The News: Microsoft announced the general availability of Dynamics 365 Finance Premium, its package of corporate finance planning tools that are designed to help CFOs build advanced financial plans and leverage insights, aided by embedded AI capabilities. The Dynamics 365 Finance planning and analytics capabilities are designed to reduce the steel learning curve and complex interface and design of other enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools while leveraging interoperability with familiar tools such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Power BI. You can read the blog post announcing the availability and features of Dynamics 365 Finance Premium on Microsoft’s website.
Microsoft Announces GA Date for Dynamics 365 Finance Premium
Analyst Take: Microsoft announced the general availability of Dynamics 365 Finance Premium, its ERP package that is designed to incorporate advanced corporate finance planning tools with AI capabilities. The package is designed to let CFOs and other financial planning professionals leverage familiar software products such as Excel while easily integrating with other tools, including Power BI, with the goal of eliminating the steep learning curve and unfriendly design of other ERP software. According to Microsoft, the product’s licensing structure will enable corporate teams to maximize the value of their investments by optimizing their SKU mix for finance and business performance management users.
The end goal, according to Microsoft, is to incorporate planning, analytics, and insights as capabilities within Dynamics 365 Finance while providing interoperability with familiar tools such as Excel and Power BI. This strategy is designed to reduce and minimize the costs usually associated with many financial planning and analysis (FP&A) and extended planning and analysis (xP&A) solutions, by allowing individual users to access the features and capabilities needed for their work while not having to pay for unnecessary functionalities.
The Package Incorporates New xP&A Capabilities
Microsoft announced plans in May 2023 for new xP&A in Dynamics 365 Finance, and these capabilities are going to reach general availability on December 31. According to Microsoft, xP&A in Dynamics 365 Finance will be referred to as business performance planning and will have tools for financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, sales and operations planning, workforce planning, and more. These planning capabilities work with Power BI and Excel and build on both acquired and licensed intellectual property (IP). However, the Microsoft Dynamics Finance Premium license will not be available for purchase on Microsoft’s website until January 2, 2024, with pricing details to be published on the company’s website once the product is live.
Microsoft noted that the initial release use cases will apply to finance “record to report” business processes including revenue planning, bottom-up planning, budgeting, forecasting, long range planning, merger and acquisition valuation, cashflow, risk mitigation, and capex planning. Additional data models will be forthcoming to extend future use cases to include operational and workforce planning scenarios. These capabilities are designed to let users:
- Unify disparate data from across the business into a single source of truth.
- Create, share, and collaborate across secure cloud reporting delivered through familiar tools with Excel and Power BI visuals.
- Receive contextual AI-driven insights to improve business performance, embedded into the flow of work.
- Connect planning and operational data with AI capabilities to enhance forecasting
Microsoft Continuing to Embed AI Across All Software Properties
The most interesting aspect of the package is its incorporation of AI functionality within the platform. Microsoft, like most other large software as a service (SaaS) ERP vendors, are focused on incorporating AI to make it easier for users to interact with the information held within the software application, as well as identify hidden insights within the data to enable better forecasting.
Further, the collaboration capabilities embedded into Microsoft Teams and the Dynamics 365 Copilot natural language processing functionality are core to helping workers of all skill levels and functions within the financial and planning departments to unlocking insights while ensuring that their workflows are seamless and friction free. This approach ensures a more modern and efficient way for teams to securely access, share, and collaborate with timely data needed to accurately plan and forecast.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
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Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
