Microsoft Dynamics 365 Solutions for Chemical Manufacturers
Did you know that Microsoft has ERP and CRM solutions designed to meet the needs of chemical manufacturers? They do. Not only that, the Microsoft platform elevates these solutions to best-in-class options for companies small and large. Microsoft’s ERP and CRM offerings are all part of Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Stoneridge Software is recognized as an elite Microsoft Inner Circle partner for business applications, ranked among the top 1% of Microsoft’s partners globally. Stoneridge collaborates with chemical manufacturers to craft ERP and CRM solutions that transform how you do business.
Key ERP and CRM Features to Help Your Chemical Manufacturing Workflow
Microsoft Dynamics 365 has options suitable for both small/medium businesses as well as larger enterprises. These solutions all offer:
- Multi-company and multi-country capable financial management
- Budgeting and forecasting
- Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)
- Inventory and warehouse management
- Bar code scanning
- Hazmat management and safety data sheets
- Asset management
- Quality management
- Certificates of analysis
- EDI
- R&D Tools
- Label management
- Production planning
- Manufacturing execution
- Scales and weighing
- Marketing
- Sales
- Customer service
- Customer portals
Copilot Provides AI Assistance for All Microsoft Applications
Microsoft’s CoPilot capabilities bring powerful generative AI capabilities not just to the Office applications, but to the EPR and CRM solutions as well. With CoPilot you can ask your ERP and CRM systems questions using regular language, just like you would speak, and get answers. Imagine asking for a list of customers with year-over-year revenue declines and your ERP then provides that list. No exporting of data or Excel manipulation is needed. It is also a great training tool. If you don’t know how to do something, just ask, and it will tell you–complete with links to the screens. This natural language interface is going to have a borderline revolutionary impact on ERP/CRM ease of use and adoption rates.
Easy Integration With Microsoft 365 Products
Many businesses use Microsoft (Office) 365, Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, etc. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is tightly integrated with the entire Microsoft 365 stack. Mass edit your data in real-time in spreadsheets, create reports using Word, and respond to customer and vendor emails without leaving Outlook (this is a huge time saver) and much more. Productivity and user adoption are increased by extending the ERP and CRM into the tools your staff already use every day.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Makes Digital Transformation Easy
Digital transformation is a term used quite a bit and we are seeing positions dedicated to this at many of our clients. How can Microsoft Dynamics 365 help? By eliminating paper and other manual processes. Manually updated spreadsheets should be included in the definition of manual processes. For example:
- Bar code scanning for inventory receipts, warehouse movements, and picking eliminates mountains of paper and ensures that your inventory data is always up to date, to the second.
- Bar code scanning used for the collection of production data such as labor and materials consumption allows you to eliminate even more paper and have more accurate product costing data.
- Taking your “spreadsheet” processes, such as quality, R&D, and budgeting, for example, and moving them into the ERP/CRM, brings an entire level of control and order to these processes, reducing the risk of data errors and reducing the need to manually enter data over and over.
Benefits of Software as a Service (SaaS)
The Microsoft Dynamics 365 license includes hosting on Microsoft Azure in Microsoft’s very secure data centers. This represents a great value proposition as the Dynamics 365 licensing pricing is not much more than it would cost for such hosting purchased separately.
As a SaaS offering, you not only get hosting on Microsoft Azure–which includes backups, uptime guarantees, and automated facility rollover in the event of a catastrophic event–but you also ensure that you are running the latest version of the software. In this day and age, all of your software systems must be current to reduce the susceptibility to malicious attacks.
Power Platform Allows for Customization to Meet Your Specific Needs
Every company has some kind of uniqueness, some kind of “secret sauce.” Because of that, no one ERP is ever going to have 100% of what everybody needs or wants. However, with the Microsoft Power Platform, you can easily extend Microsoft Dynamics 365 to meet your exact specific needs no matter how complicated they might be. Power Apps is an Azure-based app builder that natively works with all of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications. You can create forms and screens that work in real time with your ERP and CRM data. Power Automate allows you to create integrations and automation. Do you have a specific formula management system that you must keep? No problem, we can work with that–easily setting up two-way integrations with any application that has a modern API.
Stoneridge Software Is Your Microsoft Inner Circle Partner
As you can see, not only is the core Microsoft ERP and CRM offering very complete, but the integration with the rest of the Microsoft platform and technologies provides a solution that will be easy for your staff to learn and use, easy to integrate with other key systems, and will stay current and grow with you for as long as you use it.
Stoneridge Software partners with chemical manufacturing companies to help them meet their challenges head-on. Get in touch with us today to learn more.
Under the terms of this license, you are authorized to share and redistribute the content across various mediums, subject to adherence to the specified conditions: you must provide proper attribution to Stoneridge as the original creator in a manner that does not imply their endorsement of your use, the material is to be utilized solely for non-commercial purposes, and alterations, modifications, or derivative works based on the original material are strictly prohibited.
Responsibility rests with the licensee to ensure that their use of the material does not violate any other rights.
