MSDW Podcast: Evaluating a Dynamics GP to Business Central upgrade, Ep. 2

In the first episode of this series about upgrade strategies for Microsoft Dynamics GP customers, Karen Riordan of Menlo Technologies and Peter Joeckel of TurnOnDynamics joined us to discuss the wide-ranging the experiences of these organizations and varied viewpoints they hold today when it comes to the much-hyped promise of moving from on-prem ERP to Dynamics 365 Business Central in the cloud.

On this second episode, we go deeper on the needs of GP customers today. The tens of thousands of GP customers in the world are a diverse group. Some have watched carefully as Microsoft and other vendors have released their new generation of ERP solutions, while others need someone to come in and start from the beginning on what cloud is all about. Peter and Karen agree that GP customers should expect their partners to take a consultative approach rather than acting as an extension of their IT team. And they discuss some of the signs that a company is a good candidate for moving to pure cloud ERP as opposed to some other alternative.

Show Notes:

• 1:00 - When talking about upgrades, why talk about the GP market's decisions?
• 4:30 - Why don't companies have a great understanding of what a newer ERP system can do for their businesses?
• 6:30 - The challenge of taking a consultative approach rather than a technical approach to ERP discussions
• 10:30 - Signs that an organization really needs to consider a new ERP
• 15:30 - What roles or groups tend to support new technology investments and why is there resistance in other areas?
• 19:30 - Distinguishing between different types of GP deployments and why the broad use means different future needs
• 22:30 - Why executive vision is the critical foundation to enterprise application investments, both for the organization and the success of an implementation partner.
• 24:30 - How coronavirus has impacted the ERP and broader IT priorities of organizations.