High-tech manufacturing: The case for Microsoft Dynamics 365 to reach beyond four walls

"With high tech companies, so many of their relationships are outside their four walls," says Chris Moore, who heads Armanino's Microsoft Dynamics practice.

As Moore describes, most high-tech companies work closely with vendors, distributors, and customers. For instance, many manage inventory not only within their own warehouses and plants, but within those of their suppliers and distributors. Some partner with customers to design components for the customer's products.

These and other trends in high-tech manufacturing make Microsoft Dynamics 365's collection of operational and customer-related apps particularly effective in supporting the sector's mission-critical functions, says Moore. In the upcoming webcast Dynamics 365 for High Tech Manufacturing: Revenue Recognition, Complex Supply Chains and More, hosted by MSDynamicsWorld, Moore and Armanino's, Jeff Russell, and Scott Mangelson will detail how high-tech manufacturers use Dynamics 365 to support their supply chains as well as sales, customer relationship, compliance and other functions.

All of those business practices require an open infrastructure that encompasses all of a high-tech's business partners, says Moore..

For instance, companies can leverage Dynamics 365 to manage distributors, handle customer relationships, and track point-of-sale data and end customers, Moore notes. They can produce quotes, develop special pricing agreements, and manage contract manufacturing arrangements.

Dynamics 365 has been "built on an extensible platform with shared data and digital intelligence," as Microsoft describes. That makes it easier to ...