Topic: Implementation

Upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 to Dynamics 365

Upgrade from AX
2009 to Dynamics 365

There’s never been a better time to start your cloud transformation

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If you’re currently using AX 2009 (or even 4.0) and you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to upgrade to a newer version, that time is now. Microsoft Dynamics 365 introduces a bevy of new features (which we’ll get to in a minute) and organizations who are ready to make the switch stand to eliminate a significant amount of costs with a cloud implementation and the reduction of customizations. Not to mention the relief of never having to budget for, or implement, a new ERP system ever again.

In fact, there have been so many updates since 4.0 that you may want to think of the switch to Dynamics 365 as an upgrade/migration combo. An upgrade-ation. Or maybe a migrupation? Upmigrade? We’ll keep brainstorming…

Here’s the important thing: no matter what you call it, deciding to make the move gets you a lot.
(For the sake of simplicity, we’ll just call it migrating for now.)

The Benefits of Migrating to Dynamics 365:

  • New features and functionality, including embedded BI and availability on mobile devices.
  • Grow at your own pace with the flexibility, affordability, and elasticity of the cloud.
  • Get more done by integrating with productivity tools and other cloud apps.
  • Eliminate hardware upgrade costs by migrating to the cloud.
  • Reduce customization by up to 40% (particularly if you’ve made customizations around retail, manufacturing, or business intelligence).
  • Get the stability and security of Microsoft Azure and out-of-the-box High Availability (HR) and Disaster Recovery (DR).
  • Enjoy a gorgeous browser-based UI that sends your quality of (work) life through the roof.

REASONS TO MIGRATE OR UPGRADE TO DYNAMICS 365

Leverage New Functionality

Reduce Customizations

Reduce Hardware Costs

Mobilize Your Business

Build on an Elastic Platform

Deploy & Adapt to Change Faster

Built-in Intelligence and Analytics

Migration & Upgrade Tools

And that’s just the high-level stuff! Now, let’s say you’ve done your homework and are ready to start your migration. What next? First, you’ll want to evaluate your current customizations and figure out which ones can be retired once you’re able to take advantage of all the features that are now standard in Dynamics 365. Next, you’ll start the long, painful process of migrating all your data over to the new solution…

Just kidding! Microsoft has already created a migration tool that will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

What does Microsoft’s Migration Tool Include?

  • Configuration and setup: ledger, customer groups, vendor groups, etc.
  • Master data: customer, vendor, project, accounts, etc.
  • Open documents, pending invoices, etc: sales order, purchase order, AR invoices, etc.
  • System Configuration: number sequences, users, user groups, security, etc.

Ideally, we wouldn’t recommend migrating historical transactions. But, if you wanted to hang on to them you could leave an instance of the old system running or access the information from a data warehouse. That being said, there are certainly some circumstances where losing this data is not ideal—particularly if you need to access customer order history to take full advantage of being an omnichannel organization. If that’s the case, let’s talk and figure out the best solution for your business.

But back to your more standard migrations. The long and short of it is basically anything which has an entity can be migrated to Dynamics 365 with the help of the AX 2009 migration tool. It sits right inside of AX 2009 and provides several solutions to help you through the process—like the included data migration checklist. The checklist provides an easy to follow process which walks you through everything. For instance, during the migration you’ll define data conversion rules and consider how that data might need to transform as part of the move due to data model changes. Within the checklist, you can then easily set which legal entities you’ll include or exclude in the conversion.

Here’s a snapshot of what we saw at AXUG 2016 in Tampa.

The majority of the time spent on your migration will be defining data entry mappings by module, and whether or not they will be included in the migrations. If that sounds daunting, don’t worry. You don’t have to move the entire system at once. The AX 2009 migration tool lets you chunk up the work by legal entities, data entities, and more.

The final steps on your path to Dynamics 365 start with defining the migration groups and the set of entities that will be part of the export package (for instance, maybe start with just a particular customer group). Next, you’ll review the field mappings sources and targets. Then the finale: you click the export button and watch the magic happen. You’ll get a complete package that is ready to smoothly import into Dynamics 365. Rinse and repeat for incremental iterations as needed.

The Migration Process and High-Level Architecture

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Dynamics 365 Upgrade

Four reasons production planning is better in Microsoft Dynamics 365

Four Reasons Production Planning is Better in Dynamics 365

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Production planning can be a headache for organizations with manufacturing operations. Outdated legacy systems often struggle to keep up with customer demands and effectively manage supply chain disruptions. Fortunately, there is a solution that can modernize your production planning process: Microsoft Dynamics 365. Let’s dive in to four key benefits of using Dynamics 365 to streamline and enhance your operations.

1. Greater Visibility with Unified Data Structure

If you’re coming from a legacy system, or even a more modern system that is a patchwork of systems, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a breath of fresh air.  It acts as a comprehensive business application that serves as a single system of record for all your production planning needs. By consolidating crucial aspects of your business such as sales, inventory, purchasing, and demand forecasts into a centralized platform, Dynamics 365 provides your team with greater visibility. This increased transparency empowers faster, more informed decision-making.

2. Flexible Capacity Planning

Every manufacturing company has unique production cycle timelines. Whether you deal with short production cycles in apparel or equipment manufacturing, or longer cycles in industries like footwear or furniture, Dynamics 365 can accommodate your specific requirements. With the ability to configure finite and infinite capacity availability, you can achieve greater efficiency in your production planning process. Dynamics 365’s flexible capacity planning ensures that your production cycles are optimized, resulting in improved operational outcomes.

3. Comprehensive Data Capture and Reporting Views

The backbone of effective production planning lies in accurate and timely data. Dynamics 365 captures granular detail about every aspect of the production process and surfaces them in intuitive views. This empowers your business to react swiftly and decisively when managing production capacity loads, reservations, and responding to supply chain disruptions or shifts in demand. With Dynamics 365’s detailed data capture and reporting views, your team can execute production planning and scheduling with increased effectiveness.

4. Seamless Integration with Microsoft Technology

Dynamics 365 is part of the Microsoft platform, offering substantial advantages in terms of R&D investment, a robust future roadmap, and seamless integration with Office 365 for enhanced productivity and collaboration. Because production lives in Microsoft you can leverage the power of Azure and Power Platform, to innovate rapidly with Dynamics 365. This ecosystem exists as a comprehensive platform, providing unparalleled opportunities for growth and efficiency.

If your production planning process is plagued by challenges, it’s time to consider Microsoft Dynamics 365 as a transformative solution. Dynamics 365 empowers manufacturers to streamline their operations and overcome production planning obstacles.

To explore the potential of Dynamics 365 and address your production planning challenges, contact us for a demo today. As the trusted Microsoft Partner for discrete manufacturers, Sunrise specializes in helping businesses solve their production challenges. Let’s take the next step towards enhancing your production planning with Dynamics 365.

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 Whether you’re exploring your options for new business platforms, or ready to get started, we are trusted business partners for some of the world’s most well-known brands. With over 25 years of experience with the Microsoft stack, we can help you understand all the capabilities Microsoft has to offer.

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The future of furniture: Are your systems connected and ready?

The future of furniture is connected

To take your furniture operations to the next level, look at these 5 key areas

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The future of furniture is connected: are your systems ready?

The shopping experience is collapsing into a single channel: the customer. Today people expect a seamless shopping experience whether it begins online, in store, or a mix of both, plus attentive customer service that’s available whenever they need help.

The furnishings industry is no exception. Orchestrating the business processes for furniture manufacturing, distribution, and retail is notoriously difficult. Cloud-based ERP platforms like Dynamics 365 make it possible to integrate all of your business systems and create a seamless operational experience. With nearly 30 years of experience as an ERP implementor and systems integrator, we’ve helped our customers work through some of their trickiest friction points across their supply chains, production processes, and customer service.

We like to say that the future of furniture is connected. We have observed a few recurring pain points in the following areas — and helped our customers identify opportunities for improvement:

Configuration and embellishments | Shipping and logistics | Data and insights | Quality control and field installation | Siloed business systems

Configuration and embellishments

“Give the customer what they want!” Sounds simple enough, right? But every furniture industry veteran knows that giving the customer what they want is easier said than done. Coordinating custom orders across multiple systems and teams can lead to logistical nightmares, delays, and even costly errors.

The key to streamlining custom orders is to work smarter, not harder. Decrease manual workloads around customer orders by capturing configuration details upfront in your business systems and pass them along to every step of production that might have highly stylized processes. Capturing these details and passing them along can include automated notifications and reminders to ensure everyone involved in the production process is aware of the customization requirements.

Shipping and logistics

One of the most complicated moving pieces for furniture retailers, manufacturers, and distributors is, well, moving pieces!

Shipping furniture is a complicated affair, especially when it comes to items that are meant to go together. A dining table and chairs, for example. Or a bedroom set. But with multiple products, shipping destinations, and customer preferences, keeping inventory flowing while making sure customers receive all the pieces from their orders quickly can get overwhelming.

Many organizations rely on the knowledge of their long-time employees to define shipping processes and rules for sets of items. However, relying solely on this institutional knowledge is not sustainable, particularly if there are plans to expand your product catalog. It is crucial to provide clear instructions and guidelines to everyone involved in the shipping process. Partnering with the right experts can help define these rules within your business systems.

Data and insights

Even without the challenges of the past few years, managing furniture supply chains has always been difficult. We like to say that brands don’t compete – their supply chains do. Changes in terms, tariffs, and freight charges can have a significant impact on pricing and profitability. To stay competitive, you need to be able to quickly estimate costs and adjust your pricing and cost strategies accordingly. Taking it one step further, being able to project future costs saves you time and makes your organization more efficient overall. Your ability to quickly pivot could be the difference between you and your next closest competitor.

You should have a solution that can drill deep down into the actual costs for your products and see the cost broken out by physical dimensions, like weight or volume, and see how these different dimensions affect your freight bills. Such a level of detail makes it possible to quickly adapt – for example, say you discover a large, bulky item is so heavy it’s adding on undue cost. You could work with the manufacturer to find a lighter weight version to increase that item’s profitability

Ultimately, the key to success in managing your supply chain is data. Every input to your supply chain is producing data, but if you don’t have a solution for ingesting all your forecasts, lead time analysis, vendor scorecards, production capacities and turning it all into actionable advice, it’s doing you about as much good as a two-legged stool.

Quality control and field installation

Everyone from your sales team to your field service technicians to your finance team has a stake in quality control. Customers today have more choices than ever before, and they aren’t shy about sharing their experiences when something goes wrong. Returns and rejected deliveries cost time, money, and sometimes your company’s reputation.

First and foremost, you need to ensure that your current system can automatically track goods from production to delivery. The ability to quickly identify all inventory pieces that may be affected by a quality issue is crucial for delivering a great customer experience.

Second, your delivery process should meet customer expectations. Furniture retailers who also distribute have the unenviable task of having to manage large, complicated, expensive deliveries. No one is going to applaud that you got them their dining room table and chairs without any dings or dents – they just expect it. But we know how challenging it can be and it leads us to our third point…

Do you know your weak links? If you’re getting consistent feedback that the quality of a product is not up to standard, or you’re seeing repeated deliveries rejected, are you able to quickly determine where things have gone wrong? Is it something during manufacturing? The warehouse? Or maybe it’s a bad delivery service. Your ability to quickly parse this data and identify the weak link is key to nipping this problem in the bud.

Siloed business systems

A common theme we’ve noticed among many of the furniture brands we’ve dealt with is once they find a business system that works for them, they tend to stay with it. And stay. And stay…

Brand loyalty is a great thing. However, the reluctance to let go of legacy systems opens up your organization up to vulnerabilities like ransomware, falling behind due to manual processes, and maintaining expensive, dual-sided integrations.

For example, manual processes just can’t keep up when the rest of the world is moving digitally. And while having long-tenured employees speaks volumes about your corporate culture, relying on their institutional knowledge to manage your processes is a recipe for trouble. What happens when they retire or decide to move to a new opportunity?

What’s the solution?

If you’ve identified with any of the above issues, we have good news! They are all solvable. A cloud-based business system makes all the data you’re already gathering work for you, not against you. As we already discussed, your customers expect constant visibility into their order status – shouldn’t you and your team expect the same from your business systems?

If you’re interested in how Dynamics 365 can work for the furniture industry, you can learn more here.

Ready to learn more?

Schedule a call with one of our industry experts today. We work with furniture brands, retailers, manufacturers, and distributors to streamline and modernize their operations on a single platform — Dynamics 365.

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Quick Start implementation and project management toolkit

Over fifty percent of ERP implementations fail—it doesn’t have to be that way

For a project as high stakes as an ERP implementation, a strong project roadmap is critical. This factsheet offers a high-level overview of everything that comes packed inside of the Sunrise 365 Quick Start Solution. Add instant value to any Microsoft Dynamics 365 deployment and hit the ground running on day one. Designed to accelerate your implementation, Quick Start is Sunrise’s project management solution designed to align with our implementation methodology. Quick Start comes with pre-configurations to start with a system ready for solution design, a huge business process library, and Power BI dashboards to track key project metrics.

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Dynamics AX for apparel and footwear

Why Microsoft Dynamics AX On-Premises Was a Game-Changer...and Why It’s Time to Move to the Cloud

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When Microsoft Dynamics AX first hit the market, it was a breakthrough solution for companies looking for a robust ERP system, particularly in apparel, footwear, and manufacturing. With powerful features and the flexibility to manage complex supply chains, multi-channel sales, and global operations, Dynamics AX helped businesses grow and streamline operations. But as technology has evolved, so too has the need for more modern, scalable, and cost-efficient solutions. While Microsoft Dynamics AX on-premises was a great option, it’s time to move to the cloud with Microsoft Dynamics 365.

The Strengths of Microsoft Dynamics AX On-Premises

1. Global Reach and Multi-Channel Capabilities

Dynamics AX allowed businesses to unify operations across multiple regions, thanks to its multi-language and multi-currency features. It made managing global supply chains easier and provided seamless support for both wholesale and retail operations. This capability was essential for brands looking to expand into new markets without overhauling their entire ERP system.

2. Optimized Supply Chain Management

One of the key strengths of Dynamics AX was its ability to simplify complex supply chains. The solution offered enhanced forecasting, inventory control, and SKU management, which allowed businesses to respond quickly to market demands and scale their operations. This level of precision and visibility helped companies minimize costs and improve operational efficiency.

3. Embedded Business Intelligence

Long before data-driven decision-making became a buzzword, Dynamics AX embedded business intelligence tools that enabled companies to turn raw data into actionable insights. The integration of Power BI into the system meant that businesses could easily visualize trends and uncover hidden opportunities across their sales and operational data. This feature empowered leaders at all levels of the organization to make smarter, faster decisions.

4. Customization and Control

Because Dynamics AX was hosted on-premises, businesses had full control over the infrastructure and could customize the system according to their specific needs. This control was particularly appealing to large organizations with complex IT environments, as they could configure the solution to meet their exact business processes and requirements.

The Challenges of On-Premises Hosting

However, while Dynamics AX was a powerful solution, its on-premises hosting model came with several challenges. For one, companies were responsible for maintaining their own IT infrastructure, which required significant investment in hardware, software, and personnel. This not only increased operational costs but also made scaling difficult, as businesses had to invest in more infrastructure to support growth.

Moreover, on-premises systems can’t offer the same level of agility as cloud-based solutions. Updates and upgrades to the software had to be managed internally, often leading to downtime or delayed adoption of new features.

Enter Microsoft Dynamics 365: The Evolution of ERP

Microsoft recognized the limitations of the on-premises model and introduced Microsoft Dynamics 365, a cloud-hosted solution that takes the best of AX and brings it into the future.

1. Scalability and Cost Efficiency

With Dynamics 365, businesses no longer need to worry about maintaining their own servers or infrastructure. The cloud-based model allows companies to scale their operations up or down as needed, without the overhead of on-premises maintenance. This also results in significant cost savings, as companies only pay for the resources they use, rather than investing in infrastructure that may sit idle.

2. Continuous Innovation

One of the biggest benefits of moving to Dynamics 365 is the ability to access the latest features and updates without any disruption. Because the solution is hosted in the cloud, Microsoft can continuously roll out updates, meaning businesses always have access to the most current capabilities without having to manage upgrades themselves.

3. Seamless Integration with Other Microsoft Tools

Just like AX, Dynamics 365 is integrated with Power BI, but it also has native connections to other Microsoft tools like Teams, the Power Platform, and Azure. This makes it easier for businesses to leverage a complete ecosystem of productivity, collaboration, and development tools, all within the same cloud environment.

4. Enhanced Security and Compliance

Dynamics 365 benefits from Microsoft’s world-class cloud security and compliance standards. This is especially important for companies operating in regulated industries or those expanding into global markets, as the solution ensures that data remains secure and compliant with various local and international regulations.

Why It’s Time to Upgrade

While Microsoft Dynamics AX on-premises was a highly successful ERP system for many years, the business landscape has evolved. Companies need solutions that are agile, scalable, and cost-effective—and Microsoft Dynamics 365 delivers on all fronts. It’s the next step for businesses that want to continue growing and innovating without the burdens of maintaining complex IT infrastructure.

Upgrading from Dynamics AX to Dynamics 365 will not only improve operational efficiency but will also enable businesses to take advantage of modern features like AI-driven insights, advanced analytics, and enhanced cloud capabilities that weren’t possible with on-premises systems.

Ready for the Next Step?

Schedule a call with one of our industry experts today. We work with brands, retailers, manufacturers, and distributors to streamline and modernize their operations on a single platform—Dynamics 365.

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The power of a connected future: Watch our presentation from Retail TouchPoints and Retail Innovation Conference

The Power of a Connected Future: Watch Our Presentation from Retail TouchPoints’ Retail Innovation Conference

Hear from our retail expert on what it really takes to refine the customer experience

After years of being beholden to brands, the consumer is back in control. Today, people have more choice than ever before when it comes to where, when, and who they buy from. Brands who truly understand their customers will always outperform those who don’t. But excellent customer service sounds simple: provide the right products to the right customer at the right time, at a price they can afford. Yet every retail veteran knows this is easier said than done. Whether it’s planning problems, vendor woes, imbalanced inventory, or empty shelves, retailers know that the customer experience starts long before anyone steps foot into a store.

Often, we see organizations trying to address these issues in a vacuum. But the supply chain and customer experience are inextricably linked. The key to unlocking a seamless customer experience? By uniting your supply chain and customer data on a single platform. Sunrise’s retail experts are here to discuss best practices for achieving true omnichannel transformation. In this session, you’ll hear about brands that have leveraged the power of connected data — everything from buy online, pick up in-store; to turning stores into distribution centers; to consolidating legacy systems onto a single platform (and in one case, experiencing over 50% growth in digital business year over year). By investing in a single platform and scalable infrastructure, these brands have optimized their operations and are prepared for the next generation of retail

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Whether you’re exploring your options for new business platforms, or ready to get started, we are trusted business partners for some of the world’s most well-known brands. With over 25 years of experience with the Microsoft stack, we can help you understand all the capabilities Microsoft has to offer.

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Case study: Vera Bradley

Case Study: Vera Bradley

When Vera Bradley was ready to move its omni-channel business to the cloud, the team went all in. Embarking on an ambitious project to modernize operations and centralize its data, Vera Bradley replaced its legacy on-premise systems with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain and Commerce.

Today, Vera Bradley team members have a platform to carry this beloved brand into the future, built on the security of the Microsoft cloud and essential supply chain solutions from Sunrise. Read the case study for more details on why Vera Bradley chose Sunrise, implementation challenges, and its roadmap for the future.

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Start Your Journey with Sunrise Today!

Whether you’re exploring your options for new business platforms, or ready to get started, we are trusted business partners for some of the world’s most well-known brands. With over 25 years of experience with the Microsoft stack, we can help you understand all the capabilities Microsoft has to offer.

Contact us

Omni-channel deployment strategies

Omni-channel challenges

Why is this essential capability so hard to deploy?

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McKenzi Gebhard is a Senior Supply Chain consultant and Project Manager at Sunrise Technologies. McKenzi has worked with global organizations to implement Microsoft cloud solutions in the luxury furnishings, retail, and consumer goods industries

Customer expectations have never been higher. To meet these expectations fast shipping, resourceful customer service representatives, and extensive return policies are a must to stay relevant. But, while omni-channel retail capabilities are touted as the goal for a truly customer-centric shopping experience. So many people sing the praises of omni-channel, yet few companies do it well. Why? It starts with their systems footprint.

 

Complexity in the systems footprint
Satisfying customer expectations
Standalone OMS as a solution?
One solution for true omni-channel retail
Frequently asked questions

Complexity in the systems footprint

Most companies have separate eCommerce, POS, and call center systems. The integration required to sync the required information across these systems is an immense amount of work. For many legacy systems, this is quite a tall order. These kinds of “ship from anywhere” policies require both a ton of integration work and an understanding of the sophisticated routing rules for a fully integrated supply chain. Solving these technology challenges usually requires outside help, in which case you need a partner who understands the complex supply chain challenges inherent within retail.

Satisfying customer expectations

Say you’re a company with retail stores, eCommerce, and call centers. In today’s retail landscape, your customers expect you can do the following:

  • Buy online, pick up in store: Customer A places an order online but wants to pick up the product in a retail store. In order to do this, your eCommerce system needs visibility into your retail store’s inventory, plus the ability to send a pickup order to the POS system.
  • Buy in store and have the item shipped to their house: Customer B found an item they liked in the store, but wanted it shipped to their home. For this, your store’s POS needs visibility into the eCommerce system’s inventory, and the ability to send an order to your eCommerce system to fulfill the order. Or, the POS may need visibility into other retail stores’ inventory to fulfill the order from one of those instead.
  • Call a call center and process a return or exchange for an item purchased through another channel: For this, a customer service rep needs visibility into all the inventory channels and the ability to place an order and process a return from any of them.

… repeat for other shopping scenarios, and you can see the amount of work required to integrate all these systems is staggering.

Standalone OMS as a solution?

Some companies have embraced Order Management Systems (OMS) as a layer to smooth these omni-channel challenges. But the efficacy of OMS is questionable. As an integration-heavy product, it’s still a lot of work to get up and running. At best, it can solve your order and fulfillment challenges in the short term. But many retailers have found they spent years installing an OMS, only to realize very little value and a lot of headaches maintaining yet another system.

One solution for true omni-channel retail

The solution for achieving true omni-channel commerce, that is both long-term and cost-effective, is a single platform that keeps track of all your orders and inventory across your entire supply chain. ERP systems like Dynamics 365 operate seamlessly across your entire business, including your retail stores, call centers, and website.

Frequently asked questions

Omni-channel operations require integrations between all your sales channels. The work required for these integrations is expensive and time-consuming.

OMS is expensive, and you still have to do the same integration work to connect all your sales channels. You may find you’ve spent a tremendous amount of money and time on a system that only returns a fraction of your investment.

Dynamics 365 combines supply chain, finance, and retail on a single platform. Say goodbye to patching together integrations between disparate systems, and hello to seamless operations on a single platform, backed by the security of the Microsoft Azure cloud.

Further Reading

Supply Chain Rebound: 3 ways to improve visibility and agility

Retail Trends Playbook 2020-2021: Operational Resiliency with Connected Systems

7 factors for success: everything you need for a successful ERP implementation

Start Your Journey with Sunrise Today!

 Whether you’re exploring your options for new business platforms, or ready to get started, we are trusted business partners for some of the world’s most well-known brands. With over 25 years of experience with the Microsoft stack, we can help you understand all the capabilities Microsoft has to offer.

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Forrester total economic impact of migrating from AX to Dynamics 365

Forrester Total Economic Impact of Migrating from AX to Dynamics 365

Read The White Paper

Get Your Money's Worth

Save time and gain instant value when you deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Sunrise industry extensions.

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Can your systems keep your brand’s promises?

Can your systems keep your brand’s promises?

Legacy system woes can hold your brand back

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As the Chief Administrative Officer for Sunrise Technologies, Heather Essic is responsible for overseeing Sunrise operations, including finance, marketing, and pre-sales. Prior to being named the Chief Administrative Officer, Heather was Sunrise’s Director of Business Development for Existing Customers, leading extensive sales cycles for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and consulting.

Trust. It’s hard to gain, and easy to lose. And for brands, consumer trust is essential for growth. One of the most challenging parts of growing a company is maintaining your brand’s reputation while expanding into new products, channels, and regions. You may be thinking about different expansion strategies. But have you considered all the ways in which your legacy systems might be affected?

 

What is a brand promise?
Different expansion strategies
How branching out can affect legacy systems
How a global platform supports your brand
Frequently asked questions

What is a brand promise?

A brand promise is the experience or product your customers can expect to receive every time they interact with your company. Customers need to know you, like you, and then trust you. A person’s connection to a brand is built on trust.

Different expansion strategies

There are three paths companies typically follow as they begin to grow:

  • Products: As a brand becomes more popular, it may branch out into new product categories. For example, a fashion brand may start selling accessories, then handbags, then shoes.
  • Sales channels: Next, that same brand might open brick and mortar retail stores. Conversely, it might start selling online.
  • Locations: Finally, this brand is ready to sell products in new regions or countries. Many companies start by using distributors in other countries before opening international offices or stores.

How branching out can affect legacy systems

The biggest challenge, whether you’re opening your first retail store or your first international office, is keeping the brand promise. The biggest mistake we’ve seen companies make during one of these expansions is installing a legacy business application that serves one strategy but not another.

Let’s say you are an apparel company selling to wholesalers in the U.S. — there are plenty of low-cost apparel management systems for your industry. But that type of system will buckle if you try to expand into new channels, markets, or products.

Or maybe you’re a catalog retailer, branching out into wholesale. Can your current systems handle those types of business processes, like B2B accounts receivables, net terms, cash discounts, or chargebacks?

We’ve heard this story many times: a growing brand chooses a business system (or a few legacy applications) for the business they have right now, but not for the future. Then, as the company grows, their legacy systems are strained. The results are poor customer experience, inventory problems, and other nightmares that frustrate customers and erode their trust. As the brand promise falters, eventually so does the brand.

How a single global platform supports your brand’s promise

Don’t be shortsighted when you select an ERP system. The best thing you can do while you’re still a growing brand is choose a business application that can support different products, sales channels, and regions. A global platform, running on a single database can handle these kinds of processes from the beginning.

Frequently asked questions

They are. But customizing your business applications is a short-term solution. They won’t support your company in the long run.

The ERP industry has evolved over the last few years, especially with the ubiquity of cloud computing. Systems like Dynamics 365 are built for multi-dimensional, global businesses.

You can definitely use a global system like Dynamics 365 with industry-specific solutions. Our customers use Sunrise 365 Supply Chain and Retail Replenishment solutions to get specific inventory, supply chain, and retail functions for their businesses, without customizing their core ERP software code.

Further Reading

Sunrise 365 Supply Chain Solution

TEC certification report for Sunrise 365 Supply Chain and Retail Replenishment solutions

7 factors for success: everything you need for a successful ERP implementation

Start Your Journey with Sunrise Today!

 Whether you’re exploring your options for new business platforms, or ready to get started, we are trusted business partners for some of the world’s most well-known brands. With over 25 years of experience with the Microsoft stack, we can help you understand all the capabilities Microsoft has to offer.

Contact Us