – Personnel are notified when action, input, or decision is required on their part, such as approving an inventory reorder or contacting a late-paying customer. Issues don’t slip through the cracks.

• Customer self-service – You may want to hire Business Central developers to build chatbots that handle common questions from customers around order status, product details, account changes and more so staff can focus on complex queries.

• Sentiment analysis – Natural language algorithms parse feedback submissions (surveys, reviews, emails etc.) to gauge overall sentiment and pinpoint recurring pain points customers mention.

• Meeting prep automation – Relevant documents, notes from previous meetings, and suggested talking points are compiled into a meeting prep packet based on invite lists and agendas.

Communication ties back into automation too, as chatbots handle common customer and employee inquiries.

People can focus communication more on impactful personal discussions with colleagues and customers.

Optimize the Supply Chain Operations

• Integrated sales and operations planning – Collaborative S&OP tools promote feedback between sales, marketing, operations, finance, and leadership to link strategic plans to tactical supply chains.  

• Intelligent warehouse management – IoT sensors and computer vision guide robots to optimize storage density, object tracking, order picking, and stock movements autonomously. Humans handle exceptional cases.

• Delivery route optimization – Based on real-time traffic and demand data, machine learning dynamically sequences customer delivery stops for the shortest overall routes.

• Automated vendor payments – Upon verifying goods receipts and purchase orders, the system triggers scheduled payments to suppliers, easing the accounting workload.

• Predictive maintenance – IoT sensors on production equipment detect performance fluctuations suggestive of impending breakdowns. Service is proactively scheduled to minimize downtime.

• Automated reordering – Minimum stock thresholds automatically trigger purchase orders to suppliers based on projected inventory needs. No more stockouts from forgotten manual reorders. 

Packing algorithms determine optimal assortments and arrangements of shipping cases on pallets to maximize load stability, weight distribution, and delivery efficiency.

The logistical efficiencies compound operations across the value chain into a competitive advantage that is difficult for rigid legacy companies to match.

The agile supply chain handles business complexity so employees don’t have to.

Dynamics 365 Business Central fuses intelligence into data, communication, predictions, automation and more to propel organizations toward the future.

Although the solutions initially handle narrow functions, capabilities compound over time into an autonomous central nervous system for your business.

If you’re ready to take control of operational chaos and point your company toward new horizons, it may be a good idea to hire Business Central developers to implement and customize the solutions. The intelligent path ahead is waiting!

What opportunities or concerns do you have around infusing AI and automation into your business workflows?

Which capabilities seem most valuable for the way your teams operate? Let’s discuss it!