Digital transformation in any company should start from a solid, central core and extend to the “edges”—toward automation and integration with external systems. At the center stands, of course, the ERP system: that’s where cross-department processes happen, where the logic of our business lives, and where the advantage is born that we build by knowing our own realities and looking for even the smallest differentiating improvements. Sometimes these are simple automations, and sometimes integrations with external services in places no one would have suspected at first.
From my perspective—after about 12 years working around ERP systems—this sounds simple and obvious today. At the beginning, however, it was chaos. When a dozen or so years ago I was a member of a team implementing an ERP, despite my strong programming and IT background, we had no idea what to realistically expect from such a system.
I like talking about digital transformation because we live in times when, despite growing experience and knowledge about building software, we are still witnessing at least evolution—and sometimes outright revolution. An example is the Transformer architecture (2017), which opened the door to today’s large language models (LLMs). It’s precisely the pace of change that makes digital transformation in companies primarily a process of adapting to new conditions.
On the blog I want to write a lot about ERPs in the Dynamics 365 family, specifically about Business Central—this is where I’m currently gaining the most experience. I’ll lean on my broad programming toolkit, my practice in process automation, and my day-to-day closeness to business problems stemming from my role as Chief Technology Officer. In the Microsoft ecosystem, I see Business Central as a component that works together with Microsoft 365: I’ll cover topics like AL extensions, integration with Outlook, Teams, and Power BI, as well as issues in the area of cybersecurity.
ERP as the company’s technological backbone
A company’s digital transformation starts with a central, robust ERP system that serves as the technological backbone of the entire business. It’s where data from sales, finance, warehousing, and customer service are collected, and where cross-department processes take place in one place. In practice, this means all departments operate on the same, up-to-date information—we eliminate chaos and finally put an end to the age-old question: “which version of this Excel file is the right one?”
Below I expand on a few key expectations I have for modern ERP systems and show how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central meets them from the perspective of my experience to date.
A single source of truth—say goodbye to Excel as a database
Anyone who has worked in a company without an integrated system knows the pain: sales has its forecasts, finance its results, and the warehouse its stock levels—and these three worlds rarely align. Meetings turn into investigations about which data is true. That’s why the first and absolutely fundamental expectation of an ERP is to create one shared source of truth.
In Business Central, this means the logic for finance, sales, purchasing, and warehouse operations lives in a single, coherent database. When a salesperson creates an order, the warehouse worker immediately sees the stock reservation, and accounting sees the future revenue. There’s no room for manually re-entering data between systems, which not only saves time but—above all—drastically reduces the number of errors. From a management perspective, it’s a real revolution: I log in in the morning and see key metrics from the whole company on my dashboard—without waiting for someone to prepare a report. This gives a complete picture of the business in real time and lets you make decisions based on facts, not hunches.
Security and auditability—because data is the most valuable asset
In my role as CTO, security is a priority. An ERP system stores absolutely everything: from customer data, through product margins, to payroll. We must be sure this information is protected and that access to it is tightly controlled.
Business Central, running in Microsoft’s cloud, bases authentication on Azure Active Directory. It’s the same mechanism that secures our Microsoft 365 accounts, so employees use one secure sign-in. More importantly, the system enables precise permission management. I can define that a purchasing department employee sees only cost invoices but has no access to salary data.
But the real power here is full auditability. The built-in change log is something every manager and auditor will appreciate. If the price of a key product suddenly changes, I can check in seconds who made the modification, when, and from which computer. It’s an invaluable tool for maintaining order and accountability—something that was practically impossible to achieve in old systems or scattered files.
Scalability and availability—a system that grows with the company
I remember when implementing ERP meant buying expensive servers that turned out too weak three years later. Today, thanks to the cloud, that problem disappears. The scalability of Business Central means the system flexibly adapts to our needs. As the company grows, we hire new people and open more branches—we simply add more licenses. We don’t worry about compute power, disk space, or database performance—Microsoft manages that.
In practice, this provides tremendous peace of mind. The business can focus on expansion, and the technology simply keeps up. What’s more, ERP availability from anywhere in the world has become standard. Thanks to tablet and smartphone apps, I can approve an urgent order while at the airport, and a salesperson can check stock levels while sitting with a client. That’s modern flexibility.
Extensibility—how to tailor the system without breaking it
One of the biggest nightmares with older ERP systems was modifying the application “core.” Every change, even the smallest, carried the risk that a future vendor update would break everything. This led to situations where companies avoided updates for years, running outdated and insecure software.
Business Central introduces a philosophical shift: the system is expanded through extensions. It’s a bit like installing apps on a smartphone. Need a specific feature to handle barcodes? Install an extension. Want to integrate with a niche courier platform? Write or buy a dedicated plugin. The system’s core remains untouched.
For me, as a programmer and system architect, it’s a brilliant solution. Updates from Microsoft (which arrive monthly!) install automatically without affecting our custom solutions. We get the best of both worlds: a stable, modern system and full flexibility to tailor it to our company’s unique processes.
Open APIs and integrations—because ERP isn’t an island
No system operates in a vacuum today. An ERP must be an open nerve center that communicates smoothly with other tools. Business Central was designed with integrations in mind. Thanks to its open API, we can connect it to virtually any other software: an e-commerce platform, a CRM system, or a specialized production application.
But the real magic happens within the Microsoft ecosystem. The integration with Outlook, which lets you issue a quote or invoice straight from a received email, is a feature employees love from day one. Likewise, the ability to share and discuss ERP data directly in Microsoft Teams. This makes the system a natural part of everyday work, not a separate, disliked tool you have to log into.
Analytics close to transactions—data that works for you
Once all the data is in one place, the final step is to turn it into insight. In the traditional approach, analytics was the realm of analysts who, after many days, prepared complex reports. Today we expect to see data here and now.
Business Central delivers this in two ways. First, it offers built-in analytical tools that let you filter, group, and visualize data directly on lists and cards. Second, thanks to native integration with Power BI, we get powerful, interactive dashboards embedded right in the system’s interface. A finance manager can monitor cash flows on an ongoing basis, and a head of sales can track goal attainment in real time. Decisions become faster and fact-based because analytics stops being a separate process and becomes an integral part of operations.
To sum up, a modern ERP such as Dynamics 365 Business Central is much more than an invoicing and accounting program. It’s the technological backbone that organizes data, automates processes, ensures security, and grows alongside the company. It’s the foundation on which we can build further digital transformation—from simple automations to advanced integrations.