The momentum of e-commerce continues. In fact, McKinsey & Company has stated that e-commerce shopping has 30 percent higher penetration than pre-COVID-19 pandemic, and that this pandemic has also accelerated e-commerce growth by five years.¹ The COVID-19 pandemic certainly explains part of the growth in the demand, but it is not the whole story. Other factors such as increased mobile commerce, accelerated business-to-business (B2B) and direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce adoption, and new technological advances have created both opportunities and challenges for companies that embrace omnichannel retailing.

Retailers must either build new or infuse present strategies, systems, and processes with a composable approach to obtain omnichannel commerce experience. Let’s look at how Microsoft Dynamics 365 modular and composable cloud-based solutions help organizations provide their customers with unified commerce experiences.

Agility improves operational execution

Retailers are investing in integrating experiences and agile solutions for a good reason. McKinsey & Company states that the new bar for omnichannel excellence is 10 or more channels over three engagement modes (in-person, remote, and self-service), delivered 24/7.² Omnichannel fulfillment retail tactics, such as buy online pickup in store (BOPIS), buy online pickup at curbside (BOPAC), reserve online pickup in store (ROPIS), buy online return in store (BORIS), or locker, ship from store, ship to store, endless aisle, two-day delivery, and more, are adding more complexity and challenges for retailers to deliver on their order promise.

Hence, in these environments, unifying data across internal and external networks to include physical and digital touchpoints requires agile and resilient solutions for faster responses to market changes and disruptions. At the pandemic’s beginning, many retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies accelerated their digital transformation journey to adapt to changing customers’ needs quickly.

“With Dynamics 365, we can make decisions much more quickly and respond in near real-time to consumer demand. What used to take two days now happens almost immediately.”

—Russell Anderson, Senior Director, Retail Operations
Columbia Sportswear

Watch the video in our customer story: “Columbia Sportwear gains business flexibility and a sales boost with Microsoft Azure and Dynamics 365.”

A modern microservices-based order management system (OMS) helps organizations incrementally replace modular components of their existing infrastructure to gradually advance wherever they are in their supply chain and commerce digital transformation journey. It also allows organizations to avoid costly and time-consuming rip-and-replace projects by seamlessly integrating with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) investments, unifying data across disparate systems, and unlocking siloed inventory and operational data.

Extensibility scales end-to-end visibility and fulfillment

As order intake, cross-channel inventories, and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) intersect at order management, end-to-end visibility becomes an imperative. More than 80 percent of shoppers said it is important for retailers to provide the estimated date/time of arrival for products on their website, and 78 percent said providing in-store availability was important to them.³

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management helps organizations achieve end-to-end order visibility through its fulfillment optimization engine that uses real-time inventory visibility and AI. More than half, 66 percent, of retailers surveyed said inventory accuracy—a core capability for omnichannel fulfillment—was very or somewhat challenging when setting up their omnichannel program.⁴

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management also extends its intelligent fulfillment optimization capabilities with out-of-the-box, pre-built connectors to an ecosystem of specialized partners for e-commerce, delivery, transportation, warehouse management, tax compliance, price calculation, and other logistics services.

For example, consider our pre-built connector to our partner Flexe, the programmatic logistics leader. The Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management Flexe connector expands the fulfillment capabilities, processes purchase orders from Flexe, and adds flexible warehouse management service. It also provides Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management users the option to rapidly expand network capacity, or allocate inventory closer to the customers and avoid the long-term contracts or fixed costs of traditional warehouse solutions.

With the ability to extend business capabilities through pre-built partner connectors, organizations can improve omnichannel strategies in step with their retail supply chain digital transformation processes. This allows organizations to incrementally scale their offering with modular, composable, and cloud-based business applications, bringing more agility and resilience into their omnichannel distribution network.

Composability enables omnichannel success

According to Gartner®, by 2024, 60 percent of intelligent software as a service (SaaS) will be composed from packaged business capabilities providing data, analytical insight, and operational application services.⁵ And by 2024, the design mantra for new SaaS and custom applications will be “composable API-first or API-only,” rendering traditional SaaS and custom applications “legacy.”⁶

Dynamics 365 unlocks composability and helps organizations achieve a unified commerce experience. It seamlessly integrates with existing ERP and customer relationship management (CRM) systems so that retailers can respond faster to customers’ needs by extending their business capabilities through out-of-the-box connectors to an ecosystem of specialized logistics services. This intelligent and modern platform provides a single view of orders across channels. Our fulfillment optimization engine uses a rules-based system, real-time inventory visibility, and AI to determine the most cost-efficient order fulfillment.

According to Forrester, 68 percent of global retail and wholesale purchase influencers plan to invest in AI solutions.⁷ Retail supply chain and commerce professionals can take advantage of the machine learning, AI, and low-code/no code features of Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management. They can easily reconfigure order flows and proactively overcome bottlenecks by modeling the order journey through an easy-to-use orchestration designer built in the fulfillment optimization engine.

Create more agile and resilient supply chains

Dynamics 365 supply chain solutions helps build agile and resilient supply chains through easy-to-use, modular, and composable cloud-based business applications. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management works seamlessly with existing ERP and CRM systems so that retailers can get to market faster, even when dealing with the complexities and challenges of omnichannel retail and fulfillment. They can also respond faster to customer needs by extending their fulfillment services through a composable and API-first connectivity architecture with out-of-the-box connectors to market-leading 3PL software solutions. With easy-to-deploy omnichannel fulfillment solution, retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and CPG companies can accelerate their supply chain digital transformation and turn order fulfillment into a competitive advantage.

Sources:

1. McKinsey & Company. Beyond the distribution center. June 2022.

2. McKinsey & Company, 2022. The new B2B growth equation.

3. Forrester, US Online Shoppers Expect Retailers To Provide Real-Time Information On Their Websites, August 2021.

4. Forrester. Building The Business Case For Omnichannel Commerce, August 2021.

5. Gartner. Use Gartner’s Reference Model to Deliver Intelligent Composable Business Applications. February 2022.*

6. Gartner. Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022: Composable Applications. October 2021.*

7. Forrester. The Top Retail Tech Initiatives For 2021 – Retail And Brand Professionals Reveal Their Priorities For Tech-Driven Commerce Initiatives In The Coming Year. August 2021.

(*) GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of the Gartner Inc., in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission.

The post Delivering a seamless commerce experience: Unlocking omnichannel retailing with intelligent order management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Manufacturing supply chains are experiencing a post-pandemic paradigm shift. As business models evolve to solve market disruptions, such as changing or adding direct-to-consumer (D2C) to a business-to-business (B2B) model, supply chains require agility and innovation to build resiliency and stay ahead of trends. United States D2C e-commerce sales have more than tripled in the past six years. ¹ The market gained almost $100 billion in about half a decade from 2016 to 2021. It is expected to grow by nearly another $100 billion in the next three years, reaching $212.90 billion by 2024.¹ With added supply chain complexities, including D2C, B2B, and advanced last-mile delivery bots, drones, and self-driving vehicles, manufacturers need strategies that go beyond cost reduction and can easily scale across the network. Supply chain networks able to scale their ecosystems will gain a competitive advantage, and the intelligent solutions to achieve this are composable and modular business applications.

Composable business applications are cloud-based technologies that provide unlimited scalability. They seamlessly integrate with other applications and are easy to use through a low-code or no-code interface. This composability allows organizations to combine different modular applications in an incremental and agile way through rapid sprints instead of embarking on time-consuming and costly rip-and-replace projects. Therefore, reach faster impact regardless of where manufacturers might be in their digital supply chain transformation journey.

The effectiveness of organizations’ digital supply chain in orchestrating supplier and fulfillment partnerships to meet anticipated customer demand determines the quality of the customer experience, as outlined in our on-demand webinar: A Smart Approach to Supply Chain Resilience Using Intelligent Order Management, featuring George Lawrie, Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst.

To summarize, composability makes supply chain network innovation possible, as highlighted in the three advantages below.

1. Modern open platforms pave the way for innovation

Recent years show that siloed data has no place in today’s supply chain network. Traditional networks support predictable environments, which are no longer the case with current market dynamics. From raw material shortages to non-traditional emerging channels, supply chain networks require agility that extends to all stakeholders and foster fluid collaboration.

According to a Forrester report, platforms make it easier to assemble complex technology portfolios across a range of packaging alternatives, leveraging modular components while allowing for customization and custom development.²

Composable and modular business applications seamlessly integrate with existing enterprise systems with modern open platforms and low-code/no-code interfaces. In addition, they support innovative features such as predictive analytics or agile manufacturing for real-time and cross-channel inventory visibility. They also enable manufacturers to enhance network strategies and allow rapid deployment of digital supply chain control towers —another advantage of composability.

2. End-to-end visibility to scale supply chain networks

Improving the customer experience is a top priority for many organizations. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw customer loyalty easily swayed. This trend gave new brand entrants a foothold into e-commerce and catalyzed many established brands to engage D2C to maintain market share. Similarly, the rise of the omnichannel’s ease of purchasing, delivery, and return options has set high customer expectations and introduced new buying behaviors. These dynamics present significant risks as ongoing supply chain disruptions continue. But extensible composable tools arm the supply chain network with another advantage: the digital control tower with end-to-end visibility to anticipate and mitigate order management turmoil.

According to a Forrester survey, the most common planned improvement (49 percent) retailers and CPG companies are making, is better visibility across the supply chain (from factories to raw materials suppliers).³ Consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers with newly launched D2C business models recognize that complete visibility is essential for favorable customer experiences.

Digital supply chain control towers take real-time data from multiple supply chain network workloads and provide a holistic, multi-dimensional view. The partnership with FedEx and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for the cross-platform, logistics-as-a-service solution for brands exemplifies these capabilities, offering features like a seamless return experience and transportation optimization to proactively avoid delivery delays. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management also allows organizations to set up the first step to incrementally build a composable digital supply chain platform with different module solutions for end-to-end visibility and deliver highly valued unified customer experiences.

3. Composability with AI drives actionable insights

Finally, composable business applications enable optimization at each node level letting manufacturers know where opportunities exist. Composable business applications give manufacturers advantages that are counterintuitive to previous assumptions. Advanced analytics powered by built-in AI and machine learning capabilities allow manufacturers to test hypotheses with predictive data-driven outcomes.

A Forrester survey shows that 56 percent of respondents report that one of the most important aspects of supply chain agility is increasing the use of machine learning and AI to drive process automation.³

An innovative supply chain network leverages composable digital tools with embedded AI and machine learning to improve decision-making, unify disparate data, foresee disruptions, and utilize deeper insights.

To start building composability in your supply chain network watch the video:

Achieve more with agile and resilient supply chains

Dynamics 365 innovates supply chain networks, making them resilient and sustainable through composability. These intelligent solutions work seamlessly with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to respond to market dynamics quickly and integrate with many market-leading API-enabled applications. Pre-built connectors extend business capabilities through an ecosystem of specialized partners for order delivery, tax compliance, price calculations, transportation, and other logistics services. Plus, users can easily create rules and quickly configure order flows to adapt to changing market conditions or scale to support peak volume demands with an easy-to-use low-code/no-code interface.

By enabling these capabilities, manufacturers can accelerate the digital transformation of their order management process and turn order fulfillment into a competitive advantage. Users can also automate and optimize fulfillment using AI to create real-time inventory visibility and extend into a digital control tower for end-to-end network visibility.

At Microsoft, we are committed to empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. With our next-generation digital supply chain applications, manufacturers can leverage composability to drive innovation across their supply chain networks. See how they can innovate yours in the on-demand webinar: A Smart Approach to Supply Chain Resilience Using Intelligent Order Management.

Sources

1- eMarketer, 2022. Established brands will drive the vast majority of D2C ecommerce sales.

2- Forrester, 2021. Accelerate Sustainable Innovation With Platforms.

3- Forrester, 2021. The Digital Commerce Imperative. A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft.

The post 3 advantages of composable applications to empower supply chain network innovations appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed “order management” from the backend of logistics operations to the spotlight of supply chain and commerce strategies. Retailers, consumer package goods (CPG) companies, and distributors rushed to adapt their business models to fulfill the explosive growth of online orders through different digital channels. End-customers and organizations buy through various channels such as marketplaces, in-store, mobile apps, and even social media. They expect faster and more convenient ways for pickups and returns, such as pickup in-store, at a partner’s location, and for returns, drop off at the nearest location, QR codes, and even at-home pickup.

As the number of order sources and fulfillment options grow exponentially, organizations need the right order management solution to keep up with the evolving digital commerce landscape. This blog looks at three key aspects to consider when selecting an order management solution and how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management can help you.

1. Open and modern platform

The adoption of online shopping, and the addition of more consumers and businesses online for all types of transactions with the pandemic, have created a demand for convenience and personalization in digital commerce. As the number of online marketplaces grows, retailers, CPG, distributors, and manufacturers with business-to-business (B2B) and direct-to-consumer (D2C) business models require to accept orders from an ever-growing external ecosystem. Receiving orders from multiple sources increases order management and supply chain complexity. Therefore, these organizations need an order management solution that helps them accept orders from anywhere to keep pace with the continuing evolution of e-commerce.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management has an open and modern platform that seamlessly integrates with organizations’ existing tech stack. Its architecture reduces implementation time through out-of-the-box pre-built connectors to the best-of-breed ecosystem of partners for order source, delivery, tax compliance, price calculation, and logistics services such as Adobe Commerce, J.B. Hunt, Körber, Uber Freight, Avalara, Vertex, Flexe, Big Commerce, Far Eye, Commerce Tools, Flintfox, Ship Station, and Orderful. Moreover, this platform architecture is composable and flexible to allow supply chain professionals to build a supply chain tower incrementally through a modular and API-first approach, where the ultimate goal is supply chain visibility.

Learn about more extended capabilities in our blog: FedEx and Dynamics 365 reimagine commerce experiences.

2. Real-time visibility and intelligent fulfillment optimization

The 2021 Gartner® supply chain risk and resilience survey shows that for 83 percent of large organizations, better supply chain ecosystem visibility is a top priority.¹ And another Gartner® research shows that 60 percent of chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) are expected to make faster, more accurate, and consistent decisions in real-time.² The cycle-time of business processes continues to accelerate, particularly in order management processes that serve consumers who expect faster and more convenient shipping to the location of their choice. To succeed in these conditions, companies need a solution that simplifies omnichannel order fulfillment by providing real-time visibility and AI-infused real-time data.

With Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, supply chain and commerce professionals can model and automate responses to order constraints by using a journey orchestration designer and assigning rules in a low-code/no-code friendly user interface with drag and drop actions instead of coding. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management uses an intelligent fulfillment optimization service to infuse AI into order fulfillment within your supply chain network. The intelligent optimization engine works to ensure the right products are delivered from the right source in the right quantities so that you always maximize profits, minimize costs, and satisfy service-level requirements.

3. Faster deployment times

Accepting orders from anywhere carries an additional challenge: implementation. Businesses need an order management solution that allows them to get up and running quickly. Not only do they need to be able to accept orders from anywhere, but many organizations also have existing systems that they would like to augment, not replace. If you are in the process of updating your order management system and fall into this category, then understanding what is involved in the implementation process is critically important. Will custom coding be required to integrate with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) and warehouse management system (WMS)? How about your customer relationship management (CRM) or transportation management system (TMS)? For most, the best solution is a cloud-based integrated-service-as-a-software (iSaaS) that uses RESTful APIs and can be easily configured using a low-code/no-code user interface.

Applications that take this approach enable supply chain and commerce professionals to continue to use and benefit from legacy applications, while also providing the agility to easily connect and integrate with modern web-based solutions. This is the approach that we have taken with Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management because it delivers these benefits and accelerates the digital transformation process regardless of where a company is in its digital transformation journey.

You can learn more in our infographic: Top five reasons to update your order management solution.

What’s next?

It is essential to look for an order management solution that will give you out-of-the-box pre-built connectors to an ecosystem of partners, provide real-time order visibility, intelligent fulfillment optimization, and get up you running quickly with seamless integration with your existing tech stacks, such as ERP and CRM systems. Traditional, on-premises order management systems can lack the flexibility required to keep pace with the rapidly evolving world of e-commerce.

With Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, you can leverage our modern cloud technology, integrate with your existing platforms, and quickly implement new capabilities that enable AI, automation, order flow orchestration, and on-demand scalability. Get started today with Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management free trial and turn order fulfillment into a competitive advantage.

Sources:

1- Gartner, Infographic: Supply Chain Visibility Is Fundamental to Resilience in Supply Ecosystems, February 10^th, 2022.

2- Gartner, Reinventing Supply Chain for the Future, Learn four key innovations, 2021.

GARTNER is the registered trademark and service mark of Gartner Inc., and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and has been used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

The post 3 key considerations when choosing an order management system appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The pandemic has sped up the adoption of digital technologies to obtain data insights. The multi-year collaboration between FedEx and Microsoft, announced in May 2020, aims to reinvent commerce and provides businesses with actionable insights to win in an increasingly competitive landscape. And on January 24th, we announced a new cross-platform “logistics as a service” as the next phase of this collaboration to help transform commerce by combining the global digital and logistics network of FedEx with the power of Microsoft’s cloud, including Microsoft Dynamics 365. This blog explores how this next step brings a unique integration between FedEx and Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management. We are making this pre-built connector available for preview for all applicable markets during the second half of 2022.

Faster and more cost-effective delivery

According to McKinsey & Company, a positive customer experience is hugely meaningful to a retailers’ success: it yields 20 percent higher customer-satisfaction rates, a 10 to 15 percent boost in sales conversation rates, and an increase in employee engagement of 20 to 30 percent.¹ The combination of consumers’ expectations for fast delivery with the business requirements to maintain profitability margins makes it even more challenging for organizations to offer faster, cost-effective delivery options.

The FedEx integration with Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management tackles this challenge by pairing orders with near real-time transportation network data and inventory insights so that brands can optimize fulfillment and deliver on their order promise with increased precision. And retailers can predict shipment delays and proactively overcome them by selecting alternative ways to fulfill the order on time and in full while staying profitable.

Near real-time delivery status communications

Manufacturers, distributors, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, and retailers understand that success depends on their ability to consistently deliver a delightful customer experience, which is increasingly a function of a retail supply chain. A recent Gartner® survey found that 83 percent of companies demand that supply chains improve customer experience (CX) as part of the digital business strategy.² Retail supply chains can improve the customer experience by offering near real-time delivery status communications for customer orders. And this is one of the enhancements that customers can look forward to as part of our collaboration with FedEx.

Through Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management’s integration with FedEx, it will be possible for brands to ensure a delightful customer experience by providing near real-time communications on the delivery status that consumers desire and expect.

Convenient and frictionless returns

Providing easy returns is no longer optional for retailers. In fact, according to Statista, 86 percent of global consumers look for easy returns when deciding where to buy, and 81 percent are likely to switch to a competitor if they had a bad return experience.³ With so much at stake, it is not surprising that retailers are looking for ways to leverage technology to offer convenient, frictionless returns. By partnering with FedEx, Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management further enables brands to reliably provide free two-day shipping options to reduce shopping cart abandonment and effectively compete in the increasingly digital commerce landscape.

Through the partnership, organizations can also offer a better returns experience for their customers. End-customers will enjoy hassle-free returns options with the 60,000+ FedEx drop-off locations, convenient at-home pickups, and eco-friendly alternatives supporting sustainability initiatives such as printer-less QR code returns labels and no-box returns.

In addition to the enhancements that our partnership with FedEx will bring to Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, customers also benefit from the ability to get up and running quickly without the need for costly rip and replace processes of existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. And because Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management is built on a modern and open platform with out-of-the-box, pre-built connectors to a large ecosystem of order intake, shipping, and tax calculation partners, organizations can scale business. It also allows companies to accept orders from any order source, such as online e-commerce, marketplaces, mobile apps, or traditional sources such as electronic data interchange (EDI). And users can fulfill those orders from a mix of internal warehouses, third-party logistics providers, retail stores, or drop-ship partners locations.

What’s next

We have seen that Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management is driving improvements in retail supply chains through its FedEx collaboration. We have also shown how the upcoming integration with FedEx will help brands deliver modern, more delightful experiences directly to customers, including faster, more cost-effective delivery, near real-time communications on status delivery, and convenient and frictionless returns. If you are ready to apply an intelligent order management solution to drive improvement in these areas, we invite you to take our guided tour or get started today with the Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management free trial.

Sources:

1. McKinsey & Company, Personalizing the customer experience: Driving differentiation in retail, April 28, 2020.
2. Gartner, Four Steps to Become a Customer-Centric Supply Chain, 2021. GARTNER is the registered trademark and service mark of Gartner Inc., and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and has been used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
3. Statista, Consumer attitudes towards return policy of retailers and its influence on their purchasing decision worldwide 2020.

The post FedEx and Dynamics 365 reimagine commerce experiences appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights is now part of Microsoft Supply Chain Center, which is available in preview starting November 16, 2022. Click Introducing the Microsoft Supply Chain Platform, a new approach to designing supply chains for agility, automation and sustainability to learn more.

Delays, constraints, and disruptions are frequent challenges for global supply chains. And they are costly. According to Gartner® 70 percent of supply chain leaders report that they have been constantly responding to disruptions since 2019.¹ Supply chain professionals have long understood that the earlier potential disruptions and constraints are identified, the more successful the measures to adapt and overcome them can be. So, the question becomes, how do we identify disruptions and constraints at the earliest possible opportunity? The answer is real-time, end-to-end visibility across the supply chain, which is precisely what supply chain control towers provide.

While the benefits of supply chain control towers are easily understood, many organizations continue to struggle to make control towers a reality. The composable approach of Microsoft Dynamics 365 is changing this situation however, and providing organizations a path to rapid deployment of supply chain control towers. This article explains the composable approach and why it is an essential ingredient for success in supply chain control tower initiatives.

Learn more in our on-demand webinar: How to rapidly deploy a supply chain control tower with a composable approach.

The future leans towards composable solutions

The future of business applications is composable. We can see this in reports from analyst firms such as Gartner®, who predict that “by 2023 organizations, that have adopted a composable approach will outpace their competition by 80 percent.”² But, what is a composable approach? Before we delve into the composable approach and what makes it different, let’s briefly explore the evolution of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions as this will help us understand why composability is key to achieving end-to-end visibility.

The challenge of achieving end-to-end visibility

In the past, ERP systems were sold as one massive application. This meant that they were expensive and difficult to change. As these applications matured, vendors looked for ways to give customers greater flexibility. To provide this flexibility, business functions, like sales and supply chain, were increasingly offered as modular components such as customer relationships management (CRM) systems, warehouse management systems (WMS), transportation management systems (TMS), and supply chain management (SCM) systems. While modularity did provide flexibility, the flexibility itself created other problems, as we discuss next.

The main issue is that once business functions could select the components that best suited their needs, such as CRM or WMS, replacement and implementation of these systems often took place at different times, and systems were often from different vendors. Also, due to the possible differences in maturity levels and solution architectures of these disparate systems, they required time-consuming and expensive custom development to achieve end-to-end integration across the enterprise. And after integration, end-to-end performance was often plagued by latency, synchronization, and data unification issues. This is the situation where many companies find themselves today and it is the primary reason that achieving real-time end-to-end visibility of the supply chain has been so elusive.

Microservices are composable

Technology vendors began offering business solutions assembled application experiences built on microservices architectures in the continuing drive to improve customer applications. Whereas in the past, a specific business function, like warehouse or sales, would select the right system for their needs, such as CRM or WMS, businesses can now choose solutions tailored to individual workloads. For example, a simple order management workload could be composed by bringing together order orchestration, fulfillment, and inventory.

These microservices, such as real-time inventory and fulfillment, not only provide greater flexibility, but because they easily connect to other microservice applications and utilize API-driven messaging, data and actions can be pulled and pushed between different systems—decreasing latency, improving synchronization, and enabling real-time end-to-end visibility in the process. This is why a composable approach makes the rapid deployment of a supply chain control tower possible.

Our vision

Gartner® predicts that by 2026, 80 percent of companies will suffer significant value loss due to failure to merge their digital supply twin and control tower initiatives.³ We agree. And, our solutions help companies avoid this outcome by providing a composable approach that makes merging these initiatives possible.

At Microsoft, we see supply chain control towers as a shared service process that can be composed from a mix of supply chain workloads. For example, a supply chain control tower and digital twin can be built using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights ^preview together with Microsoft Power Platform, and our growing digital supply chain applications ecosystem.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management is often a great place to start when building a supply chain control tower in retail, distribution, direct-to-consumer (DTC), consumer packaged goods, and manufacturing companies. This is because Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management is built on a microservice architecture that includes rules-based order orchestration and fulfillment, real-time inventory, and AI. As such, it is step-forward to the composable approach that allows companies to achieve the real-time end-to-end visibility of a supply chain control tower. The composability of the solution also means that organizations can get up running quickly and maximize the benefit of existing investments through easy integration with existing legacy ERP systems.

What’s next

Supply chain control towers that include Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management positions organizations to respond faster and more intelligently to disruptions and opportunities. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management works seamlessly with any ERP and CRM system. It is also a stand-alone application that allows customers to start their control tower initiative without dependencies on other Dynamics 365 solutions. It integrates seamlessly with many market-leading API-enabled applications, using our out-of-the-box pre-built connectors to order intake sources, tax calculation, and third-party logistics partners ecosystem. Moreover, it automates and optimizes fulfillment using AI and real-time omnichannel inventory data. Supply chain and commerce professionals can proactively overcome disruptions through quickly order flows reconfigurations with drag and drop actions in a low-code/no-code interface. And by enabling them with all these capabilities, help them accelerate their order management digital transformation and turn order fulfillment into a competitive advantage.

Learn more in the on-demand webinar: How to rapidly deploy a supply chain control Tower with a Composable Approach.

Sources:

1. Gartner, Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Strategy 2021, September 14, 2021.
2. Gartner, Composable Commerce Must Be Adopted for the Future of Applications, June 18, 2020.
3. Gartner, Predicts 2022: Supply Chain Technology, November 17, 2021.

GARTNER is the registered trademark and service mark of Gartner Inc., and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and has been used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

The post Dynamics 365 composable approach enables rapid deployment of a supply chain control tower appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In recent years, retailers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, and manufacturers have incorporated direct-to-consumer (D2C) business models into their go-to-market strategies to give end customers the options to order from anywhere and ship to everywhere. As the use of these online sales channels continues to expand, so too does the number of third-party fulfillment partners and options to evaluate and incorporate into their supply chain and commerce systems. Organizations with business-to-business (B2B), business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C), and D2C business models, require technology solutions that give them the ability to manage an increasingly complex order lifecycle from order source through orchestration to intelligent fulfillment and delivery.

According to Gartner®, “83 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) stated they were expanding digital channels in 2021, while 79 percent plan to increase the use of self-service by customers and citizens.”¹ With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, companies can stay on top of their game through digital channels, as Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management enhances their digital order and delivery channels. It provides real-time visibility into each order from order intake to delivery, and customizable dashboards to help track and improve operational decision-making across every touchpoint of the order life cycle.

Overcome fulfillment complexity

Managing the entire order lifecycle is about placing your organization in a position to deliver on your order promise with every customer order. But there are other undeniable benefits, such as reducing logistics costs by overcoming fulfillment complexities that await companies, who demonstrate the ability to do this well. Indeed, according to McKinsey & Company, “since e-commerce fulfillments are significantly more complex, contract logistics can charge around 50 percent more than for traditional store fulfillment. Therefore, those companies that overcome the complexities stand to gain the most.”²

Companies can overcome the complexities of e-commerce fulfillment by utilizing Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management rules-based fulfillment orchestration system that uses real-time inventory and AI to optimize order flows. This solution offers advanced analytical capabilities to measure fulfillment effectiveness and business users can use the insights to re-model the order fulfillment journey using drag and drop tools to ensure that their customer needs are met on time and at the lowest possible cost. In addition, Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management provides out-of-the-box pre-built connectors to e-commerce order sources such as BigCommerce, Magento, and Orderful; delivery partners such as Flexe, Körber, and ShipStation, and to tax and rebate management partners such as Avalara, Flintfox, and Vertex. All these capabilities provide organizations the agility needed to overcome supply chain constraints and deliver on their order promise.

Apply artificial intelligence

To profitably manage the entire order lifecycle, companies increasingly need to use AI and machine learning (ML) technologies in the supply chain. In fact, according to McKinsey & Company, “successfully implementing AI-enabled supply-chain management has enabled early adopters to improve logistics costs by 15 percent, inventory levels by 35 percent, and service levels by 65 percent, compared with slower-moving competitors.”³

With Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, AI and ML are used to analyze data to find and predict patterns in order flows and fulfillment processes. The results help bring new levels of insights that would not otherwise be possible for human team members to spot alone. These results can then be paired with AI-based classification and anomaly detection models to proactively identify and address fulfillment constraints and to improve delivery times, while simultaneously reducing costs. The use of AI and ML enhances decision-making across all order orchestration flows by delivering the capability to sense and predict constraints, disruptions, and opportunities to improve order and fulfillment processes.

Enhance inventory visibility

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management solution architecture was designed to support the requirements of complex order processing environments, where there are many systems and apps in the overall order-to-fulfillment process. By bringing visibility into many disparate data sources and applications; order flows, inventory, and supporting functions can be significantly improved. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management ships out-of-the-box with an integrated real-time inventory visibility service that is highly scalable and extensible, and provides a single, global view of all inventory positions across all legal entities.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management not only provides organizations with a single, global view of all inventory positions, but its fulfillment orchestration engine also uses real-time inventory data to optimize fulfillment processes to ensure optimal stock levels are maintained across all stock locations. The result is that companies can increase online product availability, improve cash flow by right-sizing stock levels, and guarantee a delightful customer experience by delivering every order on time and in full.

What’s next?

We have seen that Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management is an ideal tool for managing the entire order lifecycle. By utilizing rules-based order orchestration to overcome fulfillment complexities, leveraging AI and ML to derive actionable insights, and optimizing stock levels by applying a real-time inventory visibility service, companies can deliver on their order promise and turn order management into a competitive advantage. Moreover, Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management seamlessly integrates with any enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), e-commerce, Dynamics 365, and non-Dynamics 365 applications, allowing organizations to skip costly rip and replace implementations.

If you are ready to see how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management can help your organization to manage the entire order lifecycle, we invite you to get started today by contacting us or signing up for a free trial. Or, to learn more about how to meet your growing digital commerce needs and scale easily, while supporting the latest fulfillment methods, check the Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management resources on our website: Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management.

Sources:

1. “Gartner, Add Digital Payments as Part of Communications Platform as a Service Offering, Lisa Unden-Farboud, Daniel O’Connell et al, 27 August, 2021.” GARTNER is the registered trademark and service mark of Gartner Inc., and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and has been used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
2. McKinsey & Company, Unlocking the omnichannel opportunity in contract logistics, March 12, 2021, Tom Bartman, Scott McConnell, Florian Neuhaus, and Isabell Scheringer.
3. McKinsey & Company, Succeeding in the AI supply-chain revolution, April 30, 2021, Knut Alicke, Valerio Dilda, Stephan Görner, Lapo Mori, Pierrick Rebuffel, Sebastian Reiter, and Robert Samek.

The post Why AI and real-time visibility are a game-changer for order lifecycle management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Today we are excited to announce the new guided tour for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management. We are also taking this opportunity to talk about businesses’ need for order management solutions to move beyond the limitations of traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and keep pace with the fast-changing landscape of e-commerce.

View of one of the steps of Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management guided tour.

Moving beyond traditional ERP

An excellent customer experience is a requirement for organizational success in today’s modern business environment. This is particularly true for retailers, distributors, and manufacturers that are embracing direct-to-consumer business models. When it comes to selling, manufacturing, or distributing physical goods, a critical component of providing an excellent customer experience is ensuring that customer orders are shipped On Time and In Full (OTIF), every time.

And more and more companies are realizing that traditional ERP systems lack the adaptability, agility, and resiliency necessary to keep pace with the ever-evolving demands and growing complexity of modern digital commerce. To meet these challenges, forward-thinking organizations have found that order management solutions provide them the required capability to accept orders from anywhere and fulfill them everywhere in a cost-efficient manner. To this end, let’s look at two ways that Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management allows businesses to move beyond the limitations of traditional ERP systems.

Faster delivery

The accelerated shift to buying online that accompanied the global pandemic came alongside the trend of consumers demanding shorter delivery times. The result is that for companies interested in selling direct-to-consumer, delivering within two days—if not sooner­—became table stakes. It makes sense then that when McKinsey & Company surveyed apparel, hard goods, and specialty retailers in 2021, they found that the overwhelming majority—75 percent—had active plans to build out fulfillment networks that offer two-day or faster delivery times by 2022.​¹

And this is just one area where traditional ERP systems face challenges and where organizations need advanced solutions to move beyond their limitations. For example, consider that modern digital commerce companies frequently need to add new partners and apps for e-commerce, customer relationship management (CRM), shipping, billing, tax calculations, etc. To be effective this requires an easy-to-deploy solution that integrates with internal and external ecosystems without the need for costly and time-consuming rip and replace processes. Enter Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, a modern, and open platform that allows organizations to overcome supply chain constraints and disruptions, and capitalize seasonal peak volumes.

Composable approach

Gartner® predicts that by 2023, organizations that have adopted a composable approach will outpace the competition by 80 percent in the speed of new feature implementation.² A primary reason for adopting a composable approach is because it provides greater agility and resiliency. Traditional ERP falls short on delivering this agility and resiliency because of their lack of real-time inventory visibility into siloed data. Plus, traditional ERPs don’t have the ability to easily support customized rules for the latest fulfillment methods such as Buy-online, Pickup in-store (BOPIS), and AI and machine learning capabilities.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management seamlessly works with existing ERPs and supply chain solutions to enhance end-to-end visibility. It enables customers to create an execution-based control tower, suited to companies that must delight customers with accurate, timely fulfillment of frequent orders, perhaps using third-party logistics (3PL) providers.

It uses rules based-fulfillment orchestration and AI-based anomaly detection models to proactively identify and address fulfillment constraints and improve delivery times while reducing costs. This helps accelerate decision-making to mitigate the impact of disruptions. As massive amounts of data are generated across the order management processes, technologies such as AI and machine learning are increasingly necessary because businesses must be able to deliver actionable insights at scale.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management enables organizations to extend and operate in complex environments, where there are many internal and external supply chain partners. Moreover, it is designed to easily configure order orchestration flows through low-code or no-code interfaces and quickly scale by adding new partners’ connectors to the best-of-breed solutions for e-commerce, shipping, tax calculation, and more.

At this point, it makes sense to conclude that order management systems need to be open and flexible solutions, capable of handling and integrating with multiple order sources and order orchestration applications. In this way, Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management is far more flexible than traditional ERPs. It can be used as a started point to build a control tower with this desirable composable approach, as it integrates with existing ERPs, making them much faster and cheaper to customize and support.

In summary, this composable approach is what makes it possible for organizations to connect their existing supply chain systems, enhance these systems with an order management solution, and to integrate all business platforms with new e-commerce, payments, shipping, taxes, and other partners. This is accomplished by using prebuilt connectors to manage the entire order life cycle more efficiently and to provide more organizational agility and resiliency in the process.

Learn more about how to create agile and digital supply chains in this webinar.

What’s next?

We have reviewed some of the areas where Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management allows businesses to move beyond the limitations of traditional ERP systems. We invite you to experience a free trial of Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management or visit our new guided tour to learn more.

1-McKinsey & Company, Retail’s need for speed: Unlocking value in omnichannel delivery, September 2021​.

2-Gartner, Composable Commerce Must Be Adopted for the Future of Applications, June 2020. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner Inc., in the U.S. and internationally, and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

The post Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management launches new guided tour appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.