Forrester Consulting: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Delivers 265% ROI
A new Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) from Forrester Consulting outlines the cost savings and business benefits enabled by migrating from an on-premises Microsoft ERP solution to Business Central in the cloud.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with a Business Central investment, Forrester interviewed four representatives of organizations that recently migrated from an on-premises Microsoft solution to Business Central.
To provide additional context, Forrester also fielded a survey of 160 decision makers from organizations that recently migrated to Business Central. For the purposes of this study Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ and survey respondents experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that has 150 employees and annual revenue of $15 million.
The representative interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $729,000 over three years versus costs of $200,000, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $529,000 and and ROI of 265%.
Before moving to [Dynamics 365] Business Central in the cloud, our customer data was scattered across multiple on-prem environments. With centralized data, we're now able to quickly access information to create and test new features that better serve our customers and unlock business growth.
Key Insights & Quantified Benefits
Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:
- Productivity improvement of 12.5% for operations staff, 15% for sales staff, and 15.6% for finance staff. Deploying Business Central allows the composite organization’s finance and operations staff to reduce the amount of time they spend on manual reporting and information reconciliation while also providing improved visibility and tools to accelerate and improve the quality of decision-making. Sales personnel have access to the records they need while in the field.
Avoided third-party fees of more than $80,000 annually. The composite organization previously engaged third-party IT consulting services to work on customizations and integrations amid the complexities inherent to an on-premises ERP deployment. Third-party external reporting was also required to supplement personnel effort. After implementing Business Central, the composite eliminates third-party consulting and reporting costs because IT staff can internally manage integration and customization work.
- Avoided costs of legacy ERP solutions and support worth up to $53,000 annually. With its previous on-premises Microsoft Dynamics deployment, the composite was incurring infrastructure costs, maintenance personnel costs, and upgrade fees. By migrating ERP functionality on Business Central in the Cloud, the organization avoids these costs traditionally associated with an on-premises deployment.
- Profitability from improved sales pipeline generation. By migrating to Business Central, the composite’s sales and support staff are better equipped to service the organization’s customer base directly from the field, which yields improved sales pipeline generation revenue, retention and profit.
By migrating to a single cloud solution, Business Central provides a connected cloud business management solution that brings together sales, services, and operations teams.
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