The ROI of Business Central: 4 ways it will pay back your investment

We fully understand that for CFOs, choosing the systems to invest in is a considerable responsibility. And, while Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is considerably more powerful than many other products available, it may also represent a larger initial cost. It’s understandable then, that finance leaders should be looking for evidence that Business Central is a worthwhile investment.

To that end, we’ve created a breakdown of some of the most commonly used features, as well as the benefits of adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for your organisation.

1. A Reduced Need for Additional Staff: For most businesses, hiring additional finance and operation staff is one of their greatest outlays – and can be very difficult to get right. One of the immediate benefits of working with Business Central is that organisations are able to streamline and centralise processes, including automating tasks like invoicing and billing. It can also be used to implement power automation to create more efficient workflows.

The obvious impact of this is that it reduces the need to hire additional finance and operations staff, not only saving significant costs but also allowing existing employees to focus on other things and be more productive as the business scales. As talent acquisition is invariably the greatest bottleneck to rapid growth, this presents an enormous strategic and commercial benefit.

2. Enhanced Operations Flow: Through enhanced operation flows, employees are able to gain visibility into operations across the organisation, supported by automation and increased access to ERP functionalities across multiple devices. As a result, the improved visibility and accessibility also leads to enhanced productivity, further enabling teams to focus on initiatives that, in turn, can lead to increased optimisation of key processes. It’s a virtuous cycle that can add up to serious competitive advantage.

3. Improved Business Effectiveness: Business Central offers a range of features designed to enhance finance and operations effectiveness. There are multiple use cases of these: from inventory tracking for speed improvement to more accurate reporting for decreased rework activities. No matter which application is most relevant to your business, Business Central’s functionality empowers organisations to optimise these processes and save time.

4. Integration with Microsoft Products: As you would expect, Business Central seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft products, including Microsoft 365, and popular tools such as Excel, Outlook and Teams. This integration ensures ease of use, real-time visibility, and flexibility, providing users with a cohesive and efficient ecosystem – as well as a system that is already familiar to most users. This also means that you will benefit from working in Microsoft Cloud, which has been proven to be a more cost-effective option than on-premise systems, and that you will benefit from Microsoft’s regular product updates, ensuring you are also future-proofing all your company’s key systems.

While the initial setup costs for Business Central may be higher compared to less sophisticated alternatives, recent Forrester research [1] confirms that significant improvements in business processes yield returns within a short period, often a matter of months. This underscores the long-term value and return on investment that Business Central offers to organisations seeking to optimise their finance and operations processes.

Here’s some of the typical ROI data that was uncovered by Forrester [1].

ROUNDEL: ROI 172% [/] over 3 years [1]

ROUNDEL: 7-month/ Payback on investment

ROUNDEL: Productivity + 18% [/] productivity gains for finance and operations staff

1. Source:  Total Economic Impact™ of Business Central, Forrester, 2023

This enhanced functionality inevitably means that setup costs may be higher than smaller, less powerful alternative models you may have heard of, but recent Forrester research has confirmed that the significant improvements in business processes pay off in a matter of months.

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