With NRF 2024 just around the corner, we’re taking a moment to reflect on this year’s theme: “Make it Matter.”

Like most years, NRF’s theme is as topical as ever as brands and retailers continue to rebound from a tumultuous few years that devastated their bottom lines.

Much like Microsoft, we believe the key to making 2024 meaningful lies in unlocking unique value, productivity and growth.

But without a modern, industry-bespoke solution in place… how can brands truly make an impact?

For this reason, it’s essential that brands endeavour to transition to an intelligent, cloud-based ERP like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

What is D365 Business Central?

D365 Business Central is a comprehensive business management solution that helps small and midsized organisations transform operations by connecting finance, sales, service, and operations teams within a single, easy-to-use application.

It is a highly functional and performant system that has garnered significant traction in recent years. Forbes listed D365 Business Central as the best overall ERP system, while Gartner positioned Microsoft as a Leader in its Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises.

But why specifically is D365 Business Central the right choice for your business?

Without going into the technical nitty gritty, the solution is often touted as the best ERP because it enables businesses to:

• Adapt faster
• Work smarter
• Perform better

Below, we’ll look deeper into these points and discuss how brands can add the ever-important last-mile functionality into their operations.

Adapt faster

Today, consumer and business requirements are constantly changing, which can be challenging for brands to deal with effectively.

Fortunately, D365 Business Central enables brands to adapt faster, empowering them to innovate and adopt new business models quicker with mobility, reliability, security, and an adaptable solution that grows with them.

Equipped with a modern, cloud-based solution, brands can easily prepare for disruption with the insights needed to pivot quickly, shift business models, and cultivate strategic plans.

Work smarter

In tandem with the ability to adapt faster, D365 Business Central enables businesses to work smarter and streamline their operations.

Employees using the system will be empowered to be more collaborative, productive, and impactful with actionable insights, Microsoft Copilot, and seamless connection with Microsoft 365, including Teams, Outlook, and Excel.

Crucially, staff will be confident to take action and achieve more with AI-infused processes, automated workflows, and interoperability to minimise disruption and focus strictly on high-value-added tasks.

Perform better

With agile processes and empowered employees, brands will benefit from increased performance to ensure continuous optimisation.

D365 Business Central enables high performance with guided workflows, governance, and real-time metrics to optimise processes, accelerate financial closes, and improve cycle times.

In the past, Microsoft reported that businesses experienced a 20% growth in return on investment over a three-year period by utilising D365 Business Central. Additionally, they enjoyed substantial cost savings and enhancements in productivity.

Leveraging the partner network

While there’s no doubt that D365 Business Central excels in the ERP market, that’s not to say there aren’t gaps within the solution. This isn’t a specific issue with Microsoft, however, but rather ERP systems in general.

In today’s business climate, utilising a solution built for your specific industry is pivotal to success – but ERPs are generic in nature.

For fashion and apparel specifically, there is a massive gap in the market for industry-specific functionality in modern ERP environments.

This is why market leaders like Microsoft partner with Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), such as K3, to add critical last-mile functionality.

As experts in the fashion and apparel industry, we build solutions that offer the best-in-breed, standardised processes that remove the need for external inputs like APIs, all while seamlessly embedded within Microsoft’s platforms.

For example, K3 Pebblestone is embedded within D365 Business Central to extend the base solution with fashion-specific functionality to assist brand owners, wholesalers, and CMT companies with their operations.

Make it matter with D365 Business Central

It’s wise to remember that while many view software upgrades as costly, the associated benefits greatly outweigh any short-term pain.

After all, our research has previously found that 86% of fashion retailers say their #1 bottleneck is a need for more visibility over their operations.

With customer expectations higher than ever, it’s never been more critical for brands to know exactly what stock is available at any given moment.

And this is precisely what will differentiate the winners from the losers this year.

The businesses determined to “make it matter” will be capitalising on every opportunity and they most certainly won’t be the ones still relying on antiquated ERPs.

So, what are you waiting for? Drop us a line today to discover how you can make 2024 matter with Microsoft and K3.