Businesses, facilities and operations

Business management configuration is used to map out internal and external companies, where they operate, and which operations they run at those locations. The objective is to gain clarity over the major elements of your business and enable clear and meaningful tracking and analytics of business data. The business management configuration can be tailored to any situation and may be used to represent various business scenarios, such as: 

• simple dealerships 
• dealer groups with multiple dealerships 
• companies with a mix of rental, sales, and service operations 
• complex ecosystems of automotive businesses, including national sales companies, dealer groups, dealers, and locations for sales and service operations 
• even external suppliers or trading partners can be represented in the business management setup

It is worth noting that while business management might seem similar to standard Business Unit and Account mechanisms in Dynamics 365 at first glance, there are several strong reasons for this part of the Annata 365 configuration: 

• business management enables Annata solutions built on the Common Data Service to be used with or without Dynamics 365 business solutions
• a more semantically specific business model enables more accurate data structures that in turn drive more meaningful insights through data analytics and intelligence
• improved flexibility to model either internal and external companies in ways that may or may not translate directly to built-in account and business unit structures

Also, note that the business management setup can usually be kept very simple, at least to start with. Complex or growing organizations that operate large facilities that are split up into multiple operations may require a more elaborate setup.