In a world where enterprise technology often equates progress with adding more—more systems, more integrations, more complexity—Dominic Jainy champions a different philosophy: a return to the core. With deep expertise in enterprise architecture, particularly the intersection of eCommerce and ERP systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, he argues that true competitive advantage lies not in expansion, but in execution. We explore with Dominic the hidden costs of a fragmented technology landscape, where teams spend more time reconciling data than driving growth. He unpacks the critical difference between a system that is merely integrated and one that is truly ERP-native, revealing how this architectural choice can restore clarity, resilience, and control to an organization. This conversation delves into how businesses can achieve high performance without sacrificing a single source of truth and why, in the end, simplicity is the most sophisticated strategy for scale.
Many organizations add systems for pricing or content, only to find execution slows and teams spend more time reconciling data. How do leaders typically misdiagnose these symptoms, and what is the first step to shifting focus from managing alignment back to managing performance?
That’s the classic trap of chasing symptoms instead of the disease. Leaders see a pricing discrepancy between the website and a final invoice, and their first instinct is to blame the integration or demand a faster sync time. They see an order that needs manual validation and they focus on retraining the sales team. They’re putting bandages on individual wounds without realizing the entire system is suffering from chronic inflammation. This is why so many digital transformations struggle; a McKinsey analysis found that fewer than one-third actually deliver sustained improvements, often because of this underlying integration complexity. The first step to breaking this cycle is a crucial mental shift. It’s when leadership looks at their teams and realizes they aren’t innovating or analyzing anymore; they’re just professional fact-checkers, spending their days in a state of constant reconciliation. The moment you acknowledge that you are managing the alignment between systems instead of managing the performance of the business, you can start asking the right question: why have we allowed our core system of record to lose its authority?
eCommerce is often treated as a channel layered on top of core operations, creating structural tension. Can you share an example of how this tension manifests in pricing or inventory visibility, and explain the cascading impact on finance and operations teams?
Absolutely. Let’s take inventory, a classic and painful example. The eCommerce platform, living outside the ERP, shows ten units of a popular product are available. It’s an estimate based on the last data sync, which might have been an hour or even just minutes ago. A customer, thrilled to find it in stock, places an order. But in the real world, in the warehouse governed by Business Central, a large phone order had just claimed the last three units five minutes earlier. The truth is, there are only seven left. Instantly, a chain reaction of failures begins. The order is now an exception that operations has to manually resolve. Customer service has to make an awkward call to manage a disappointed customer. And the finance team, down the line, has to reconcile the discrepancy when the invoice doesn’t match the original order. This isn’t a rare event; it becomes a routine, a constant operational drag. That structural tension between the website’s version of reality and the ERP’s truth creates a thousand tiny cuts that bleed efficiency and, most importantly, erode everyone’s confidence in the data they use to make decisions.
Let’s talk about an “ERP-native” architecture. How does this fundamentally differ from a tightly integrated, middleware-based approach? Please walk me through how a single transaction, from order to fulfillment, works differently in this model versus a traditional best-of-breed setup.
This is the most critical distinction. A middleware-based approach is like having a translator between two people who speak different languages. The eCommerce platform says, “I have an order,” and the middleware translates that message into a language the ERP can understand, then passes it along. There’s an inherent delay and a risk of mistranslation. It’s always a reconciliation after the fact. In a truly ERP-native model, there is no translator because everyone is speaking the same language. The eCommerce platform isn’t a separate entity; it’s an extension of the ERP itself. So, when a customer places an order, that transaction isn’t being sent to Business Central—it is occurring within Business Central from the very first click. The inventory is allocated in real time from the authoritative source, the customer-specific pricing is pulled directly from the core logic, and the order record is created just once, at the source of truth. There is no second step, no validation, no reconciliation. The order simply flows directly into the fulfillment queue, clean and accurate. It changes commerce from a series of transactional handoffs to a single, seamless operational flow.
It’s a common belief that high performance requires decoupling the commerce front-end from the core ERP. How can an ERP-native system deliver a fast customer experience without constant ERP calls? Please explain the architectural approach that makes this possible without creating competing sources of truth.
This is a powerful myth, the idea that you have to sacrifice control for speed. It comes from a history of sluggish, monolithic ERPs. But a modern, intelligent ERP-native architecture flips that idea on its head. The solution isn’t to constantly call back to the ERP for every little thing, which would indeed be slow. Instead, the architecture intelligently replicates the necessary data—like the catalog structure, pricing logic, and customer context—to the web front-end. Think of it as giving the website a local, authorized copy of the rulebook. The customer can browse, apply filters, and see their specific pricing instantly because that information is right there, ready to be served. It feels incredibly fast and responsive. However, the absolute authority, the master copy of that rulebook, remains securely within Business Central. The front-end has the freedom to execute, but the ERP retains the power to govern. This gives you the best of both worlds: the performance customers demand without the fragmentation and data integrity issues that come from creating competing sources of truth.
Consider the goal of “always taking orders,” even during temporary system disruptions. Beyond simply queuing transactions, what architectural principles are required to protect the core ERP from external volatility while keeping the commerce front-end fully operational and performant?
“Always Take Orders” isn’t a feature you bolt on; it’s an outcome of a deeply respectful architectural philosophy. The core principle is that the ERP is the backbone of the business and must be protected from the unpredictable chaos of the public internet. The architecture is designed to create a buffer, a protective layer. The commerce front-end is built to operate with a degree of autonomy, using that intelligently replicated data we just discussed. So, if the connection to the ERP is temporarily disrupted—maybe there’s a network issue or the ERP is down for a brief maintenance window—the customer-facing site doesn’t crash. It continues to allow customers to browse and, crucially, to place orders. Those orders are then held in a secure, intelligent queue. Once connectivity is restored, they synchronize seamlessly with Business Central without overwhelming the system. This design protects the ERP from performance degradation and ensures that you never lose a sale due to a temporary hiccup. It’s about building for resilience, not just for perfect conditions.
Organizations often find that highly customized, fragmented environments become fragile as business volume increases. Could you share a specific example of this fragility, and then contrast it with how an ERP-native architecture handles the same growth pressures to reduce operational overhead?
Imagine a growing business that relies on a fragmented system—a separate pricing engine, an external content management system, and an eCommerce platform all integrated with Business Central. Now, they want to run a complex flash sale for their top-tier customers. The fragility becomes painfully obvious. The marketing team has to update the promotion in the CMS. The pricing team has to configure the special rules in the separate pricing engine. The sales team has to ensure the logic is correctly mapped in the eCommerce platform. Every single integration point is a potential point of failure. As order volume spikes during the sale, the risk of systems falling out of sync skyrockets, leading to incorrect prices, overselling, and a support nightmare. It’s a house of cards that gets shakier with every new customer. In contrast, the ERP-native architecture handles this with an almost elegant simplicity. The team defines the flash sale pricing and customer rules once, directly in Business Central where that logic already lives. It’s instantly and authoritatively reflected on the website. As volume increases, the system scales because there are fewer moving parts to break and no integrations to maintain. Growth doesn’t add proportional operational overhead; the business can absorb the pressure because its foundation is solid, not fragmented.
What is your forecast for the future of ERP and commerce integration?
My forecast is a widespread return to first principles. For years, the trend was to bolt on more and more specialized applications, creating these incredibly complex and fragile ecosystems. I believe the most successful organizations are realizing that this approach is unsustainable. The future isn’t about abandoning the ERP; it’s about restoring its authority and making it the undisputed center of gravity for the business. We will see a strategic shift away from managing dozens of integrations and toward choosing architectures that preserve a single source of truth by design. Leaders will stop asking if a technology can enable growth and start asking if their architecture can enable clean, confident execution. Simplicity will stop being seen as a preference and will be rightfully recognized as a powerful competitive advantage. The future belongs to businesses whose systems support the business, not complicate it.