Leading ERP companies would like you to believe that they are the best cloud ERP option for your business. However, to take advantage of their cloud offering, you’ll have to make some tradeoffs – including giving up much of the Microsoft platform. SMB Suite has a better solution. Enjoy all of the benefits of a modern cloud solution with a proven Microsoft based platform, all for one low monthly subscription.
In this three part series, we will take a look at the benefits of using SMB Suite solutions as an alternative to other cloud ERP offerings. We’ll examine the benefits of using a cloud based solution, discussing what to look for when reviewing Cloud ERP offering, and why SMB Suite offers the most value.
A major advantage of the cloud offering of SMB Suite is that it is built on the proven Microsoft platform. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide, as it is the most predominant business productivity application. Microsoft has made extensive on-going investments in the Microsoft platform, including Dynamics ERP, to add more robust functionality. At the same time, they have improved the user experience with streamlined and personalized menus, role based home pages, and tools to help businesses gain greater insight with easy-to-use reporting and advanced business intelligence. It is important to look for one publisher for all of the critical foundation components of a cloud solution, because this helps to ensure seamless integration. With SMB Suite, the database is Microsoft SQL Server, the productivity apps are Microsoft Office, the document storage is Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft SQL Server based, reporting tools include Microsoft SQL Reporting Services as well as Excel, and the ERP and CRM solutions are built on Microsoft Dynamics. By design these solutions work together better than components assembled from different publishers. Compare the Microsoft platform with cloud ERP solutions that piecemeal together their solution with Google docs, BoxNet, and a database from another publisher.
Another consideration to look for is fully integrated applications. This will greatly reduce the duplication of data and the risk of errors. SMB Suite features a fully integrated suite of products that will increase your productivity, reduce cost, and save time. As many traditionally deployed businesses know, the cost of implementation, integration, and on-going application maintenance of typical on-premise environments can be many times the cost of the software itself. However, with SMB Suite you’ll never have to worry about an approach that requires costly integration to get different applications to work together. Each application of the SMB Suite works together. Gone are the days of separate on-premise software packages—one for accounting, one for sales force management and automation, one for ecommerce, one for service management, and perhaps one for warehousing. SMB Suite has combined Microsoft Dynamics with solutions that add value, all designed to take advantage of the proven Microsoft platform. These fully integrated solutions include customer relationship management with sales automation, service and marketing solutions, ecommerce for both business to business and business to consumer transactions, human resource and payroll solutions, service management, job costing, distribution and warehousing, plus unique Excel based business intelligence.
A great benefit of moving to the cloud is the elimination of on-premise IT costs. The cost of using on-premise software includes purchasing and maintaining of computer hardware, operating systems, software upgrades, service packs, virus protection, plus daily backup and recovery. Not to mention taking care of equipment breaks, password resets, and training employees. For most small to medium businesses, having an IT department is an expensive luxury. Yet without at least one IT person, there is a very real risk of costly viruses, loss of data, and downtime. Using a modern cloud based solution eliminates this concern. All of the purchasing and maintenance of the hardware and software is taken care of by SMB Suite. SMB Suite keeps your data secure by protecting your business from viruses, maintaining required service packs, and performing daily backups. Additionally, your business won’t be tying up funds in server hardware or paying for charges for additional hardware upgrades as your business grows. This greatly reduces risk, gives more bandwidth to IT for strategic projects, and allows your business more time to focus on what you do best to serve your customers.
In part two we’ll explore how you can move to the cloud for one monthly subscription, how Microsoft Dynamics works seamlessly with Excel, and how to gain greater visibility into your company with business intelligence.