Why Business Central Is a Favorite ERP Among International Companies
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a powerful Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application used by thousands of companies worldwide. Business Central is flexible, easily customized, and provides a robust ERP solution for mid-sized and large companies.
In this article, we discuss using Business Central for multi-site and international deployments.
Business Central for multi-entity and international companies
Business Central originated in Europe as Navision and has always had strong support for many of the essential features required by businesses with global operations. BC supports multi-entity consolidations for companies using multiple currencies, different exchange rates, different charts of accounts, and different fiscal years, even if the foreign entity isn’t running Business Central.
Microsoft has provided over 40 localized versions of BC for use in different countries or geographical regions. Additional localizations in various languages are available from Microsoft partners.
Headquarters, subsidiaries, and international offices
Companies that are structured with a central headquarters supporting international offices or subsidiaries appreciate Business Central’s international capabilities.
Offices and subsidiaries in different countries and geographic locales often have different legal requirements and business processes than the central headquarters company. BC is flexible enough to support many different industries, governance practices, and local laws and regulations. International offices can customize their localized version of BC and still exchange financial data, reports, and insights with headquarters.
Using Business Central in multi-tiered ERP
While Business Central is capable of handling the needs of geographically diverse companies, many large corporations use enterprise ERPs to run their headquarters (Tier 1) and an ERP designed for Small and Midsized Businesses (SMBs) for their subsidiaries and satellite offices (Tier 2).
In most cases, the headquarters manages the overall financial consolidation of its subsidiary and satellite offices along with the human resources management, global marketing, and operational strategy of the company as a whole.
In contrast, the smaller offices are more concerned with delivering products and services to the local market and have much different accounting needs than headquarters.
This multi-tiered system provides several advantages:
- Enterprise ERPs, like Oracle or SAP, are complex to install and configure, and administration of these applications in each office can be a massive drain on IT resources, not only at headquarters but in each satellite office as well. SMB products like Business Central are much simpler to install and administer than enterprise ERPs.
- Enterprise ERPs are generally overkill for most regional offices, while SMB ERPs are designed specifically for their business needs.
- Enterprise ERP licensing per user can be prohibitively expensive for users at each local office, particularly when their functional needs do not require all the features of the enterprise product.
- It is typically a poor decision to impose the standardized processes used in headquarters on each local and international subsidiary office. An SMB ERP product will facilitate allowing each office to have the flexibility to meet their local needs better. Plus, it is very difficult to perform customizations to an enterprise ERP to fit the regional requirements of each local office.
In a multi-tier environment, Business Central provides a cost-effective second-tier solution for international offices and subsidiaries. Business Central supports localizations, process automation, multiple currencies, customizability, and enterprise-grade user and data security.
Choosing Business Central for international deployments
Dynamics 365 Business Central is an ideal choice for companies that have international offices or subsidiaries.
Business Central integrates easily with multiple business applications, allowing financial and business data to be shared among the offices and with headquarters. Talk to us at ArcherPoint to learn more.