Rethinking Business Resilience & Responsiveness Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

Even the most mature companies have not encountered this level of turmoil before, and virtual has suddenly become our default way to live and work. As Satya Nadella stated in Microsoft’s recent earnings call, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”

Most companies have passed through several phases as they are in the process of healing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gartner breaks its post-pandemic planning framework into three phases, referred to collectively as “The Reset”: Phase 1-Respond, Phase2 –Recover, and Phase 3- Renew.

During the initial six months of the pandemic,, most organisations’ complete focus was on business continuity – equipping employees to work remotely and allowing customers to continue to access goods and services from home whilst sustaining core operations. Now, businesses are turning their attention to resilience using the pandemic to review and reconfigure their operating models.

The priority now is to be scalable and to swiftly iterate product portfolios in response to varying market demands. It is time to rebuild and make your business ready for anything that comes next. We encourage you to focus on these priorities while you go through these phases:

1. Better cash flow forecasting

With the growing delays in customer payments, it is becoming more challenging to forecast your short-and long-term cash flow. You will need a way to keep the business running while also being empathetic to the challenges your clients are facing. Likewise, you need to see if you have adequate working capital, cash for salaries, expenses, and more. You need to keep track of when customers need to pay you or how long you can defer payments to your suppliers.

One such solution enabling companies to do this is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and its cash flow forecasting capabilities which will help you understand everything that is going on in your business.

Likewise, AI can also help you to accurately forecast short-and-long-term cash flow while being empathetic to your customers’ challenges. For instance, Salesforce’s artificial intelligence capabilities will give you a smarter way to predict cash flow. Its Einstein Prediction Builder will allow you to predict late payments and help your business and customers to take crucial steps towards recovery!

2. Staying on your toes with your customer value chain

Due to COVID-19, many companies cannot engage with customers face-to-face. As a result, sellers and buyers may have difficulty envisioning products and services and knowing how best to engage with one another during this crisis. Therefore, most companies have moved to virtual sales and marketing models. Besides, being able to digitally connect with customers also ensures you are engaging with your prospects and consumers in a timely and safe manner.

One such all-in-one platform enabling companies to do this is Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing. Dynamics 365 Marketing can help you improve customer communications and create seamless customer journeys to nurture leads, and empower your sales teams to build rewarding business relationships- even through these challenging times.

Having a 360-degree view of your customers across all data sources is crucial when everyone is in isolation and working remotely. Dynamics 365 for Customer Service can help you transform your customer experiences, automate resolutions, and free-up staff members to focus on high-priority cases.

Likewise, if you want to scale your customer experiences and increase the productivity of your agents with AI-powered predictions, recommendations, and chatbots, Salesforce Service Cloud, is an option worth considering as well.

3. Shift to an integrated cloud ERP

It’s already a cliché that the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the shift to virtual. But many companies are going further by adopting a well-integrated ERP system.

If you’ve been assuming that your business needs a new finance system: it still does! COVID-19 makes this even more pertinent. Cloud ERP can keep your team up and running like a well-oiled machine.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central has the calibre to help your business surpass this unpredictability. Implementation costs and time can be a concern. But, with our Business Central quick-start package,, we can help you get up and running in under two weeks and still stay on your budget!

4. Cost containment & optimisation

Weighing short-term and long-term survival plans can be tough with sales slumping and expenses remaining the same. Organisations need to reduce operational costs and free up capital to accelerate growth opportunities.

One such solution is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that can help you manage your finances better. Here’s how:

• Easily track financial performance with custom general ledger (G/L) and account schedules reporting

• Expedite financial closing and reporting by using the integrated accounts receivable and payable capabilities

• View charts/reports in real-time through built-in reports, Excel, and Power BI

5. Talent agility

Your organisation will need to rethink your operating model based on how your people work best. With proper planning and strategy, you can reduce manual processes to make more of your existing staff and enable employees to respond to external changes efficiently while evolving to an optimal balance of staff and automation.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for HR, can help HR leaders rethink, reshape, and re-evaluate their processes. You can drive operational excellence as D365 HR helps you to optimise your organisational structure. Moreover, you can save on administrative costs and automate routine tasks so your HR experts can focus where it counts –  driving a high-performance culture.

6. Resilience

Reinforcing business resilience means embracing digital technology and developing digital capabilities. You need to protect the core operations of your business and build a scalable organisation that is flexible for the future. To ensure business agility and build a lasting competitive advantage you need an integrated system to avoid data redundancies, reporting errors, data duplication possibilities and more.

Moreover, having an integrated system will exponentially increase productivity, enabling automation for your organisation. Microsoft Dynamics 365 will empower your business to build resilience for today and what’s ahead. Here’s how: