Business Central Investment Themes FY 2020
Directions North America 2019 just concluded in Las Vegas and a lot of learning and fun was had by all. It was especially exciting to hear about the product investment focus for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central heading into Microsoft’s fiscal year 2020. Michael Ehrenberg, Technical Fellow at Microsoft, presented a session during the day one keynote outlining what we can expect.
First off, Microsoft is moving forward full speed with the concept of a single platform that brings together everything a company needs to drive cloud-based digital transformation. This platform has three main components:
- Azure
- Dynamics 365
- Office 365
Microsoft is uniquely positioned as the only company that offers all three. While there are plenty of competitors that offer one or two of these components, Amazon, Google, and Oracle for example, no one else has it all. Look for the Dynamics brand to start receiving the same level of marketing and brand awareness efforts as Azure and Office going into FY 2020 as Microsoft solidifies its focus on the power of these combined offerings.
The fiscal year 2020 investment focus can be categorized as follows:
- World-Class Cloud Service – This includes several areas including ensuring stability, security, and performance. Microsoft actively manages these areas using telemetry and monitoring to be proactive in making changes that are needed. Security includes being compliant with major standards like ISO, HIPPA, FERPA, and SOC.
- Modern Productive UI – Investments will continue to be made in the user experience across all platforms (desktop, tablet and mobile). The fuzzy logic search capability is fantastic, especially for people new to Business Central who don’t have the exact name for every screen committed to memory. Just type in something resembling what you want to do and Business Central will get you where you need to be!
- Modern ISV and VAR Tools – There are now over 300 Business Central apps on AppSource! AppSource is key to the growth of Business Central. Look for ways that will make it easier for customers to obtain and pay for apps in FY 2020.
- Integrated Microsoft Solution – This relates to the overall focus mentioned in the introduction. Everything is already well integrated (Azure, Dynamics 365 and Office 365) with features like single sign-on, embedded Business Central functionality within Outlook and PowerBI content packs. Continued focus in this area will help keep Microsoft miles ahead of the competition and helps greatly with keeping deployment costs down. Everything just works together without the need to recreate integrations on every single implementation.
The Business Central Roadmap is publicly available for all to see. You can read more specific details about exactly what you can expect going forward on this continuously-updated site.
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