The first Customer Day Nav24, organized by us in mid-November 2023, was packed with a substantial dose of knowledge about Microsoft products and Nav24's proprietary solutions. It was also an excellent opportunity to exchange experiences with our customers and listen to their evaluations of our cooperation and the solutions we offer. We have prepared a brief summary of the substantive part - check out what topics our speakers covered.
The Role of Microsoft Solutions in Digital Transformation
To kick off the event, Arkadiusz Leśniak, CEO of Nav24, and Jakub Leśniak, Vice President of Nav24, presented an interesting analogy between the business world and Formula 1 racing. In this comparison, information systems play the role of a racing team. Their task is to provide the right tools, utilizing the latest technological advancements, ensuring continuous development, and providing necessary servicing. Time reaction to any events also plays a crucial role, similar to pit stops in racing.
Technological changes have a significant impact on business development. To keep up with them, it is crucial to maintain an appropriate organizational culture - promoting new technologies within teams, providing relevant training, and utilizing the potential of employees who excel in this field. Effective communication also plays a vital role. The last step is intelligent investment in IT tools and assembling the entire team - starting from the systems and applications used, to implementation and maintenance partners.
How Microsoft Tools Accelerate Work
Jakub Leśniak, along with Bartłomiej Siuda, Head of Delivery, continued the racing analogy, this time focusing on specific tools. They demonstrated how to change the process of creating a product card in Business Central based solely on keywords. The presentation took the form of a live demonstration. Jakub and Bartłomiej showcased an automated workflow created with artificial intelligence. Based on keywords, the system automatically generated a stock card, including necessary information such as descriptions with translations and AI-generated graphics. Microsoft 365 tools, the Business Central system, and Chat GPT were used to create this flow. This is just one example of how modern systems can speed up repetitive tasks and free up employees' time.
Innovative Nav24 Products
Nav24 offers not only implementations of Microsoft solutions but also a range of proprietary extensions for the Business Central system. Mateusz Ruciński, Business Central Product Manager, and Marek Jaworek, Sales Team Manager, talked about the process of creating these extensions - from the idea to the finished product. We learned that customer input has a significant influence on the development of proprietary solutions. Every interaction between customers and the company can lead to identifying problems or needs that can be addressed using tools created by the Product Department.
Currently, our portfolio includes 16 products that have been implemented 120 times. During the presentations, two of them were showcased: Nav24 Idea and N24 Courier. Nav24 Idea aims to enable customers to share ideas for functional extensions easily. Every Business Central user can submit their idea directly within the system. The solution is available within the system and completely free. After submission, the idea is evaluated by the Product Department, which decides whether and how to implement it. On the other hand, N24 Courier drastically changes the process of shipping orders and collaboration with couriers within the system. Traditional manual order preparation takes about 4.5 minutes per package. Thanks to automation provided by N24 Courier, the shipping process has been reduced to 1.5 minutes. Assuming 500 packages shipped monthly, a difference of 3 minutes translates to 25 hours saved!
Customer Experiences with Business Central
What is daily life like with the Business Central system? Our customers know it best, so we prepared a panel discussion with their representatives. We invited Paweł Błachut, Vice President of Unicard, Radosław Kohut, CEO of Elko-Bis Systemy Odgromowe, and Dariusz Wiktorski, Head of Parts, Accessories, and Business Development at Auto Fus Group, to participate. They talked about why they chose this system, how the implementation went, and the key benefits of Business Central. They highlighted advanced reporting capabilities, quick access to data, improved production planning, and better cost management. They also emphasized the advantages of cloud solutions, such as savings on infrastructure and resources and easy and quick access to used applications.
Power BI Integration with Business Central
Developers of Power BI, Wiktoria Tomczyk and Krzysztof Furowicz, discussed Power BI and its simple way to visualize and analyze data. They introduced the capabilities of Power BI reports and their integration with the Business Central system.
As part of the integration, it is possible to embed Power BI reports directly within the ERP system, reducing the time to access the currently needed data. Useful features also include dashboards, where you can place selected elements from different reports in one place. The presenters also touched on security issues and demonstrated the capabilities of the Power BI application. It can serve as a tool for distributing reports and sharing them with specific target groups. Another advantage of the application is the option to sort reports, making data access easier and speeding up data review.
Directions for the Development of Dynamics 365 Business Central
Arkadiusz Leśniak and Dawid Pławecki, Solution Architect, presented guests with the Microsoft and Nav24 product ecosystem and discussed the plans for the development of the Dynamics 365 Business Central system. The presenters summarized two waves of updates this year. During the spring Release Wave 1, more than 90 new functionalities and improvements were introduced. The autumn wave brought over 100 changes. Their main goal is to optimize performance, improve ergonomics, and provide a better quality of work with the system. Importantly, many of these changes result from user needs and issues reported by users. Microsoft collects them through a dedicated portal and incorporates some of the proposals into the system in subsequent update releases.
Dawid Pławecki showcased new solutions in Business Central that are designed to further accelerate work within the system. These include the ability to quickly navigate to records from various documents using a single keyboard shortcut (instead of several, sometimes even dozens of operations), new data search options, and advanced data reporting and analysis capabilities. He also mentioned the introduction of an AI assistant, Copilot, to Business Central. The first introduced functionality is the creation of marketing descriptions. In the future, Copilot is expected to be available as a chat-based assistant that can be asked about documents related to a specific customer or inventory availability.
Integration of Business Central with KSeF
This has perhaps been one of the hottest topics in recent months. KSeF, or the National e-Invoicing System, has been causing concerns for many businesses. What is the introduction of KSeF expected to bring? The system enables the issuance, viewing, and sharing of structured invoices, relieving businesses from the obligation to store and archive invoices. It allows for faster VAT refunds (40 days), eliminates the need to send JPK_FA upon the request of tax authorities, and enables immediate exchange of documents between entities (including quick corrections). KSeF will come into effect on July 1, 2024, and it will be mandatory.
Michał Zoń, Customer Support Consultant, presented the latest information on the integration of KSeF with Business Central and the outlook for 2024. KSeF in the Microsoft ERP system is part of the Polish Localization application, available since July 2023. The application's creators are continuously working on improvements to the KSeF module - eight additional packages of changes have been released so far. Meeting participants could see what the KSeF module looks like in Business Central and experience how it works and whether it meets all the requirements associated with the introduction of the National e-Invoicing System. Michał Zoń also discussed challenges, development plans, and Nav24's role in the KSeF implementation process.
Quality of Customer Support
Bartłomiej Siuda returned to the stage, this time accompanied by Adrianna Stochel, Customer Support Manager. They talked about the work of the Customer Support Department. In 2023, we handled over 2700 service requests. The response time of our consultants was noteworthy, with 99.81% of cases meeting the deadlines specified in the contracts. One of the new features introduced by us is surveys where customers can evaluate the support process after their requests are resolved. The average rating we received was 5.8 out of 6 possible points!
As you can see, the substantive part of the first Customer Day brought a wealth of information and knowledge about Microsoft and Nav24 solutions and their impact on the daily operations of our customers' organizations. The high level of interest in the discussed topics is evident from the discussions and the numerous questions our speakers answered during the closing Q&A session. We assure you that Customer Day will return in the coming years - we are already thinking about how to surprise participants in the second edition!
