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14.11.2016

Everything you wanted to know about Dynamics 365

In our last post we announced the premiere of Dynamics NAV 2017 and arrival of a completely new product by Microsoft: Dynamics 365 – let’s have a closer look at what it can offer.

Dynamics 365 is how Microsoft intends to react to a growing market of business applications in the cloud. It is estimated that in 2019 the market for ERP online software combined with CRM online will amount to 1.7 billion EUR (0.8 billion for ERP and 0.9 billion for CRM – data for 9 key European markets), which translates into 12% average growth every year. During the same period on-premise market will grow at a substantially lower pace of 1% YOY reaching also 1.7 billion EUR in 2019 with significantly different proportions: 1.5 billion EUR for ERP on-premise systems and only 0.2 billion for CRM. Moving to cloud is more conspicuous in the western world and we are yet to observe its impact in Poland, but it is still perfect time to learn more about what ‘intelligent applications in the cloud’ can offer, because this is how Microsoft decided to label its Dynamics 365 products.

Dynamics 365 is a new packaging for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX functionality offered on Azure platform. There are two business lines for Dynamics 365:

  1. Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition with the following modules:
    1. Operations (offering functionality of AX7)
    2. Sales
    3. Marketing (as in current CRM Online)
    4. Customer Service
    5. Field Service
    6. Project Service Automation
    7. Marketing – full version (coming soon)

On 1st November 2016 the product reached the status of general availability, which means that it is obtainable worldwide. You can set up a trial version on this website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/operations
The system offers both on-premise and cloud installation and the monthly prices per user for cloud version are as follows*:

  • 210 USD – full functionality (Plan 2)
  • 190 USD – Operations App
  • 60-115 USD – all ‘CRM’ apps listed below and PowerApps (Plan 1 – tiered pricing based on the number of users)
  • 95 USD – one ‘CRM’ app from this list: Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service, PSA
  • 40 USD – application creator PowerApps
  • 4 – 10 USD – Team Member license (full read access, limited write access)

Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition is optimized for 250+ users. It won’t be possible to run this edition on installations with <20 users.

  1. Dynamics 365 Business Edition consists of the following modules:
    1. Financials (part of Dynamics NAV functionality; at some point it will offer everything what Starter Pack offers now)
    2. Sales
    3. Marketing (as in current CRM Online)

Starting from 1st November 2016 the product is available in US and Canada. It will enter 4 key European markets in 2017 and will be made available in Poland in the upcoming 10+ months.
The system will be available only as a cloud installation with the following prices per user per month*:

  • 28 – 50 USD full functionality (tiered pricing based on the number of users)
  • 40 USD per each application: Financials, Sales, Marketing, PowerApps
  • 5 USD per Team Member license (full read access, limited write access)

Dynamics 365 Business Edition is optimized for 10-250 users. It won’t be possible to run it on installations for >300 users. Microsoft’s intention is to make the product customizable and expandable through applications available on AppSource. The processes that are common for almost each organization such as finance, distribution, sales will be managed by applications which are part of Dynamics 365 Business Edition, but functionality such as advanced manufacturing or production will be available as AppSource apps dedicated for a specific market or micro-vertical. At the time of publishing this article (14th November 2016) there are 178 applications dedicated for Dynamics 365 (both editions).
The full functionality of Dynamics 365 for Financials has been already released and you can find it on a slide below:

Dynamics 365 brings good value proposition and offers unique opportunities for Customers, Partners and Microsoft itself. Over the years Microsoft has managed to create many products that have shaped the IT world as we know it. Not all of them were instant successes however and they required some brushing up before winning users’ hearts. How will it play out now? Online applications users demand reliable, fast and simple solutions. If Microsoft fails to deliver any of those qualities it will be offered very few chances to improve before the customers make switch to a more online-friendly solution. We will be happy to observe how the situation unfolds on western markets and we are already making efforts to make Dynamics 365 part of our offering.