Microsoft Launches New Application To support Small Businesses Across Africa, The Middle East

Microsoft has unveiled a new cloud-based business management solution, Dynamics 365 Business Central, to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Africa and the Middle East to streamline their operations.

Dynamics 365 Business Central will support the SMBs to connect their financials, sales, service, and operations to streamline business processes and improve customer interactions.

“With digital transformation now a necessity, small and medium-sized businesses are seeking cost-effective, streamlined systems that will make their transition seamless,” says Maher Al-Khaiyat, Regional Business Applications Director for Microsoft MEA Emerging Markets. “Multiple, disconnected systems are now easily combined under one secure, centralised application.

Using Dynamics 365 Business Central, efficiency is boosted through automated tasks and workflows — all from within familiar Office tools like Outlook, Word, and Excel. “What businesses get,” adds Al-Khaiyat, “is an end-to-end view of their operations, with built-in intelligence when and where they need it.”

The new solution will launch in Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and Lebanon over this month. The application is easy to tailor and extend to meet unique business or industry-specific needs. By putting flexibility at the core of your business, Dynamics 365 Business Central enables you to start quickly, grow at your own pace, and adapt in real time, making it the ideal solution for SMBs.

SMBs account for over 90 percent of all businesses in the target regions and they will be empowered to accelerate the digital transformation of their own business processes using this innovative all-in-one solution.

“SMBs can bring people, processes, and data together to manage their business end-to-end, instead of juggling standalone systems that disrupt the business flow. With previously disconnected systems now brought together, tasks like connecting workflows across sales and accounting to automatically track cash flow are made effortless,” expounds Al-Khaiyat.

Dynamics 365 Business Central is easy to integrate with applications like payroll, banking apps, or custom APIs, with the same consistent and secure experience across devices, from laptops to phones, no matter where teams are accessing the application from.

Full Office 365 integration means teams can use familiar tools to work together and connect with colleagues and customers, whether creating professional-looking business documents in Microsoft Word templates, or exporting and updating data in Microsoft Excel.

In addition, Dynamics 365 Business Central is easy to install, getting the business up and running quickly. Start with what the business needs and grow at your own pace to run the entire business in the cloud. What businesses get is easy set-up, management, and scalability.

“Each business has unique needs, which Dynamics 365 Business Central caters for by easily integrating add-on applications and industry-specific solutions. Importing data from other solutions using data migration wizards and assisted set-up is simple. Plus, with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, it’s simple to rearrange fields, rename groups, and reposition elements to create workspaces for specific roles,” Al-Khaiyat says.

SMEs can deploy Dynamics 365 Business Central in the cloud, on-premise, or with a hybrid approach; no matter the requirements for data residency, compliance, or security, companies can run their business wherever and however needed. A universal, mobile-enabled user experience means users have the same powerful, intuitive experience across deployments and devices.