Co-pilot for Finance and Operations
Manufacturing companies are confronted with a constantly growing mountain of data, the effective interpretation and use of which is crucial to the company's success. Recognizing patterns in this data with machine learning is not a completely new development.
However, the latest generation of AI applications in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations in the form of Copilot goes far beyond traditional methods by reacting agilely to market changes and new trends. At the same time, it helps users to take full advantage of the platform's capabilities even without in-depth technical understanding. This creates the flexibility and scalability required to adapt to dynamic market conditions.
Users can:
- Increase success rates in the collection of receivables
- Send personalized dunning letters with AI-generated content
- Generate project task lists
- Assess potential project risks and develop risk mitigation plans
and create project status reports
These functions streamline business processes and help to manage projects and financial processes in an optimized and targeted manner.
Stolt Tankers:
"We already had a considerable amount of data available - including all the repair data from the last five years, inspection reports and fuel reports. Our engineers pay very close attention to these reports. They have to by law. The challenge for us was: how do we 'land' this data and how do we make it usable for the analysis and the model? HSO provided the knowledge and the right tools for this."
Berend Vree, Reliability & Performance Manager
Use case 3: Plan projects, identify risks and generate reports
The initial situation
In project management, complex tasks such as planning, risk assessment and performance monitoring come up against time-consuming, recurring tasks such as preparing project status reports. Project managers are often faced with the task of processing a large amount of information and making the right critical decisions despite constant time pressure.
Change through Microsoft Copilot
Here too, Copilot can help in two ways: with its ability to analyze large amounts of data and automate routine tasks. With Copilot in Dynamics 365 Project Operations, project managers can work more efficiently because the AI helps to create realistic task plans, provides data-driven risk assessments and generates meaningful project status reports.
Added business value
Copilot helps project managers and their teams to accelerate project planning, reduce risk and improve project visibility - both in terms of financial data (e.g. budgets) and project progress (e.g. completed tasks and timelines). This allows managers to focus on strategic decisions and creative problem-solving, increasing the overall efficiency and success rate of projects.
The benefits at a glance:
- More efficient project planning and execution
- Increased transparency and control over project progress
- Reduced (financial) risks through proactive assessments
- Improved project performance
- Optimization of resource allocation
Practical example
Mark is a project manager at FutureTech and regularly spends many hours defining project tasks. With Copilot in Microsoft 365 Finance, tasks and their time requirements are already suggested to him based on the project name and description - based on data from other, similar projects. Mark can then customize, move and assign them to his team members.
When it comes to providing transparency to the finance department through a project status report, Mark can use Copilot to summarize data on budgets, financial performance, risks and project status by task in minutes.
Use case 4: Creating financial forecasts
The initial situation
Financial forecasts and analyzes are one of the most important decision-making tools for business planning, but they are often time-consuming and complex. Financial experts must consider various internal and external data sources and act quickly and securely. Manually compiling and updating reports and presentations can take hours, sometimes days, and distracts from strategic tasks.
Change by copilot
By integrating Copilot into Dynamics 365 Finance, financial experts are relieved of routine tasks and supported in data analysis. Copilot can also quickly summarize the results into meaningful reports.
Copilot automates the creation of presentations and reports in Microsoft 365 applications and makes it possible to create customized, current and precise analyzes as well as presentations and reports in Microsoft 365 applications based on a broad database. Even complex financial projects can be analyzed faster and better with the help of AI. Questions like “What if…” can easily be asked in natural language, with Copilot creating corresponding models that can be used in reports.
Business added value
Copilot in Dynamics 365 Finance increases productivity in financial management, especially accounts receivable management, by automating tasks such as accessing credit and payment histories. Through financial planning and analysis functions, Copilot automates recurring tasks and ensures secure data access and exchange.
The benefits at a glance:
- Improved customer interaction and debt collection success rates
- Innovative financial planning and analysis
- Flexible and dynamic financial forecasts
Practical example
Maria is the finance team manager at our fictional example company, FutureTech, and uses Copilot to automate time-consuming financial forecasting. Instead of spending hours customizing and updating various inputs, Copilot in Dynamics 365 Finance allows you to quickly create and customize forecast scenarios.
For example, Maria's team uses Copilot for detailed demand and inventory planning, combining historical data with current trends to make granular predictions. This allows FutureTech to react more efficiently to market fluctuations and dynamically adapt its financial strategy.
Use case 5: financial forecasts
The initial situation
If you already work with in Microsoft Power Automate, you know that it can automatically perform tasks triggered by certain events. Many manufacturing companies integrate cloud flows with Dynamics 365 to automate their invoicing, inventory management, or sales forecasting, for example. The only difficulty? Previously, workflows in cloud flows had to be created using buttons that weren't completely intuitive.
Creating flows required a deeper understanding of how Power Automate works, as well as the ability to manually configure and combine the different connectors and actions. This was particularly challenging for users without a technical background.
Copilot change in cloud flows
Cloud Flow Copilot helps users create and edit flows through natural language prompts. Users can describe and create flows with simple instructions - without extensive knowledge of Power Automate's specific features. This greatly simplifies the process and makes it more accessible to a wider audience.
Business added value
By making the creation of cloud flows in Power Automate more accessible and user-friendly, especially for those with little experience with the platform or automation, even complex automation processes can be developed quickly and efficiently. This saves companies time when onboarding new employees and reduces the risk of human error in the flow setup.
The benefits at a glance:
- Faster flow development
- Shortened training time in Power Automate
- Greater accuracy and fewer sources of error
- Promoting innovation and creativity
Practical example
Lena is head of controlling at FutureTech and is responsible for the invoice and inventory management processes. With Copilot in Cloud Flows, Lena simply describes in natural language what should be automated. For example, she enters: “When a delivery arrives, check the items against the order and update the inventory.” Based on this description, Copilot generates a corresponding flow that automatically handles these tasks.
Lena can adapt and refine this as needed. In addition, Lena can use Copilot to quickly and efficiently create sales forecasts based on current inventory and sales data that Copilot can access.