Posts Tagged ‘business intelligence’

Thanks to Microsoft for this.

There are three kinds of people: those who watch things happen, those who make things happen, and those who wonder what happened.

The world is in crisis. Some countries are hit harder than the others, some markets have sunk deeper than the others, but the effects of global economic recession are obvious, and if the crisis didn’t hit you yet, fasten your seatbelt—it surely will.

With the whole world wondering what’s going on, the winners will be those who learn to navigate the troubled waters and make things happen. This is much easier with a piece of good business management software, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Recession is more than skin deep, and no small or medium-sized business can possibly mitigate the macroeconomic cause-and-effect avalanche that led to current situation. Instead of prescribing a cure that’ll save the world (maybe another time), I’ll focus on three elephant-obvious symptoms that affect everybody:

• Declining sales: lack of money clogs the wheels of perceived obsolescence, and people stop buying unless it’s necessary. From consumers, this symptom quickly cascades all the way up the supply chain, and suddenly everyone is affected.
• Decreasing profitability: less sales means less revenue, which means lower margins. Unless you find a way to decrease operating costs, you face a serious profitability issue. Corporations can lay off thousands to save billions; small to mid-sized businesses cannot.
• Illiquidity: less profit means less cash to operate. As if this is not bad enough, less sales can easily mean more cash trapped inside excess inventory of both raw materials and finished products. Unless you harness your demand/supply balance forces.

These three are are linked together tightly, and tend to spiral around in endless cycles. But there is good news for you: Microsoft Dynamics NAV can actually help you tame the recession beast.

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