Beyond the Hype: A Practical Guide to Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

As we navigate the AI hype in the news, let’s remember that AI’s true potential is unlocked when applied to solve real-world business challenges. It’s not about chasing the latest trends. It’s about harnessing its capabilities to create tangible, measurable benefits for your organization. So, when discussing AI’s impact, let’s shift the focus from the headlines to the bottom line, where its practical applications are changing the way we work.

Enter Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central — the AI-powered tool that will allow everyone in your organization to spend more time on the parts of their jobs they love and less on the mundane aspects.

The Essence of Copilot

Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central isn’t just another AI novelty gadget. Instead, Copilot is embedded into Business Central, where it’s been given targeted, context-sensitive capabilities. It brings generative AI and natural language processing to your daily operations, aimed at simplifying tasks, improving productivity, and delivering actionable insights.

Here’s a look at the capabilities and benefits of Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and a broader look at AI’s presence throughout Business Central.

Empower Collections Efforts

Collections managers have a tough job as they balance polite, personalized customer communications with successful collection rates. Copilot capabilities in Dynamics 365 Finance provide collections teams with quick access to credit and payment history, allowing them to prioritize and personalize customer interactions while proactively keeping customers in good standing. Copilot produces an AI-powered summary of a customer’s account and revenue and can then draft and send AI-generated reminder emails to customers.

Accelerate eCommerce Rollout

In the crowded eCommerce marketplace, your ability to craft captivating product descriptions can significantly impact sales. Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central comes to the rescue, assisting your businesses by quickly drafting AI-generated product descriptions. Copilot tailors the descriptions to your brand and product attributes, and you can easily customize them to match your preferred style, tone, and length.

Optimize the Supply Chain

Adaptive supply chain management is more critical than ever. Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics Supply Chain Management offers predictive insights and contextual email outreach, helping your business proactively address disruptions. Using intelligence from the new module, Copilot will proactively flag external issues such as weather, financials, and geography that could impact key supply chain processes. Predictive insights then identify affected orders across materials, inventory, carriers, distribution networks, and more. Then, your supply chain planners can ask Dynamics 365 Copilot to draft an email to alert impacted partners and mitigate potential disruptions before they happen. Copilot translates insights into actions, ensuring your supply chain operates efficiently and reliably. Read more on this important topic here.

Streamline Project Operations

In June, Microsoft announced Copilot’s capabilities in Dynamics 365 Project Operations. One of the standout benefits of this addition is the ability to accelerate project planning. Project managers can now create detailed project plans for new engagements within minutes, a process that previously took hours. All it takes is a simple natural language description of the project, and Copilot generates a project plan that can be further refined, saving valuable time and expediting project kick-offs.

As the project progresses, Copilot simplifies project status reporting — generating project status reports and reducing the hours typically spent on research and report writing. Copilot can also play a proactive role in risk management. It identifies potential project risks and suggests real-time mitigation plans, allowing your project managers to address challenges promptly.

AI is Woven Throughout Dynamics 365 Business Central

While our focus in this article thus far has been on Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, AI is working in other ways throughout the application. Below are three additional areas where Microsoft is leveraging Azure AI to accelerate efficiencies.

• Elevating Customer Service with Sales and Inventory Forecasting
  The Sales and Inventory Forecast extension leverages your historical data to anticipate impending sales trends. Using Azure AI to analyze your sales history, the extension generates detailed forecasts for the weeks or months ahead.
• Anticipate Challenges with Late Payment Predictions
  The Late Payment Prediction extension in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central uses Azure AI to analyze historical payment behaviors, providing valuable insights into the likelihood of on-time payments.
• Empower Decision-Making with Cash Flow Analysis
  Azure AI also powers the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cash Flow Analysis report and provides a comprehensive cash flow forecast, offering a clear financial landscape overview.

Ready to Get Started?

As a business leader, the smart use of technology is central to your success. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot is one of the most straightforward, most powerful tools to come around in years, and it’s poised to deliver tangible, real-world benefits for your business. Learn more about how to maximize your organizational readiness for Microsoft 365 Copilot by contacting us.