All you need to know about Microsoft Dynamics NAV coming to an end and becoming Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

(this page will continuously be updated as information arrives)

March 30 2019, marks a historical milestone in the history of Dynamics: it’s the date where you will no longer be able to transition any legacy customers to Dynamics NAV 2018. From that date onwards it will all be Dynamics 365 Business Central – either on-prem or SaaS, but all Dynamics 365 Business Central.

What are the things you need to consider as a Dynamics NAV partner? Are you fully prepared, or are there still a few topics that you might want to brush up on? Below we offer a check-list for you to consider.

What you need to know:

1. How to advise customers on on-prem vs. SaaS
2. How my current customer base looks like and what their individual transition plans are
3. The transition licensing option
4. How I plan to move my existing NAV add-ons to Extensions
5. The Dynamics 365 Business Central storyline
6. How and why I should update my website with Dynamics 365 Business Central message
7. How to deal with SaaS customers – in volume

Check? All set? Great! – you’re good to go.

But for those who think that any of the above might still need a bit of attention – we offer some word of advice:

Cloud/on-prem/hybrid?

How do you advise customers on Dynamics 365 Business Central deployment? Well – first, consider yourself lucky that you’re reselling a solution that offers ANY combination of deployment types a customer can wish for. On-prem, hosted, SaaS – or anything in between.

Even though more than 80% of customers who have implemented Dynamics 365 since it launched have done so in a cloud version – it still makes it mandatory to evaluate the customers’ individual situation, to find the best options for them.

Considerations should be around:

• Infrastructure maintenance – in-house or outsourced?
• Access to machine learning or not
• Uptime, data backups and disaster recovery
• Implementation time
• Scalability
• Upgrades and future proofing
• Internet-reliant
• Data sensitivity
• Storage costs

Guiding your existing Dynamics customers.

If you haven’t yet done so, you should take a closer look at the customers you already serve with Dynamics NAV. Some of them will be easier to transfer to Dynamics 365 Business Central – others will require some more extensive work. But having a plan for them all makes your installed base less vulnerable to outside competitors, playing on the insecurity that clients might feel right now with their (old) Dynamics implementation.

Microsoft has developed several transition tools that they have placed on PartnerSource.

If you need assistance in shortening the upgrade cycle – reach out to QBS to hear more about our QBS upgrade services.

Transition license prices

Naturally, Microsoft has a vested interest that all existing Dynamics customers transfer to Dynamics 365 Business Central – which is why they have introduced some specific transition pricing

Transition prices for Dyanamics NAV to Dynamics 365 Business CentralFor QBS partners we have also produced a deep FAQ on the topic – find this on our Partner Portal.

Making add-ons available to others

If you have developed an add-on to NAV you need to consider how to move this into the world of Business Central – both to make it available to your existing customers when you transfer these, but just as much to make it available to the thousands of customers who might be looking for exactly what you’ve developed. Why lose out on such a potential revenue stream?

A high-level view of the topics you need to go through:

• • Master Your Extension 2.0 Skills
  • Scope Your Extension Development
  • Convert Your Code
  • Set-up Extension Testing
  • Prepare Your Marketing for Validation
  • Prepare to Publish Your App
  • Delegate Billing and Provisioning

• Official Microsoft Validation
• Keep Your App Up-to-date

All of these topics are part of the Ready to Go program offered by QBS group – as an end-to-end assisted program taking you from selling your legacy NAV IP to being listed on Microsoft AppSource with your converted solution available to be sold to a far wider Business Central audience.

Shout it out loud

When it comes to understanding the value proposition of Dynamics 365 Business Central as well as making sure that the outside world can recognize you as a capable supplier, it may all sound embarrassingly basic. Nevertheless, this is many times one of the areas that simply is forgotten in many partner organizations, focusing much more on the technical side of things than clearly relating the key messages around D365.

You need to be sure that you incorporate all the great messages within the D365 suite – not only Business Central – as it’s the full story that really sets it apart from other solutions out there in the market. Even though customers might not be buying in on the full solution concept just yet – the message around having access to all of this is a powerful argument in any sales cycle.

And once you know the story by heart – make sure that this is also very easily visible when prospects visit your website. Don’t be fooled – you can have as good a dialogue as you want with a prospect – if your website is not clearly telling the same story around your D365 knowledge you risk losing the deal. Really. Trust us on this – we’ve seen it several times.

Even though all partners need to develop their own unique way of communicating the value proposition of D365 – there are basic marketing materials made available from Microsoft that you can utilize as your starting point.

Check out PartnerSource

Check out localized marketing materials in the QBS Partner Portal (in the Asset Library)

Example of demand generation material available

1-2-3 go!

And finally – is your organization geared to this new volume game? With less customizations, more and more customers opting for cloud and asking for smaller solutions as starting point (land and expand) – you are in for a massive stream of customers, and you need a different approach than before to handle this kind of business in a profitable way. As examples you need to consider:

• Shorter sales cycles
• Shorter implementation cycles
• Scalable training and support

If you’re ready to deal with all of this – good for you. But if you require advice and some guidance on how to begin and plan your D365 journey, QBS group stands ready to assist you!

Contact us today