Integrating what was Dynamics 365 with Magento Commerce will allow your business to stay up to date with inventory levels, orders, shipments, pricing and customer groups.
You can increase productivity, reduce data entry errors and optimize your business’s key processes.
However, a recent report from Forrester, ‘Look Beyond ERP: Introducing The DOP’ says that many enterprise resource planning (ERP) initiatives don’t deliver the expected benefits because organizations don’t have the right operational systems and processes in place.
Here are our 10 top tips for realizing business benefits by integrating Dynamics 365 with Magento Commerce, including:
- streamlined salesÂ
- competitive advantage
- accurate record correlation
- automated order processing
- reduced labor, operation and coordination costs
- greater control of inventory and order processing
- increased transparency and improved information flow.
First, though, let’s take a look at these two powerful business tools.
Dynamics 365
The original Dynamics 365 accounting solution ‘Navision’ is over 30 years old and it became part of the Microsoft enterprise resource planning (ERP) family in 2002. It’s popular with small to medium-sized businesses that want flexible solutions. After many different versions, its functionality is now at the heart of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central solution.Â
Whether you have an earlier version or are planning to upgrade your ERP system, it provides a clear overview of performance in real time. You will have access to accurate financial forecasts, project management, sales operations, purchasing, manufacturing, warehousing and stock management. Integration with your ecommerce platform will allow you to realize its full power and build your business.
Magento Commerce
Magento is a leading ecommerce solution providing an intuitive tool for businesses to manage their marketing and sales information as well as their user experiences, customer and product data. It comes with impressive out of the box functionality and is optimized for Cloud services in a payment card industry (PCI) compliant environment.
While multiple additional software packages can be used to deliver effective user experiences, integration with key business systems will significantly improve efficiency, reliability and profitability.
10 top tips for integrating Dynamics 365 with Magento Commerce
- Choose experienced partners
You will need expert support to make sure that the integration process is specified and delivered to meet your business needs. Look for partners with high-level expertise in Dynamics 365 and Magento Commerce integration. Meet them in person and make sure that they understand the technical requirements and your wider business goals. They should be more than happy to explore the risks, challenges, obstacles, costs and deadlines with you.
- Integrate in the Cloud
Cloud integration will not only meet your needs for real-time exchange of data and processes, it will also give you the flexibility to use multiple devices over a network or via the internet. Because security is the business of Cloud service providers, you can also be confident that you are in safe hands and their services will be scalable, so they can grow along with your needs.
- Future-proof your integrationÂ
While it might seem a long way ahead, it’s worth taking the long view of your requirements for ordering, payments, customer relationship management, shipment and stock control for all your current and future channels.
Choosing well-established solutions like Dynamics 365 and Magento will give you confidence for the future. You will be well-placed to meet the needs of your business as it grows, and as your product range and multichannel strategy expand.
- Decide what should be integrated
One of the biggest barriers to improved business efficiency is siloed data. So, the important first step is to clearly define which information should be shared. Common requirements include orders, product information, and inventory. While some data could be held in Dynamics 365 or Magento, you will need to have a clear view of which option will deliver the most operational benefits.
The Dynamics 365 Common Data Model allows data to be shared without extensive custom integration by providing a centralized point where systems can connect. It bridges the gap between a business’s information resources.
To make the right choices you will need to analyze your business processes, customer journeys and brand goals. This will make sure that the technical data integration is properly aligned with your business strategy as well as your operational requirements.
- Understand workflows
Data moving between Dynamics 365 and Magento Commerce will be managed in workflows, so you will need to understand what information must be delivered, where it must go and what will trigger these interactions.
For example, to improve customer satisfaction and to minimise the need for refunds, you might want to be sure that you have all the items a customer has ordered in stock before taking payment and shipping. The payment process will only be triggered once your stock control systems have confirmed availability.
- Improve customer satisfaction with tracking informationÂ
Amazon has set new standards for shipping efficiency and visibility, so your customers expect to see information about the progress of their order. You will need to make sure that shipping details from your ERP system are quickly and accurately returned to Magento so that your customer can be sent an email to confirm their order tracking number.Â
- Make the most of middleware
In the modern world of multichannel selling it is common for processes to be managed outside of Magento or Dynamics 365. Middleware can streamline data workflows and make it easier to interconnect information across Dynamics 365 and Magento.Â
Middleware can also create an added layer of security by segregating the front-office functions of your ecommerce site from your ERP system.
- Take advantage of value opportunities
Integrating Dynamics 365 and Magento can drive efficiency gains including streamlined management of high-volume low-price units, improved scalability, and automating customer returns, for example.
- Test your integration
Once you have specified your requirements, it’s important have a planned testing framework to make sure that the results you expect will be achieved. You will want to know that data reaches the right places at the right time for your systems and processes to work reliably and for accuracy to be maintained.
Your own team should be involved, as well the technical professionals, so that you are confident that they understand the process and find it useful. They are also more likely to notice synchronization errors where data is not properly displayed or if updates are not as fast as they should be.
- Training and support
Your integration will be business-critical, so it will be essential that everyone knows how the processes should work and what to do if there are any issues.
Ideally, your implementation partner will support you throughout the training and into the future to provide continuity.
NavToMagento connector
Williams Commerce has created a real-time NavToMagento connector that allows you to upload products, price levels and customer data in seconds, whilst downloading orders directly into Dynamics 365 sales order processing. It provides a simple and seamless way of managing your Magento store within Dynamics 365, to increase the efficiency and productivity of your business.
Talk to our integration experts today and prepare your business for an integrated future.
