What Went Right (And Wrong) For One Manufacturer’s Microsoft Dynamics NAV Upgrade

Upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV can be a challenging process for even the most prepared businesses. For one US-based manufacturing and engineering firm that shared their experiences at NAVUG Summit 2015, the successful move from NAV 2009 to NAV 2015 took several years and a concerted effort. Despite the challenges, the company's IT director told attendees that his organization has enjoyed significant advantages by upgrading, not only on the software end, but also for the business as a whole.

At the software and IT management level, the company's internal design team had continually tinkered with their base NAV 2009 software, which had built up nearly 1,000 customizations over a five year period. Cleaning up issues with "spaghetti code" and ensuring only pertinent customizations remained in the system helped drive the company to make the decision to upgrade.

With the multitude of issues that can pop up and derail an otherwise successful NAV upgrade or re-implementation, the company's IT manager identified several factors to take into consideration including:

Budgeting & Staffing. Unless a company can afford to pay for an entire team to handle the NAV upgrade, normal full-time employees will likely need to handle the bulk of the transition. Putting together an implementation team with positive energy and avoiding "poison pill" employees was key to a successful implementation. The success of that team underscored the need to take plenty of time to train all employees in the new system before going through with the upgrade. As a general rule, the presenter said, budgeted funds and implementation timelines will usually run over, but that businesses prefer cost overruns to an ineffective and incomplete system.

Upgrades & Customization. The company's internal development ...