Seven Trends That Will Most Impact the Food Industry in 2011 and Why They Matter for Microsoft Dynamics ERP

Everyone has an opinion on industry trends for 2011, and for the food industry I'm no different. 

The food industry is very much in the news these days-over regulation, commodity prices, and marketing tactics-and with such intense change come increasing pressures for formulating new business strategies.

In my view, key 2011 decisions for food companies are not based on compliance or regulatory-based rationale, but rather business transparency. Food companies are getting very tech savvy.Our customers are the companies that want to be the innovators at meeting safety compliance and government regulation.

With those issues in mind, I have identified seven important trends I see affecting the food industry.

1. Feature Rich Access Available from Anywhere

This isn't your grandma's internet.  Microsoft is working on some interesting new technology and is ready to deploy it in a context needed by food companies.  We are talking about thin deployment of a full feature-rich ERP client, web services that extend new user interfaces that are simplified for lay users, and new offerings like credit card processing.  All of this hot new stuff makes the product feature rich but also lowers customers' costs in deploying technology to employees, vendors, and customers.  Imagine running your business from the beach, or from your iPhone or Windows Phone.  We're there.

2. Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration

Microsoft's new built-in integration of Dynamics NAV with Microsoft Dynamics CRM will change the way food companies interact with their customers and consumers alike.  Imagine going to a trade show and having all of your new leads automatically captured and assigned to your sales force.  Even better, imagine tracking the interaction with these new leads and determining which ...