Podcast Transcript: How to assess a move to Dynamics 365 Business Central in the cloud

The following transcript is taken from our recent podcast episode How to assess a move to Dynamics 365 Business Central in the cloud with Jennifer Ranz and Chad Sogge of ENAVATE. 

Editor's Note: This episode is sponsored by Enavate.

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JASON GUMPERT  00:02

Welcome to The MSDW Podcast. I'm Jason Gumpert, editor at MSDynamicsWorld.com. In this episode, we are talking about the transition to cloud ERP and how to assess your organization's needs. ENAVATE is the sponsor of this episode. And as Jennifer Ranz and Chad Sogge explained, their team has been investing a lot of time and effort into making sense of the move from legacy ERP to the cloud, and specifically to Business Central. For partners and customers, a move to Business Central may feel like a moving target, and that's partly because it is. Like all cloud software, Business Central gets updates throughout the year with semiannual release waves and ongoing improvements to align it with other Microsoft services like Teams, Office 365, and Azure Services. At the same time, ISVs are adapting and rolling out new solutions of their own. It can be a lot to take in, and my guests explain the ways they try to improve the process and make projects more successful. Some of that is in the form of assessment tools, but process also matters. For example, ENAVATE runs a migration factory in partnership with Microsoft. And other partners take advantage of that model to streamline their own projects and focus on other value-added elements with their clients like new features, ISV selection or automation. And we discussed why the outcome of a move to BC should ultimately be better than the legacy system as a topic that seems obvious but can be curiously challenging to measure.

JASON GUMPERT  01:23

All right. Well, hi Jen, hi Chad. Thanks for joining me today. It's great to have you.

CHAD SOGGE  01:27

Great to be here, Jason.

JENNIFER RANZ  01:29

Yeah. Thank you for inviting us.

JASON GUMPERT  01:31

For you, Chad, I guess this is a welcome back. I actually should have counted it before, but I think you've been on the podcast at least a couple times at this point.

CHAD SOGGE  01:38

That sounds about right.

JASON GUMPERT  01:39

Yeah. So, it's great to have you back. And hey, Jen, can you maybe give a little introduction to our listeners?

JENNIFER RANZ  01:44

Yeah. My name is Jennifer Ranz, and I work on the EPS product team here at ENAVATE. I started at ENAVATE back in December of 2020. And before that, I worked at Microsoft in the research development, I'm focusing on the GP product line and Business Central.

JASON GUMPERT  02:05

All right, excellent. Welcome. Glad to have you with us. It's always great to talk about some of the issues that customers are facing, especially customers with either a lot of legacy ERP solutions or really a mixed environment. I wanted to maybe set the stage for our conversation in terms of maybe some of the advice that you're giving, either to customers or out in the channel in the work that you're both doing, and we can maybe use that as a way to understand a little more about exactly what kind of work you are doing and conversations that you're having. If you're talking to customers today, I'm guessing a lot of them have this mix of different kinds of systems and are reaching to a decision point that might have started with different kinds of triggering events or challenges that have arisen over time, maybe have some SaaS systems, some older legacy systems that are 5-10 years old or more. If I'm a customer in that situation, what's motivating me to think about modernizing and what should partners be talking to that kind of organization about?

CHAD SOGGE  03:03