How Do You Know What You Don't Know?

Over the years, what question do you think we’ve been asked the most? No, it’s not been about a particular piece of functionality in the system or best practices around a particular process – it’s “How do we compare with other companies?” It’s natural to wonder, as a user of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central / Dynamics NAV, if how you use the system is similar to others. And the corollary to that question: what are others doing that you’re not? What naturally follows once you start down that path, although it’s a question that is seldom voiced but often on our minds: “How do we know what we don’t know?” With remarkable consistency, we all know we don’t use as much of the system as we should, but we struggle to even know what is “in there” for our company and our team to take advantage of. Let me summarize and state this in a different way: how can you drive more business process improvement with your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central / NAV system?

Let Business Process Improvement be your goal

As we’ve continued to share these questions and stories amongst our team, we realized how ardently we wanted to provide an answer. But how to even do that? Even our team of experts with an average of 15+ years of experience struggles to itemize everything they don’t know. But we were intrigued, and as big fans of continuous improvement, we felt providing some measure to address these prevalent questions was imperative.

Then it hit us – what if we identify the business process improvements that a company can drive by leveraging the functions and features of BC / NAV, and provide the ability for a company to compare themselves to those benchmarks to see for themselves what’s achievable?

Introducing the Business Transformation Scorecard™

We’re truly excited to announce the release of our first two Business Transformation Scorecards, which will allow any company using Business Central or NAV to evaluate how well they are taking advantage of the system to drive forward their business processes. In a matter of 5 minutes you’ll discover key functions and features available that you’re not taking advantage of, all in the system you already own!

If you work on your company’s Finance / Accounting team, you’ll be excited that included in our initial release is the Finance & Accounting Scorecard, which evaluates your business processes across the following functions:

• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Journals
• Reporting and Budgeting
• Month-end Closing

As we commonly see significant opportunities for process improvement with many companies’ warehousing functions, we’re also pleased to provide the Warehousing Scorecard, providing you the opportunity to evaluate your business processes with:

• Inbound Receipts
• Inventory Control
• Outbound Shipments
• Warehousing Operations

Your first question very well could be, how much is this going to cost me? To quote a current commercial: free, free free, free, and free. We so fundamentally believe in helping companies do more with their Business Central / NAV system, we want this to be an enabling tool for you and your team. We will freely admit that this tool will not fit every company in every industry 100% perfectly – that would be impossible. Maybe there is a good reason you do not use a particular feature in the system, or some of your business processes are supported by an add-on rather than core BC / NAV. No worries – that’s not the point! It should still help you identify key areas where you’re missing out on the system’s functionality to drive business process improvement for your company (or if you’re using an older version of NAV, some great opportunities awaiting you with an upgrade 😊).

Insights on your business processes – scary or stimulating?

We truly believe taking a few minutes to evaluate your company will be an eye-opening catalyst to positive change for you and your team! Before our official release we’ve tested the beta versions of the scorecards with many of your peers, and the feedback has been powerful and convicting. Here is just a sample of what we heard:

“Facing the truthful answers to the questions was difficult. Many companies, including mine, have long “brushed under the rug” these questions and answers.”

“I know we are not utilizing BC/NAV as we could be – we haven’t ever really had any training when we implemented NAV on what we can do.”

“[When answering] the inventory questions, I saw the opportunity for theft. On the barcoding questions, I saw the opportunity for efficiency improvements. On the separation of duty questions, my heart just sunk.”

Beyond identifying features and functions that you are not aware of, and business processes improvements you’ve yet to implement, we hope you’ll take advantage of the question list to drive powerful conversations with your team. How?

1. Complete the scorecard (if you’re unsure on some answers, definitely pull in others from your team)
2. Receive your score
3. Complete the contact form so we can email you a copy of your results
4. Review your results with your team and identify where you want to drive impactful change
5. Let us know how we can help

Time to change

To quote the lyrics of a groovy song from my childhood:

When it's time to change (when it's time to change),

Don't fight the tide, go along for the ride,

Don't ya see.

When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange,

Who you are and what you're gonna be.

If you’d like to hear more about why and how we developed our Business Transformation Scorecard^™ and how we hope it helps you do more with your Business Central / NAV system, enjoy the following short interviews:

Kerry Peters, CEO, discusses our Finance & Accounting Scorecard

Kim Congleton, COO, discusses our Warehousing Scorecard

We hope you take 5 minutes soon to see what business process improvement you can drive with your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central / NAV system. Good luck!