Key Highlights from Directions 2024
After attending this year’s Directions EMEA Event in Vienna, Conor Flanagan, ERP Team Lead at Storm, provides some key takeaways from the event.
)
Directions EMEA is an annual event that focuses on connecting partners from all over the world and sharing the latest Microsoft solution updates spanning technical, business development and strategy. This year the event took place in the scenic surroundings of Vienna where members of our team were fortunate to have spent the week enjoying the city's amazing history and culture mixed with the latest developments and innovations in AI.
Fresh from his recent visit to Directions EMEA, we caught up with ERP Team Lead in D365 Business Central & Business Applications, Conor Flanagan to hear his highlights from this year's event including the advancements and practical use cases around AI, an ever-increasing focus on Sustainability and Microsoft’s continued investment in encouraging clients to embrace the move to cloud in the form of grants and incentives.
AI Updates
Directions 2023 saw the launch of, and heavy focus on Copilot embedded within the Business Central solution. However impressive, many of the attendees left with more questions than answers around the practical use case for this and if it was more “style over substance.” Fast forward 12 months and the focus was yet again on the advancements in AI and Copilot becoming ever more embedded within Business Central. The view leaving Vienna this year was somewhat different, with the use cases now clear and the questions on everyone’s lips being “when?” rather than “what?”
One key takeaway was how AI is changing the way users interact with ERP systems through agents, portals or apps. This has the potential to completely change how clients interact with their ERP system, democratising the solution and opening it up to departments and users that would have seen an ERP system as out of bounds.
For example, users can ask agents questions using natural language to find information, pull invoices or initiate actions in the system such as creating a Purchase Order. This means that through using natural language in Teams a user can have a full ERP experience without ever having to open the package.
C-suite executives, for instance, can use agents to find the information they need quickly and efficiently, whether it's checking the number of outstanding invoices, project status or financial data.
Through the integration of Copilot and agents, Microsoft is essentially bridging the gap between business platforms, facilitating deeper integration between systems like enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and Azure. This means that organisations can unlock greater efficiency, enhance data flow and streamline business processes with the help of AI.
When it comes to the management of agents, it's important to note that they must be managed in a similar way to a human employee. While automating a process involves taking an input and producing an output, agents take it a step further by applying AI to make decisions. Therefore, actions must be monitored, reviewed and managed to ensure they’re making the correct decisions.
Sustainability
One of the key topics discussed throughout the Directions 2024 and indeed one of the hot topics for every Business at the minute is sustainability. Businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the demand and importance of sustainability. Helping businesses address environmental concerns, Business Central has been enhanced with features that support the tracking, monitoring and management of emissions and ESG objectives.
This has been further enhanced by Continia Document Capture that will allow information like electricity and fuel consumption to be automatically extracted from invoices and automatically categorised into one of the three different emission scopes defined by the ESG standard.
This will help organisations streamline sustainability reporting processes and drive progress towards their ESG goals.
Licensing and Migration Incentives
With a significant number of clients still on older on-premise solutions, Microsoft is continuing to evolve the offers available. This is making it a great time to consider upgrading to cloud and take advantage of these offers.
Microsoft announced an extension to the long running bridge to the cloud license promotion through to December 31st, 2025. This involves a 40% discount for the first 3-year term for customers transitioning from an on-prem Dynamics solution to Dynamics 365 online.
In addition to Bridge to Cloud, there are a number of smaller one-off grants available for needs assessments and the deployment accelerator. This can ultimately help offset the cost of migration.
These are just some of the key highlights from Directions EMEA 2024. If you would like to learn more about how your business can benefit from the new updates coming soon to Dynamics 365 solutions, get in touch to speak to a member of our team today.
)
)
)