At the Directions 4 Partners 2021 event in Milano I delivered two presentations. One of them about selling Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS to Microsoft Dynamics Navision customers without pushing technology.

Traditionally, Microsoft Dynamics 365 partners love to start customer conversations from their product solution set. And, like it or not, their pitches are frequently full of technology terms and ‘three letter words’.

Question is how effective that approach is if you want to motivate your existing Dynamics NAV customers to migrate to Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS.

In my session we discussed a somewhat different approach. One where not the technology, but the customer’s organization and their future is central. We focused on a set of highly relevant business related questions on how to transform your customer into the customer-centric company they need to be to survive in today’s world. And we wondered if and how their old(er) NAV version, their vast set of customizations and their potentially outdated business processes contribute to that goal.

To me, these are two of the most interesting conclusions:

• For many Dynamics NAV customers, the combination of older versions and lots of customizations function as a timebomb. So upgrading to the latest version of D365 on-premise is the best plan B if a migration to D365 Business Central SaaS comes to early now.
• Just like its competitors, Microsoft invests most of her R&D budgets in her cloud solutions. And while the on-premise versions will be supported for many years to come, these users have to reckon with declining innovations. Hence, the comparison between a landline phone and a mobile phone is striking. Hope you like it.... ;-9

And yes, it is probably more effective to have this discussion with your customers’ C-level rather than with their IT department, right?

So how do you motivate your Dynamics on-premise customers to make the move to the Dynamics 365 cloud shortly?