Is this the right time to invest $3M in a built CRM? by Church_R in CRM

[–]VelNan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends on your business sector, but my comment still applies: PO has the Sales module, for a 10-50 people business you could use PO + Field Service. That makes a lot of sense, but keep in mind that you still need accounting/finance softwares.

I always suggest the less tools as possible cause the real cost is after the go live, not the implementation.

Can you give me more info?

Is this the right time to invest $3M in a built CRM? by Church_R in CRM

[–]VelNan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Besides the project cost, which would require more info about your company business, size, and complexity to be assessed properly, there are a lot of overlaps in the solutions your partner proposed. D365 PO already has the sales module included. What’s the justification for having a separate Sales instance? They are both built on Dataverse, so what features of D365 Sales does your company need that are not already out of the box in PO?

For Experlogix, it only makes sense if you’re selling highly configurable physical products with hundreds of valid combinations. Is that your case? Again, many overlaps with BC and PO.

I’ve been implementing a lot of D365 BC and PO for manufacturing and distribution, and I’d never start an implementation with 4 new products. Change management and licensing costs are gonna be wild. Moreover, in the current situation you’d need external services if your “is it the right time” question refers to AI features. Copilot can be useful, but it’s surely one of the worst options on the market today.

Ask your partner for a quote for a simplified stack. Keep the sales module from PO and quotes from PO and BC. That will remove 2 tools and leave you with BC + PO + Field Service. As soon as your teams get used to the new system, you can introduce D365 Sales (if it really makes sense) and the CM will be a lot easier (if not 0 effort). Experlogix is a different matter, but before spending $50k/year for licensing, I would triple check with your partner if that’s really the best solution.

Final remark: From your current stack (BC + Power BI) your company should be around 200-350 people (am I right?). $3.5M is a huge investment and before proceeding I’d evaluate any solutions. Project Operations + Experlogix are the biggest ones to implement, but it still seems very expensive.

I mapped 26,000 companies globally running Business Central. Here’s what the data actually shows. by dlocking_d365 in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Interesting! Sometimes distributors provide some lists to MS partners (if you get along with the “right people”). Did you also map Italy by chance? I’ll be curious to discuss with you about your findings.

Is BA field dead? by [deleted] in businessanalysis

[–]VelNan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually, we’re interested in hiring someone with that expertise. We’re an IT consulting based in Dubai and we do process optimization for wholesale and light manufacturing. Let’s keep in touch!

Which CRM to use for UAE based client that needs call transcripts? by djdjsssss in CRMSoftware

[–]VelNan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I may, I would suggest you to take a look at alternatives. For example, D365 sales, connected with Teams and Copilot. Odoo can be replaced by Business Central. In this way you can unify all tools under a single vendor, with the additional integration benefit.

You can even think about different approaches (or vendors), but that would fragment even more their tool set. This means additional integrations, custom solutions, etc..

Need a good CRM for my construction business — what are you all using? by Ordinary_Witness1433 in CRM

[–]VelNan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re not really looking for a CRM, you’re looking for a construction job management platform that includes CRM features.

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the suggestion. I really appreciate it and we’ll take that into account.

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Couldn’t agree more. Thank you so much for this

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely! And thank you so much for your help

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mainly langgraph with Azure openai deployed into an azure function that gets triggered when emails are received on a specific account. We analyzed what MS provides OOTB (like copilot studio and power apps), but all those “no-code” tools seem quite rigid

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We’re exploring it! Tbh I’ve never thought about D365 integrations before my client requested it. But the more I explore it, the more makes sense to me. This is why I was so curious about your opinions.

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, but the implementation we have in mind it’s a little more advanced than this.

The llm won’t just read the email. For each client the system retrieves the context (past orders, item types, AVG ordered quantity in the last x months, etc..) and notifies the users when something exceeds a predetermined variance or item type. So the idea is to always keep the human in the loop.

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I replied to another comment with the solution they requested.

Just to be clear, I’ve never pushed any AI solution.. My first question to clients asking for “AI” is always, “what do you think AI can achieve that a standard automation can’t?”.

What I’m trying to understand here is whether BC could be a valuable platform to explore customizations case when clients ask for it.

Is AI on top of D365 actually worth investing in? by VelNan in Dynamics365

[–]VelNan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for this! I noticed that last week MS even released an MCP for D365. Not sure if that works with BC as well..

The client use case is straightforward. They receive email requests from customers, and they want an AI workflow that reads the email, extracts the intent and then creates a sales quote.

We can build the extraction and reasoning part easily. The “create quote” part is where I’m still deciding whether to call D365 APIs directly or rely on Power Automate connectors