Category: D365 Implementation

Building an Internal D365 ERP Team For Your Implementation

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

Building an internal D365 ERP team is the part of implementation planning that most IT leaders struggle with. Yes: they name the people, commit the headcount, and check the box. But there is a massive difference between assigning people to a project and building an internal D365 ERP team that can actually own a multi-million dollar transformation.

This blog is for the IT leader who has been told “you need internal resources on this project” and is now trying to figure out what that actually means. Not simply how many people. What capabilities. Because the difference between assigning people to a project and building an internal D365 ERP team that can actually own the outcome is where most implementations quietly start to drift.

The 5 capabilities your internal D365 ERP team actually needs

Building an internal D365 ERP team is more about quality than quantity. You can have 10 people internally on the project, but if none of them have the right capabilities, you are still not ready. Here are the five that matter most.

1. Business process ownership. Someone on your internal team needs to be the authority on how your business actually operates. Not how it is documented. How it actually runs. The person who knows that your receiving process has 4 unofficial steps that nobody wrote down. The person who can explain why finance closes the books the way they do and what breaks if that changes. Your implementation partner will configure D365 based on what your team tells them. If your team cannot articulate the real processes, the configuration will reflect the documented ones, which are almost never the same thing at a manufacturing company.

2. Decision-making authority. ERP implementations generate hundreds of decisions. Which costing method? How many legal entities? Standard or advanced warehousing? Should catch-weight apply to these product lines? Your internal D365 ERP team needs people who can make these decisions quickly, or who have a direct line to someone who can. If every decision has to go through three layers of approval, the project stalls. If decisions get made without the right people in the room, they get made wrong. I wrote about this exact dynamic in 5 early warning signs your D365 F&O implementation is drifting.

3. Data knowledge. Someone on your team needs to understand your data landscape. Not at a theoretical level. At the “I know where the vendor master lives, I know it has 4,000 duplicate records, and I know which system is the source of truth for customer addresses” level. Data readiness is the number one project killer, and it is entirely an internal responsibility. We covered this in depth in why D365 F&O data readiness is the #1 project killer.

4. Change management credibility. You need someone who can stand in front of the warehouse team and the finance team and be believed. Not someone from corporate with a slide deck. Someone the teams trust. Someone who has been in the building long enough to understand the culture, the informal power structures, and the real reasons people resist change. External change management consultants can provide frameworks. But the best change practitioners are the ones who have actually done the job.

Many of the change management experts in the d365contractors.com community spent years working in operations, on the plant floor, or in the warehouse before they moved into consulting. When they stand in front of your warehouse team and talk about what is changing, they are not reading from a playbook. They have lived it. And your team can tell the difference.

5. Time. This is the simplest capability and the one most often missing. Your best people are your best people because they are good at their current jobs. Pulling them onto a D365 project means someone else has to do their current job for 12 to 18 months. If you have not solved the backfill problem, you do not have this capability. You have a name on an org chart and a person who is going to burn out trying to do two full-time jobs.

The D365contractors.com community exists to serve D365 ERP customers who want to beef up their internal capability and drive projects forward internally. Chat with us today about our vetted consultants who are ready to jump in and help:

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How to assess whether your internal D365 team is ready

Here is a quick exercise that takes 15 minutes and will tell you more about whether your internal D365 ERP team is ready than any formal resource plan.

Step 1: Name the person. For each of the five capabilities above, write down the name of the person who owns it. Not “Finance team” or “IT department.” A name. One person. If you cannot name someone for all five, you have a gap. This kinda information is what you need before the project starts, not information you discover in month 4 when the partner is waiting on decisions that nobody has the authority or knowledge to make.

Step 2: Check their capacity. For each name you wrote down, answer this: can that person dedicate at least 60% of their time to this project for the next 12 to 18 months? If the answer is no, you still have a gap. Having the right person at 20% capacity is almost worse than not having them at all. They will be consulted on decisions but not present for the context behind them. They will review configurations they did not help build. They will sign off on testing they did not participate in. And when something goes wrong post go-live, it’s hard (or unfair!) to hold them accountable.

Step 3: Confirm they actually know. Does each of these people know they are on the project? Not “has been told” but “has accepted the role, understands what it means, and has had their day job reallocated.” You would be surprised how often IT leaders commit people to an ERP project without ever having a direct conversation about what that commitment actually involves. “I figured they knew” is not gonna fly!

What happens when your internal ERP team has gaps nobody addressed

You’ll probably start the project with a capable team that is stretched too thin. But in the first few weeks, it works. Everyone is energized. Workshops are productive. The partner is impressed with how much your team knows about the business. Then month 2 hits. Quarter-end close pulls your finance lead off the project for two weeks. A major customer audit takes your supply chain person out for 10 days. Your warehouse supervisor’s replacement calls in sick for a week and suddenly they are back on the floor full time.

Each absence is temporary. Each one is justified. And each one creates a gap in the project that gets filled by one of two things: the partner making assumptions, or the decision getting deferred. Neither of those is good. Assumptions lead to configuration that does not match how your business works. Deferred decisions pile up and create a wall of rework in the final months of the project when you can least afford it.

By month 6, your project is technically “on track” but the internal D365 ERP team feels like they are barely keeping up. The partner is doing more of the heavy lifting than planned. Knowledge transfer is not happening because your people are not in the room consistently enough to absorb it. And you are building a growing dependency on external consultants that will be very expensive to unwind after go-live. I wrote about what this dependency looks like long term in how to build your internal D365 F&O team whilst using external consultants.

How to close the gaps in your D365 ERP team without delaying the project

Gaps in your internal D365 ERP team do not mean you should delay the project. They mean you should fill the gaps strategically before or during the early stages of the implementation.

For business process ownership gaps: Run a structured process discovery exercise internally before the partner kicks off. This does not require D365 knowledge. It requires your operations, finance, and warehouse leaders to sit down and document how things actually work. Not the process maps from 2009. How things work today, including the workarounds. Three to four weeks of focused internal workshops can give your team the foundation they need to show up to partner sessions with confidence instead of confusion.

For decision-making authority gaps: Create a decision rights matrix before the project starts. It sounds corporate, but it saves weeks of delays. For every major decision category (chart of accounts structure, costing method, warehouse configuration, integration approach), name the person who decides and the person who approves. Two names per decision. If you cannot fill in the matrix, you have found your gap. Fix it before kickoff.

For data knowledge gaps: Hire a data owner. Internal if you have someone capable. But definitely an independent contractor if you do not. This person needs to live inside your data for 60-90 days before the implementation starts and own it through go-live. It is one of the highest-ROI hires you can make on the entire project.

For change management credibility gaps: Identify your super users early. Not the most technical people. The most respected people in each department. Give them visibility into the project from month 1 and empower them to be the bridge between the project team and the rest of the organization. An engaged super user with credibility on the shop floor is worth more than any external change management consultant.

For time gaps: Backfill. There is no shortcut here. If your best people are on the D365 project, someone else has to do their jobs. Budget for it. Plan for it. Protect it. Every dollar you spend on backfill saves you three dollars in project delays, rework, and post go-live firefighting.

Building your D365 team is a leadership process, not just staffing

The manufacturing companies that run the best D365 implementations are not the ones with the biggest internal teams. They are the ones who honestly assessed what their team could handle, filled the gaps before they became problems, and protected their people’s time throughout the project.

Building an internal D365 ERP team that works is a leadership responsibility. It means having the uncomfortable conversations early about capability and budgets. It means telling your CFO that the finance lead needs to be backfilled, not split between the project and month-end close. It means telling your COO that the warehouse supervisor cannot run the warehouse and own the WMS configuration at the same time. It means budgeting for the unglamorous work of process documentation, data cleanup, and backfill hires before you spend a dollar on partner fees.

If you are about to start a D365 F&O implementation and you have not done this assessment, do it now. If you are already mid-project and recognizing some of these gaps, it is not too late to address them. But every week you wait makes the gaps harder and more expensive to close. The questions in 5 questions to answer before you talk to any D365 F&O vendor are a good place to start if you want a broader readiness check beyond just team capability.

If you are trying to figure out whether your internal team is set up for what a D365 implementation actually demands, book a free discovery call. We will talk through your situation honestly and help you figure out what kind of support would actually make a difference.

BOOK A FREE DISCOVERY CALL

About the Author

Ryan Carolan is the founder of d365contractors.com, connecting US manufacturing companies with pre-vetted, independent D365 experts. 14 years exclusively in D365 staffing. Hundreds of contractor placements into manufacturing implementations across the US.

Most weeks, he waffles on about stuff like this online.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn →

 

5 Early Warning Signs Your D365 F&O Implementation Is Drifting

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

Every IT leader mid-flight on a D365 F&O implementation has the same moment. Something feels a bit wonky.

You can’t quite put your finger on it. The status reports still say green. The partner is still saying the right things. But there’s still a quiet voice internally asking: are we still on track here? That instinct is worth listening to, because D365 F&O implementation warning signs are usually stealthy before they get expensive.

Nobody walks into a steering committee and says “this project is off the rails.” Instead, it drifts. Slowly. Quietly. And by the time anyone officially acknowledges the drift, it is expensive to fix.

These are the five early D365 F&O implementation warning signs I see most often at manufacturing companies running Dynamics 365 F&O. They are not the obvious red flags. They are the subtle ones. The ones that, if you catch them now, you can still course-correct. If you miss them, they compound. And compounding project risk is just as painful as compounding interest, except nobody is getting richer.

1. Your team is making decisions without you: the first D365 F&O implementation warning sign

This one is subtle and it usually feels like efficiency. The project team is moving fast. Decisions are getting made in workshops. Configuration is progressing. Status reports look green. Everyone is happy.

Except you, the VP of IT or CIO, are finding out about decisions after they have been made. “Oh, we decided to use standard costing instead of actual costing for the new product line. The partner recommended it.” Or “We agreed to defer the intercompany invoicing automation to Phase 2. It was getting too complex.” These are not small decisions. These are architectural choices that affect your business for years. And they were made in a room you were not in.

This is one of the earliest D365 F&O implementation warning signs because it signals that the project is developing its own momentum independent of business leadership. That sounds productive. It might not be. It could mean the project team is optimizing for project delivery, not business outcomes. They are making the choices that keep the timeline on track, which is their job. But whether those choices align with what your CFO needs from month-end close, or what your plant manager needs from production scheduling, is a different question entirely.

The fix is not to slow the project down. It is to establish a clear decision framework from day one. Which decisions can the project team make autonomously? Which ones require business leadership sign-off? And how quickly can you provide that sign-off so you do not become the bottleneck? I wrote about this kind of internal ownership in detail in how to build your internal D365 F&O team.

If something feels off on your D365 F&O project and you want an honest, independent perspective: book a free 30-minute discovery call:

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2. Nobody can explain the D365 project status in plain English

Ask your ERP project manager how the project is going (hopefully you have one internally). If the answer needs explaining by a color-coded Azure DevOps dashboard & a 17-slide deck, you might have a problem.

Healthy D365 F&O projects can be explained simply. “Finance configuration is done. Supply chain is 80% complete but we are stuck on the intercompany transfer design. Warehouse is on track. Data migration is behind because the item master cleanup is taking longer than expected. We need a decision on historical data scope by Friday.” That is a real status update. It has specifics, it names problems, and it asks for what it needs.

When the status updates become increasingly abstract, when everything is “in progress” and risks are “being managed” and timelines are “under review,” that is one of the classic D365 F&O implementation warning signs. Complexity hides problems. The team may not even be doing it intentionally. Large D365 projects generate enormous volumes of information, and it is genuinely hard to distill that into a clear picture. But your job as a leader is to demand clarity. If you cannot explain the project status to your CFO in 60 seconds, something is wrong.

Ask your project team to give you the “five sentences or less” version every week. If they cannot do it, that tells you more than any ADO screen ever will.

3. Your best people keep getting pulled back to their day jobs: a D365 F&O implementation warning sign that compounds fast

You committed your strongest Finance lead, your best Supply Chain person, and your most experienced warehouse supervisor to the D365 project. Full time. Dedicated. Everyone agreed this was critical.

Then Q3 close happened and Finance needed their person back for two weeks. Then a major customer audit pulled the Supply Chain lead off the project for a month. Then the warehouse supervisor’s replacement quit, and suddenly they are splitting time between the D365 project and running the warehouse. Each time, the justification is reasonable. Each time, it is “just temporary.” And each time, the project loses momentum in ways that do not show up on the status report until weeks later.

This is one of the most damaging D365 F&O implementation warning signs because it erodes the project from the inside. Your internal team carries the business knowledge that makes the configuration work. When they are not in the room, decisions get deferred or made without the right context. Configuration gets built on assumptions instead of facts. And testing gets done by people who do not know the business well enough to catch the real problems.

The backfill problem is real, and I wrote about it in 5 questions to answer before you talk to any D365 F&O vendor. If you did not solve the backfill problem before the project started, it will absolutely bite you mid-project. And mid-project is the worst time to solve a staffing problem because now you are recruiting under pressure, training someone new on an active project, and explaining to the steering committee why things are slowing down. Fun times for any VP of IT out there.

4. Testing keeps getting pushed: the D365 F&O implementation warning sign you cannot afford to ignore

Here is how this one plays out. The project plan has a clean testing phase. Unit testing, integration testing, UAT, performance testing. All neatly scheduled. All with dedicated time blocks.

Then configuration runs a little long. A few workshops need to be repeated because the requirements changed. An integration that was supposed to be straightforward turns out to be complex. Each delay is small. Each one is explained and justified. And each one steals time from the testing phase because the go-live date does not move (yet).

This is one of the most predictable D365 F&O implementation warning signs, and yet it catches people off guard every single time. The testing phase is where your project proves it actually works: in practice, with real data volumes, real user workflows, and real edge cases. When testing gets compressed, you are transferring risk from the project phase to the go-live phase. And the go-live phase is the most expensive place to find problems.

If your testing timeline has been compressed by more than 20%, treat it as a serious D365 F&O implementation warning sign. Push back. Either the go-live date moves, or the scope reduces, or you add resources to the testing effort. The one thing you cannot do is pretend that less testing equals the same level of readiness. It does not. And your warehouse team will be the first to tell you, loudly, on day two of go-live.

5. The partner team has quietly changed: a D365 F&O implementation warning sign people feel but rarely address

You selected your implementation partner partly based on the team they proposed. The Solution Architect who impressed everyone in the sales process. The functional lead who had deep manufacturing experience. The technical lead who knew D365 integrations inside and out.

Now you are four months in and the Solution Architect has been “moved to another engagement” and replaced by someone more junior. The functional lead is splitting time between your project and another one. The technical lead is the same, thankfully, but they are stretched thin for reasons you can’t be sure of.

This is one of the D365 F&O implementation warning signs that IT leaders feel but often do not address because it feels awkward. You do not want to damage the partner relationship. You do not want to seem difficult. And the partner’s project manager assures you that the new team is “just as capable.” Maybe they are. But capability is only half the equation. The other half is context. The original team sat through your discovery workshops. They heard your CFO explain the intercompany challenges. They watched your warehouse supervisor demonstrate the batch tracking process. That context does not transfer in a handover document.

This is not about blaming your partner. Good partners sometimes need to rotate resources, and they will be upfront about it when it happens. The warning sign is when it happens quietly, when you find out through a calendar invite rather than a conversation. If your partner team has changed and nobody proactively told you why, what changed, and how continuity will be maintained, that is worth a direct conversation.

What to do when you spot these D365 F&O implementation warning signs

If you recognized one or two of these in your current project, you are not alone. The whole point of catching them early is that you still have room to act.

 1. Name the problem clearly

In one sentence:

  • “Our internal team is being pulled off the project and it is affecting configuration quality.”
  • “Testing has been compressed by 6 weeks and we have not adjusted scope.”
  • “Key decisions are being made without business leadership input.”

Clear problem statements create clear conversations.

2. Have the conversation with your partner.

As a partnership: “We are seeing some things that concern us. Here is what we are noticing. How do we address this together?” Good partners will welcome this conversation. They probably see the same warning signs you do.

3. Revisit your decision framework.

Most D365 F&O implementation warning signs trace back to one of three root causes: decisions being made at the wrong level, resources being pulled without replacement, or timelines being compressed without adjusting scope. Fix the root cause and the symptoms usually resolve themselves.

4. Protect the things that matter most.

If you can only protect one thing, protect testing. If you can protect two things, protect testing and your internal team’s time. Everything else can flex. Those two things cannot, because they are the difference between a go-live that works and a go-live that technically happens but nobody trusts. I wrote about why that trust gap is so dangerous in D365 F&O change management: why user adoption fails.

Catching D365 F&O implementation warning signs is a leadership discipline

The IT leaders who run the best D365 implementations are not the ones with the biggest budgets or the most experienced partners. They are the ones who pay attention to the early signals. Who ask the uncomfortable questions in month 3 instead of month 9. Who push for clarity when status reports get vague. Who protect their people’s time even when the rest of the business is pulling them away.

These five D365 F&O implementation warning signs are not exotic. They happen on almost every large ERP project. The difference between the projects that succeed and the ones that struggle is not whether these warning signs appear. It is whether someone catches them early enough to do something about it.

If you are in the planning stages and want to make sure you are set up to catch these problems before they start, the questions in 5 questions to answer before you talk to any D365 F&O vendor will help you build the right foundation. And if you are already mid-project and nodding along to this article, take it as a sign. Not to hit the alarm. Just to have the conversation. Today. Not next week.

Independent D365 consultants are fantastic at helping customers catch these warning signs. Get connected with an impartial ERP expert today for free:

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About the Author

Ryan Carolan is the founder of d365contractors.com, connecting US manufacturing companies with pre-vetted, independent D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management experts. 14 years exclusively in D365 staffing. Hundreds of contractor placements into manufacturing implementations across the US.

Most weeks, he waffles on about stuff like this online.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn →

D365 F&O Discovery: Where Your Implementation Is Won or Lost

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

Your partner might call it the design phase, the requirements gathering phase, or the fit-gap analysis. Whatever the label, it is the same thing: the foundation everything else gets built on. D365 F&O discovery is where your implementation is won or lost.

This is the phase where you, as an IT leader, truly learn how the business really works. Where the warehouse manager explains the undocumented workaround they have used for 8 years. Where Finance admits the consolidation process runs on VLOOKUPs.

This blog is for the IT leader who is about to enter the discovery phase, or who is already in it and sensing something is not quite right. It is written from your side of the table, not the partner’s. Because while your partner runs the workshops, you own the outcome. And at a manufacturing company moving towards a sophisticated ERP platform, the outcome depends entirely on what happens in those early weeks.

Why D365 F&O discovery matters more than any other phase

Everything downstream is built on what comes out of discovery. Your partner builds configurations based on what they learn in these workshops. Test scripts get written against the processes documented here. And the training materials reflect the design decisions made in this phase. If it captures a sanitized, theoretical version of how your business is supposed to operate, every phase that follows inherits that gap.

At manufacturing companies, this gap is enormous. The distance between documented processes and reality is wider in manufacturing than in almost any other industry. Your warehouse team has been running a modified receiving process for years that nobody in IT knows about. Meanwhile, production planners have a sequencing logic that lives in someone’s head, not in any system. And the finance team has month-end close steps that were invented to work around the limitations of your legacy ERP and have been running on muscle memory ever since.

If your partner does not capture these realities during D365 F&O discovery, they will configure D365 based on the theoretical version. And you will spend UAT discovering that the system does not match how your business works. UAT is an expensive place to discover design flaws. Discovery is a cheap place to prevent them.

Our D365contractors.com community exists to serve D365 ERP customers who want to beef up their internal capability and drive projects forward independently. Chat with us today about the independent consultants who are ready to jump in and help you: BOOK A FREE DISCOVERY CALL

The one rule: the people who do the work must be in the room

If you take one thing from this blog, let it be this. Put the person running the warehouse in the workshop, not the VP who oversees it. The AP clerk, not the Controller. Your planner on the floor, not the Supply Chain Director. Leadership knows what the process should look like. The people on the floor know what it actually looks like. And it is the actual version that your D365 system needs to support.

Most manufacturing companies get this wrong. They send leadership because those are the people with availability. But leadership has not touched the day-to-day process in years. Nobody told them about the workaround in the receiving dock, or that the production schedule gets manually adjusted every Tuesday afternoon, or that AP bypasses the standard workflow for half their invoices.

Your partner will configure D365 based on what the people in the room tell them. Wrong people, wrong configuration. Not maliciously. Just incomplete.

What good D365 F&O discovery actually looks like

Good D365 F&O discovery at a manufacturing company has a few consistent characteristics regardless of which partner you are working with or which methodology they follow.

It starts with your processes, not the system. The partner should be asking “how does this work today” before they show you how D365 handles it. If the first workshop starts with a D365 demo, that is a red flag. Discovery is about understanding your business. The system comes later. A good partner listens first, then maps what they heard to D365 capabilities, then identifies the gaps.

It documents the exceptions, not just the happy path. Every process has a standard flow and a dozen exceptions. At a manufacturing company, the exceptions are where the real complexity lives. What happens when a supplier ships the wrong quantity? When a production order needs to be split mid-run? When a customer returns product that has already been partially consumed? The standard flow is easy. The exceptions are what break implementations.

It captures the workarounds. Every legacy system has them. Your team has been compensating for system limitations for years. Some of those workarounds are brilliant and should be preserved. Some are unnecessary and can be eliminated by D365’s native capabilities. But you cannot make that decision unless you know the workarounds exist. Good discovery surfaces them deliberately, not accidentally during UAT.

It takes the right amount of time. For a mid-size manufacturer implementing D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management, decent discovery could take 4 to 10 weeks, depending on complexity. If your partner has allocated 2 weeks, they are planning to cut corners. The right duration depends on how many modules you are implementing, how many sites you are rolling out, and how complex your operations are. But 2 weeks is almost never enough for a manufacturing company.

How to spot a discovery process that is being rushed

It does not always feel like rushing. Sometimes it feels like efficiency. Here are the signs:

  1. Your partner is running workshops with pre-built agendas that leave no room for tangents. In discovery, the tangents are the most valuable part. The tangent is where the warehouse manager says “actually, we do not do it that way” and the real process gets captured. A rigid agenda that moves through topics on a timer is optimized for the partner’s schedule, not your business’s complexity.
  2. The partner is leading with D365 demos instead of questions. If they are showing you how D365 handles accounts payable before they understand how you handle accounts payable, they are fitting your business to the system instead of the other way around. There is a time for demos. It is after they understand your processes, not before.
  3. Only leadership is in the workshops. If the partner has not asked to speak with the operational users, or if they accepted a room full of directors without pushing back, they are not going deep enough. A good partner will specifically request time with the people who do the work. If they did not ask, they are either too polite or too inexperienced. Either way, the result is the same: incomplete requirements.
  4. The fit-gap analysis is mostly “fit.” If your requirements gathering shows that D365 handles 95% of your needs out of the box, either you have a very standard business or the discovery was not thorough enough. At a manufacturing company with any real complexity, there should be meaningful gaps to address. A fit-gap that is almost entirely fit is usually a sign that the right questions were not asked.

I wrote about what this dynamic looks like when it compounds in 5 early warning signs your D365 F&O implementation is drifting.

How to prepare your internal team for D365 F&O discovery

The quality of discovery depends as much on your preparation as it does on your partner’s methodology. Here is how to set your team up to get the most out of this phase.

Document your real processes before the partner arrives. Not the process maps from 2019. How things actually work today, including the workarounds, the exceptions, and the unofficial steps. This does not need to be formal. A simple walkthrough written by the person who does the job is more valuable than a polished Visio diagram that nobody recognizes.

Identify the people who know the workarounds and protect their time. These are usually your most experienced operational people. They are also your busiest. If you do not carve out their time for discovery workshops, they will not be there, and the workarounds will not get captured until UAT when it is expensive to fix. Talk to their managers. Get coverage for their day jobs. This is a leadership responsibility. We covered how to assess whether your team is set up for this in build an internal D365 ERP team for your implementation.

Give your team permission to be honest. This sounds simple but it matters. In a room with their VP, the partner, and the project manager, your AP clerk is not going to volunteer that they bypass the standard process for half their invoices unless they feel safe doing so. Create the environment where honesty is expected, not punished. The best discovery workshops are the ones where someone says “I know this is not how we are supposed to do it, but here is what actually happens.” That is gold. Protect it.

Brief your team on what discovery is and why it matters. Most operational users have never been through an ERP implementation. They do not know what a fit-gap analysis is. They do not know why the partner is asking them to describe their daily workflow in granular detail. A 30-minute briefing that explains “this is how we make sure the new system works for you” goes a long way toward getting engaged, honest participation.

Discovery is YOUR responsibility

Your partner runs the workshops. But you own the outcome. Wrong people in the room? Your problem. Undocumented processes? Your gap. Team holding back because honesty feels risky? Your culture to fix.

The IT leaders who get the best results treat discovery as active leadership. They sit in the workshops. They check whether the partner captured what was actually said. They push back when complexity gets skipped over.

If something feels off, trust that instinct. Discovery is the cheapest place to get things right. Every other phase is a more expensive place to fix what was missed.

The questions in 5 questions to answer before you talk to any D365 F&O vendor can help you assess whether your organization is prepared.

If you are heading into D365 F&O discovery and want to make sure your internal team is prepared, or if you are mid-project and sensing gaps, let’s talk about independent consultants at D365contractors.com:

BOOK A FREE DISCOVERY CALL

About the Author

Ryan Carolan is the founder of d365contractors.com, connecting US manufacturing companies with pre-vetted, independent D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management experts. 14 years exclusively in D365 staffing. Hundreds of contractor placements into manufacturing implementations across the US.

Most weeks, he waffles on about stuff like this online.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn →

The Power Buyer’s Guide to Choosing Your D365 ERP Implementation Partner for Manufacturing

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

You’re about to commit MILLIONS on a shiny new Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management system. Besides a life partner, choosing a D365 ERP implementation partner is probably one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make.

Most VPs of IT think of this as a software purchase, but it’s actually a high-stakes talent play. The partner logo gets them the meeting. But never forget it’s the individual consultants, the ones actually sitting in your conference room, the ones that see this thing through to the end with you: they determine whether you hit your go-live. Nobody cares about the logo at that point.

The best partners in the D365 ecosystem don’t want “easy” clients; they want Power Buyers. They want leaders who understand how the talent market works, ask the hard questions early, and know that a project’s success lives or dies by the people assigned to it.

Here are 5 ways to move past the sales pitch and show up as a Power Buyer before the SOW is signed.

1. Stop buying logos. Start buying names.

In the D365 staffing world, we see it every day: a partner has a “strong bench” of 200 people, but only six of them truly understand your specific manufacturing flow. Whether that’s metal extrusion, fresh fruit OR canned areosol products; chances are you will meet someone in the sales cycle who knows your specific industry.

When a partner shows you a polished org chart with titles like “Senior Solution Architect,” they are giving you placeholders. As a Power Buyer, you push past the titles. Ask for the actual names of the people who will be on-site on Day 1. 

The Power Move: Ask for the LinkedIn profiles of the specific team members assigned to your D365 F&SCM project. You aren’t buying “expertise” in the abstract. You’re vetting the track record of the humans configuring your production orders, your warehouse management, and your financial posting logic. If a partner won’t name the team before the ink is dry, they are likely still scrambling to staff your project. And sometimes that’s okay- but you just want to know up front. If you skip this, don’t be surprised if you never again see the awesome consultant who “just got it” during the pitch.

Need trusted D365 expertise your internal team doesn’t have yet? Our vetted independent contractors are ready to jump in. Let’s talk:

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2. Audit your D365 ERP implementation partner’s project history

Every partner has three “gold star” references they’ve used for years. Those are marketing assets, and fair enough.

But to see how your D365 ERP implementation partner actually handles a complex manufacturing environment, ask for a list of every D365 F&O go-live they’ve done in your vertical in the last 24 months. Then, you pick three. When you get the VP of IT on the phone, ask the uncomfortable questions:

“What would you do differently if you were starting this project again?” Nobody says “nothing.” Their answer will tell you exactly where the blind spots were, whether it’s warehouse configuration, complex BOMs, or post go-live support.

“Were the people who started the project the same ones who finished it?” Consultant continuity is one of the biggest factors in D365 implementation success. Understanding how the partner manages team stability tells you what to expect on your project.

“How deep was their ‘X’ manufacturing knowledge?” There’s a massive difference between a partner who has implemented D365 for a professional services firm and one who has configured production orders, BOM structures, and advanced warehouse management for a company that actually makes things. Apples, packaging, golf balls, paperclips: you want to have consultants who have as close to whatever your ‘X’ is.

3. Stress-test with ugly scenarios from your plant floor

Most partner evaluations stay at the demo level. But manufacturing is messy. Light assembly is a world away from process manufacturing with catch-weights and shelf-life constraints.

Don’t let the D365 ERP implementation partner show you a clean demo. Give them a scenario that actually keeps your plant manager up at night.

The Power Move: Hand them a real-world problem: “We have a production line with 4 co-products where yield fluctuates 15% based on raw material quality. Our warehouse team needs to receive these into different storage zones based on shelf life and temperature requirements. Show me exactly how your team would configure this in D365 Supply Chain Management.”

If they get specific fast, they’ve been in the trenches. If they pivot back to “platform capabilities,” they’re learning on your dime.

This exercise helps both sides figure out fit early, before anyone commits serious time and budget. The best D365 partners actually appreciate this kind of detail in the sales process because it tells them you know your business and you’re ready to engage at a serious level.

4. Separate “delivery” from “outcomes” on your D365 project

Here is a staffing reality: the partner’s Project Manager and your Project Manager have different KPIs.

The partner’s PM is there to manage their team and hit SOW milestones. Your PM is there to protect your business outcomes. The person who pushes back when a configuration decision will break your shop floor reporting six months from now. The person who escalates when timelines are drifting but the status report still says green.

The Power Move: If you don’t have a D365 F&O-experienced PM internally, hire an independent ERP Project Manager with direct manufacturing experience. A Power Buyer knows that having an advocate who speaks “Partner” and “Manufacturing” fluently reduces friction and ensures the partner delivers value, not just code.

The best implementations I’ve seen have this structure in place. The partner appreciates having a client-side counterpart who understands D365, speaks the same language, and can make decisions quickly. It makes the whole project run better for everyone.

5. Negotiate talent insurance into your D365 implementation contract

The D365 talent market is competitive (no thanks to people like me :D)… Consultants get headhunted or moved to bigger projects constantly. Most VPs accept this as “just part of the game.”

You shouldn’t.

Before you sign, build resource continuity into your commercial agreement. This isn’t adversarial. It’s practical risk management that protects your manufacturing implementation timeline and your budget.

The Power Move: Negotiate these four staffing safeguards:

  • 14 days written notice before any key resource is rolled off your project. Not a phone call the day before. Written notice with enough time for you to assess the impact on your warehouse configuration, your finance setup, or whatever module that person owns.
  • Approval rights on replacements. You interview the new consultant just like a job candidate. If you’re running a D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management implementation in manufacturing, the replacement should have equivalent manufacturing experience. Full stop.
  • Two-week mandatory overlap for knowledge transfer. The outgoing consultant and the incoming one work side by side for at least two weeks ideally. This protects the project timeline and ensures nothing falls through the cracks.
  • A ramp-up rate adjustment while the new consultant learns your business. If a replacement needs 3-4 weeks to get up to speed on your plant floor processes, discuss how that ramp-up period is handled commercially. Good partners are open to this conversation because they understand the value of long-term client trust.

Choosing the right D365 ERP implementation partner: setting the standard

The difference between a live system and a successful business outcome is the quality of the people in the room. Yes, the people that come onto your project with your partner are crucial; but do not underestimate the importance of having excellent people internally too.

It shows you’re a serious client who is ready to engage. And in this market, serious clients get the best teams. And the best outcomes.

Want to know where you stand today?

We built a quick Partner Dependency Assessment that tells you whether you’re in control of your D365 implementation, or whether your D365 ERP implementation partner is running the show.

TAKE IT HERE

 

About the Author

Ryan Carolan is the founder of d365contractors.com, connecting US manufacturing companies with pre-vetted, independent D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management experts. 14 years exclusively in D365 staffing. Hundreds of contractor placements into manufacturing implementations across the US.

Most weeks, he waffles on about stuff like this online.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn →

 

5 Questions to Answer Before You Talk to Any D365 F&O Vendor

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

You’re about to start talking to a D365 F&O vendor or implementation partner.

You’ve done the research. You’ve sat through the Microsoft pitch. You’ve probably watched a few Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management demos.

Stop. Not yet.

After 14 years in D365 staffing, placing contractors into manufacturing/SCM implementations across the US, I’ve watched this play out dozens of times. The IT leaders who walk into a D365 F&O vendor conversation without clear answers to 5 specific questions end up handing over control of their project before it starts. The vendor fills in the gaps for them. And once the vendor is defining your scope, your timeline, and your success criteria, you’re no longer buying. You’re being sold to.

These aren’t questions to ask the vendor. These are questions you need to answer internally, as a cross-functional leadership team, before you sit across the table from anyone.

This “pre-work” is often called Phase 0 of an ERP project, which we cover in detail in this article.

1. What does “done” look like before you meet a D365 F&O vendor?

This sounds obvious. It isn’t. Most IT leaders can describe what they want D365 ERP to do. Very few can describe what the business looks like when D365 is working.

There’s a difference. “We want to automate our procurement process” is a software requirement. “Our procurement team processes 400 POs a week with two less headcount and zero manual re-keying” is a business outcome. One of those gives the D365 F&O vendor room to define success on their terms. The other gives you something to hold them (or your own team) to.

Before you talk to any D365 F&O vendor: sit down with your CFO, your operations director, and your plant leadership. Get specific. What does month-end close look like when this system is working? How fast do production orders flow from sales to the shop floor? What does your warehouse pick accuracy need to be? How many manual workarounds disappear?

Write these down. Make them measurable. Because once you’re in a partner conversation, every SOW will be scoped against deliverables. If you haven’t defined your own outcomes first, you’ll be measuring success against the vendor’s milestones, not your business reality.

The IT leaders who get the best results from their D365 F&O vendor relationships are the ones who show up on day one and say: “Here is what success looks like. Tell me how you get us there.”

Need D365 expertise your internal team doesn’t have yet? Our vetted, independent consultants are ready to jump in. Let’s talk:

BOOK A FREE DISCOVERY CALLL 

2. Who will we backfill during the D365 ERP implementation?

A smart D365 F&O vendor will ask you about your internal project team during the sales process. They need to know who they’re working with. But the real question isn’t who will be on the team. It’s whether those people actually have the time and authority to do the job.

I’ve seen this kill more D365 implementations than bad software configuration. The VP of IT assigns their best people to the project, but nobody backfills their day jobs. So your Finance lead is trying to define chart of accounts requirements in the morning and close the books in the afternoon. Your Supply Chain lead is in discovery workshops three days a week and managing the warehouse the other two. Within a month, both are burned out and the partner is waiting on decisions that never come. This is how you slowly hand the keys to the project, and your autonomy, over…

So before you talk to a D365 F&O vendor: answer this honestly: who is going to work on this full time? Not “attend meetings.” Not “be available for questions.” Full time. Dedicated. For the duration of the implementation. And who is going to do their current job while they’re gone?

If you can’t answer that cleanly, you’re not ready to start vendor conversations. Because every D365 F&O vendor’s timeline assumption is built on your team being available. When they’re not, the timeline slips. And the additional cost of that slip doesn’t show up in the original SOW.

3. What are the 3 processes that will break if D365 ERP is configured wrong?

Every manufacturing company has them. The processes that look simple on a whiteboard but have 15 years of tribal knowledge baked into how they actually run. The things your plant floor team does instinctively that no one has ever documented.

Maybe it’s your batch tracking process for raw materials with variable shelf life. Maybe it’s the way your warehouse team handles returns that don’t fit standard disposition codes. Maybe it’s the intercompany transfer logic between your plants that finance has been manually adjusting for years.

Your D365 F&O vendor doesn’t know these exist. Not because they’re bad at their job, but because these are the things that only surface during configuration, when someone on the shop floor says “that’s not how we do it” and the whole room goes quiet.

Before you start any vendor conversation: sit down with your operations and plant leadership and ask: “What are the 3 processes that, if the new system gets them wrong, will cause the most damage?” Not the biggest processes. The most fragile ones. The ones where a wrong configuration means your production schedule is wrong, your inventory counts don’t reconcile, or your warehouse team goes back to spreadsheets within a week of go-live.

Bring these to the D365 F&O vendor conversation as test cases. Not as requirements buried in a spreadsheet. As scenarios you expect them to address specifically during evaluation. The vendors who take these seriously are the ones worth talking to. We covered how to use these scenarios during partner evaluation in detail in The Power Buyer’s Guide to Choosing Your D365 ERP Implementation Partner.

4. How clean is your data? (your D365 F&O vendor might assume it’s fine)

Data readiness is the single most underestimated factor in D365 F&O implementations. Every IT leader knows data migration is part of the project. Almost none of them know the actual state of their data when they start talking to vendors.

Here’s what typically happens. The D365 F&O vendor asks about data during the sales process. You say “we have it in our current system.” They estimate migration based on standard assumptions. Then, 4 months into the project, someone actually opens the database and finds 12 years of duplicate vendor records, item masters with inconsistent units of measure, BOMs that haven’t been updated since 2013, and customer records spread across three different systems that don’t agree on basic details like addresses and payment terms.

Data cleanup becomes a parallel project that nobody budgeted for. It delays configuration because you can’t test with bad data. It delays UAT because the test results don’t make sense. It delays go-live because nobody trusts the numbers.

Before you talk to any D365 F&O vendor: assign a data owner. Not a data migration lead. A data owner. Someone with the authority to make decisions about what gets cleaned, what gets archived, and what gets left behind. Give them access to your current systems and 90 days to produce an honest assessment of what you’re working with. If you don’t have someone who can do that internally, hire one. Or find an independent D365 consultant who knows D365 ERP intimately.

When you bring that assessment to a vendor conversation, two things happen. First, the vendor can actually give you a realistic timeline and budget. Second, you immediately separate yourself from 90% of prospects they talk to, because almost nobody shows up with clean data or even an honest picture of their data state.

5. What is your real post go-live budget? Most D365 F&O vendor SOWs don’t cover it.

Every D365 F&O vendor will ask about budget. Most IT leaders give the number they’ve secured for the implementation. Licensing, configuration, data migration, training, go-live. That’s the number on the business case they presented to the board.

It’s not the real number. The real number includes what happens after go-live. Post go-live stabilisation. The dedicated support resources you need for at least 90 days. The configuration fixes that only surface when real users run real transactions at real volume. The additional training your warehouse team needs after they’ve actually used the system for a month, not the training they sat through during UAT when everything was theoretical. And a 30% buffer just in case.

For a manufacturing company running D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management across multiple plants, the post go-live investment is typically 10-15% of the total implementation cost. On a $5M implementation, that’s $500K-$750K. If that number isn’t in your budget, you haven’t budgeted for business success. You’ve budgeted for go-live. Those are different things.

Before you talk to a D365 F&O vendor: have the budget conversation with your CFO that includes the full picture. Implementation plus stabilisation plus optimisation. If you wait until after go-live to ask for that money, you’ll be asking from a position of weakness, when things are breaking and the board is already nervous. We covered how to frame this conversation in D365 F&O Post Go-Live: Why the First 6 Months Define Your ROI.

Bonus: Who can we turn to on OUR side when the big decisions hit?

There’s a moment in every D365 F&O implementation where a complex solution or technical decision lands on the table. Maybe it’s whether to use Advanced Warehouse Management or standard WMS. Maybe it’s how to handle intercompany accounting across 4 legal entities. Maybe it’s whether a customization is worth the long-term upgrade risk.

Your partner will have a recommendation. But their recommendation is shaped by their experience, their methodology, and their commercial model. That’s not a criticism: it’s just how consulting works. The question is: who on YOUR side of the table has the technical depth to evaluate that recommendation, push back when it doesn’t fit, or propose an alternative?

Most manufacturing companies don’t have that person internally. And that’s fine. But you need to know that gap exists before you start, not discover it mid-project when a $200K architecture decision needs to be made and nobody on your team can evaluate whether it’s the right call.

This is where a fractional Solution Architect can be invaluable. Someone independent — not tied to your implementation partner — who sits on your side of the table for the big decisions. They don’t need to be there full time. They need to be there when it matters: during discovery, during design reviews, during key technical decisions, and during go-live readiness.

Think of it like hiring an independent building inspector when you’re building a house. Your contractor is probably doing great work. But having someone who works for YOU reviewing the plans and the execution? That’s how you protect a multi-million dollar investment.

If you don’t have that person identified before you start vendor conversations, add it to your list. Or even better: book in a free discovery call with us to talk about it:

GET FRACTIONAL D365 HELP

Walk into a D365 F&O vendor conversation ready

The IT leaders who get the best outcomes from their D365 implementations are the ones who did the internal work first. They defined their own success criteria. They freed up their best people. They identified the fragile processes. They confronted their data reality. They budgeted for the full lifecycle, not just go-live.

When you show up to a D365 F&O vendor conversation with those 5 answers, you change the dynamic completely. You’re not waiting for the vendor to tell you what you need. You’re telling them what success looks like and asking them to show you how they deliver it.

That’s the difference between buying and being sold to. And in a market where D365 implementations cost millions and take years at high failure rates (according to LinkedIn :D), that difference matters.

Want to assess how prepared your organisation is before you start D365 F&O vendor conversations?

We built a quick Partner Dependency Assessment that helps you see where the gaps are before someone else fills them in for you. Takes 2 minutes:

TAKE IT HERE

About the Author

Ryan Carolan is the founder of D365contractors.com, connecting US manufacturing companies with pre-vetted, independent D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management experts. 14 years exclusively in D365 staffing. Hundreds of contractor placements into manufacturing implementations across the US.

Most weeks, he waffles on about stuff like this online.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn →

 

D365 F&O Post Go-Live: Why the First 6 Months Define Your ROI

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

You championed this project. You signed off on the partner. You presented the business case to your board. And now your Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management implementation is live. The D365 F&O post go-live period is about to become the most important phase of the entire project.

Congratulations. But now the real work starts.

Because go-live is the moment the entire company turns to IT and asks: so what now? And as the VP of IT or CIO, that question lands on your desk. Not the project manager’s. Not the partner’s. Yours. After all, “ERP is IT”, right?!

After 14 years placing D365 contractors into manufacturing companies across the US, I can tell you this: the D365 F&O post go-live period, specifically the first 6 months, is where ROI is either captured or lost. And most IT leaders aren’t ready for it because nobody told them to plan for it.

Go-live is when the spotlight shifts to you

During the implementation, the partner ran the show. They managed the milestones, led the steering committees, and presented the status reports. Your job was to keep the project funded, remove blockers, and shield your team from the noise.

After go-live, that dynamic flips completely.

The partner starts rolling off. Your project team goes back to their day jobs. Budget gets redirected. And the system, which is technically live but not yet mature, becomes your responsibility.

This is the moment that defines your reputation as an IT leader. If D365 is seen as a success at the 6 month mark, you’re the person who modernised the business. If it’s seen as a struggle, that sticks to you. Not to the partner who left. Not to the project manager who moved on. To you.

The good news: you can control this outcome. But only if you plan for D365 F&O post go-live stabilisation the same way you planned the implementation itself.

Need D365 expertise your internal team doesn’t have yet? Or some independent advice? Our vetted contractors are ready to jump in. Let’s talk:

BOOK A FREE DISCOVERY CALL 

What actually happens in the D365 F&O post go-live period

Here’s what Monday morning looks like after go-live in a manufacturing company. I’ve seen this pattern dozens of times.

The warehouse team is back on spreadsheets by noon because the pick logic doesn’t match their actual process. Finance is manually adjusting transactions that were supposed to be automated. Production orders are stuck and nobody is sure why. The reporting that looked great in UAT doesn’t reconcile against real data.

Hopefully, you nodded to no more than ONE of those.

Your CFO calls. Month-end close is going to take an extra week. Your operations director is in your office asking why the production schedule in D365 doesn’t match what’s happening on the plant floor. Your warehouse manager has already built a workaround in Excel.

This is normal. Every D365 F&O go-live has a stabilisation period. The system at go-live is maybe 70% of what it needs to be. The core processes work, but the edge cases, the exceptions, the things that only surface when real users run real transactions at real volume, those haven’t been found yet.

In manufacturing, those edge cases matter enormously. Your warehouse team knows within the first week. Your finance team knows at the first month-end close. Your production planners know at the first demand spike.

If nobody is there to catch and fix these issues quickly, users lose confidence. And once they lose confidence in D365, they build shadow systems. Spreadsheets come back. Manual processes appear. Within 3 months, you’re running two systems: D365 and whatever your people trust more.

That’s where your ROI goes to die. And that’s the story your board hears.

And if you’re still running AX 2012 and thinking go-live can wait, the hidden costs are already stacking up. We broke that down in detail here: The Hidden Costs of Staying on AX 2012 for Food & Beverage Manufacturers

The D365 F&O post go-live plan that nobody writes

Here’s what I see consistently: IT leaders spend months planning the implementation and almost no time planning what happens after go-live.

The implementation plan is detailed. Phases, milestones, resource plans, testing schedules, cutover checklists. Hundreds of pages.

The post go-live plan? A slide that says “hypercare: 4 weeks” with a vague description of ticket triage and a reduced partner team.

Four weeks isn’t enough. Not for a manufacturing company running D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management across multiple plants, warehouses, and legal entities. The first month-end close alone will surface issues nobody anticipated. The first quarter-end will surface more. The first physical inventory count, the first peak season, the first year-end. Each of these is a test of your D365 configuration, and each one will reveal gaps.

As the IT leader, you need to own this plan. Not delegate it. Own it.

What a VP of IT or CIO should put in place before go-live

The IT leaders who get the best D365 F&O post go-live outcomes tend to do the same things. None of this is complicated. It just requires you to make decisions that only someone in your seat can make.

Appoint permanent module owners. Today. Not the project team. Permanent owners. Someone in Finance who owns the D365 Finance configuration. Someone in Supply Chain who owns warehouse and/or production. Someone in IT who owns integrations and data. These are your people now. They need time carved out of their regular responsibilities.

Secure a dedicated stabilisation resource for 90 days. Minimum. This is the single highest-ROI decision you’ll make in the entire D365 F&O post go-live period. One experienced person (or a small team), fully dedicated, embedded in the business. Not splitting time with other projects. Not ramping down after week 4. Their only job is stabilisation. This can be an internal resource, an independent contractor, or a partner resource. But you need to budget for it and protect it. When your CFO pushes back on the cost, show them what a 3-month project delay costs in partner fees and lost productivity.

Run daily triage for the first 30 days. A 15-minute standup every morning. Finance, Supply Chain, Warehouse, Production. What broke yesterday? What’s the workaround? What’s the fix? Who owns it? You don’t need to attend every one of these. But you need to create them, resource them, and read the output. This cadence keeps issues from festering and gives users confidence that IT is on top of it.

Shift to weekly reviews from day 31 to day 90. The daily standup is intense and you can’t sustain it forever. After the first month, move to weekly reviews. Track issues by module, severity, and resolution time. Look for patterns. If the same process keeps breaking, the design probably needs revisiting. Escalate that to the partner if needed, or your independent D365 contractor, but you make the call.

Define your 30/60/90 day scorecard. This is for your board, your CFO, and yourself. Be specific. “Month-end close completed in 5 business days.” “Warehouse pick accuracy above 98%.” “Zero manual journal entries for intercompany transactions.” If you don’t define what success looks like, leadership will assume everything is fine until it very clearly isn’t. And by then, the narrative is already set.

The budget conversation with your CFO

This is the part nobody wants to deal with. You’ve already spent $3M to $10M. Maybe more. Now you need to go back to your CFO and ask for more money for D365 F&O post go-live stabilisation.

Here’s how to frame it.

Don’t ask for “more implementation budget.” That sounds like the project failed. Instead, frame it as “ROI protection.” You’ve made a $5M investment. Allocating 10-15% of that for stabilisation and optimisation is what ensures the business actually gets the value it was promised. It’s the difference between a $5M system that transforms operations and a $5M system that everyone works around.

If your CFO needs a number: budget $500K-$750K for post go-live stabilisation on a $5M implementation. Dedicated resources, extended support, configuration fixes, additional training. That’s the highest-ROI line item in the entire project, and it’s the one that gets cut first.

You are the only person in the organisation who can make this case. The partner won’t make it for you. The project manager can’t. This is a leadership conversation between you and your CFO. Have it before go-live, not after.

Driving the partner relationship after go-live

You (probably) chose this partner. Your name is on that decision. After go-live, make sure you’re driving the relationship, not the other way around.

Good implementation partners understand that go-live isn’t the end. Many offer structured hypercare and D365 F&O post go-live support packages. Take them seriously.

But understand the dynamic. After go-live, your partner is balancing your support needs against new project commitments. Their best people are being pulled toward the next implementation. The resources you get in month 3 may not be the same ones who built your system.

This is where having your own stabilisation plan, your own module owners, and your own dedicated resource makes the difference. You’re not dependent on the partner to tell you what’s working and what isn’t. You already know, because your people are living in the system every day and reporting back through the structure you built.

The best D365 F&O post go-live relationships I’ve seen are ones where the IT leader is driving the agenda. Specific asks. Clear priorities. Fast decisions. Partners do their best work when the client knows what they want. Be that client.

The 6-month window that defines your reputation

Six months. That’s roughly how long you have before the organisation’s opinion of D365 becomes fixed.

If users are productive and confident by month 6, the system becomes “the way we work.” Adoption sticks. Improvements build on a solid foundation. Your board sees the ROI starting to materialise. And you’re the IT leader who delivered.

If users are frustrated and working around the system by month 6, that perception is very hard to reverse. People will say “D365 doesn’t work” long after it actually does. And the person they associate with that outcome is you.

The difference between these two outcomes is rarely about the software or even the implementation quality. It’s about what happened in the D365 F&O post go-live period. Did someone own it? Did issues get fixed quickly? Did users feel heard? Did IT show up?

That’s where the ROI lives. And that’s your window.

Three D365 F&O post go-live decisions to make this week

If you’re approaching go-live, or if you went live recently and don’t have a stabilisation plan in place, here are three decisions that only you can make:

1. Name your module owners. Who internally owns D365 Finance? Who owns Supply Chain? Who owns the warehouse configuration? If the answer is “the project team” or “we’ll figure it out after go-live,” you have a gap that needs filling now. Today.

2. Secure and protect the stabilisation budget. 10-15% of total implementation cost. Have the conversation with your CFO before go-live. Frame it as ROI protection, not cost overrun.

3. Write your own 30/60/90 day scorecard. Don’t let the partner define what success looks like. You define it. Based on what your business needs. Based on what your board expects. Measure against it publicly.

The implementation gets the system live. The D365 F&O post go-live period determines whether it was worth it. And that part is entirely on you. Go get em’.

Want to understand how dependent your organisation is on external support after go-live?

We built a quick Partner Dependency Assessment that shows you where you stand.

TAKE IT HERE

About the Author

Ryan Carolan is the founder of d365contractors.com, connecting US manufacturing companies with pre-vetted, independent D365 Finance & Supply Chain Management experts. 14 years exclusively in D365 staffing. Hundreds of contractor placements into manufacturing implementations across the US.

Most weeks, he waffles on about stuff like this online.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn →

Dynamics 365 Implementation: 5 Tips to Survive ERP Fatigue

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

Written for ERP Commanders steering Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations and Business Central implementations in manufacturing, distribution, and supply chain. Flight suits optional, sarcasm encouraged.

Implementing an ERP system is a bit like launching a spaceship: there’s a ton of planning, high stakes, way too many acronyms, and at some point, you seriously question your life choices.

If you’re rolling out Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management or Business Central, you’re not just running a project: you’re captaining a full-blown space mission.

Stay with me here…

rocket launching into space

And like any mission to Mars (or even just to the warehouse), your crew will experience fatigue. ERP change fatigue, to be precise: a condition marked by disengagement, glazed eyes, and whispered prayers to the Excel gods.

But fear not, Business Commander.

Here are five battle-tested strategies to keep your team engaged through the turbulence of your D365 implementation.

What Is ERP Change Fatigue? (And Why It’s Killing Your D365 Project)

Before we blast off, let’s define the enemy.

ERP change fatigue happens when your team hits their limit with constant changes, training sessions, process updates, and “just one more UAT cycle.” And it’s getting worse: Gartner research found that employee willingness to support organizational change has collapsed from 74% in 2016 to just 43% in 2022 — at the same time that the average employee is experiencing 10 planned changes (up from just 2 in 2016).

It manifests as:

  • Declining meeting attendance
  • Increasing resistance to new processes
  • More “We’ve always done it this way” pushback
  • Team members mysteriously unavailable during critical phases
  • A sudden surge in LinkedIn activity from key users

Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

Studies show that organizational change initiatives fail due to employee resistance and fatigue. Your Dynamics 365 implementation doesn’t have to be one of them.

1. Mission Briefings: Communicate Your ERP Vision (And Keep Broadcasting)

Astronauts don’t climb into a rocket without knowing where they’re headed. Neither should your team.

Set Your D365 Trajectory

Explain the mission purpose: “We’re not upgrading because it’s trendy; we’re doing it so we can stop losing inventory like it’s floating in zero gravity.”

Align with real-world gains: Faster month-end close, better inventory visibility, automated workflows that don’t require blood sacrifices to the approval gods.

Repeat the message like a ground control loop: All-hands meetings, Teams updates, email newsletters, dashboard metrics showing progress. (Space helmet stickers optional, but encouraged.)

Why Communication Combats ERP Change Fatigue

Transparent communication is your shield against resistance. Multiple research studies on ERP implementation identify effective communication as a critical success factor for post-implementation oversight. When teams understand the “why” behind your Dynamics 365 implementation, they stay engaged and resistance drops.

Keep the frequency high and the message consistent: “This mission improves YOUR daily work life.”

Pro tip: Create a project name that doesn’t sound like a corporate death march. “Project Phoenix” beats “ERP Migration Initiative 2025” every time. Let’s hope everyone rises from the flames at the end. Or even better? Be there no flames!

view from the cockpit of a rocketship, showing earth and outer space

2. Crew Participation: Get Your Team in the D365 Cockpit

Nobody wants to be the redshirt in a Star Trek episode – clueless and disposable. Give your team a meaningful role in your Dynamics 365 rollout.

How to Get Buy-In From Your Earthlings

Invite real users to test, tweak, and challenge designs: Your warehouse team knows where the process black holes are better than any consultant.

Let ops, finance, and supply chain teams speak up: They’re the ones who’ll actually use this system. Their input isn’t optional; it’s mission-critical.

Adopt a bottom-up command model: Less “because I said so,” more “what do you think would work better?”

Launch Your ERP Champion Program

Your secret weapon against ERP change fatigue? Super Users (aka your ERP astronauts).

Here’s your launch checklist:

  • Elect champions from each department: Pick the people others actually listen to, not just the loudest voices
  • Train them thoroughly: Give them early access, advanced training, and the inside scoop
  • Empower them to answer questions: They’re your first line of defense when panic strikes
  • Celebrate them publicly: Announce them in company meetings, give them swag, make it a badge of honor

These champions become your force multipliers. They spread excitement, answer questions in real-time, and talk panicked coworkers off ledges during the Dynamics 365 implementation.

They’ll be the difference between liftoff and launchpad explosion.

3. Flight Simulators: Make Your D365 Training Not Suck

Let’s be honest: most ERP training feels like watching paint dry in low gravity.

Your team is already drowning in change. Don’t make training another thing they dread.

Boost Skills With Astronaut-Approved Learning

Role-based training sessions: Don’t teach finance how to scan warehouse barcodes. Don’t teach warehouse staff about intercompany eliminations. Target the training.

Snackable content: Think 5-minute videos, quick reference guides, cheat sheets. Not 4-hour PowerPoint marathons.

Sandbox environments: Let them crash test without consequences. Breaking things in UAT is learning. Breaking things in production is a résumé-generating event.

Real scenarios, not theory: Walk through actual invoices they process, not generic “Customer ABC” examples.

Pro tip: Meet users where they’re at, we once came in to save a training program because the original “training documents” were long pages of text in English sent by email to a community of users whose first language was Spanish…

Post-Launch D365 Support That Actually Helps

The training doesn’t end at go-live. That’s when the real learning begins. In outer space is where the real magic happens!

Create support systems that work:

  • No-stupid-questions Teams channel: Because “Where’s the report button?” will come up. A lot.
  • Super Users orbiting key teams: Available for just-in-time guidance when confusion strikes
  • Quick escalation paths: A clear process for “Houston, we have a problem” moments
  • Video library of common tasks: Build this during UAT; it pays dividends forever

Great training builds confidence. Confidence prevents mid-flight meltdowns. And preventing meltdowns is how you beat ERP change fatigue.

4. Mid-Mission Parties: Celebrate Tiny Wins Throughout Your D365 Rollout

No one wants to go to the moon without a moon pie now and then.

ERP implementations drag on for months (or let’s be real, years). If you wait until go-live to celebrate, your team will check out long before you get there.

Mark Progress With Meaningful Recognition

Mini celebrations for milestone achievements:

  • UAT complete? Grab cupcakes for the testing team.
  • First successful production transaction? Sound the confetti cannon.
  • GL reconciled in the new system? That deserves at least a pizza party.

Create fun awards that people actually want:

  • “Master of Migration” (best at data cleanup)
  • “Bug Bounty Hunter” (found the most issues in testing)
  • “Captain of Clean Data” (data validation champion)
  • “Zero-G Guru” (navigated the toughest configuration challenge)

Pro Tip: We’re all nerds at heart, deep down, lean into it and get people to leave those egos at the door!

Shout out your crew publicly:

  • Highlight wins during status calls
  • Post victories in company communications
  • Surprise top performers with coffee runs or lunch delivery
  • Create a “Mission Accomplishments” board where everyone can see progress

Why Celebration Fights ERP Change Fatigue

Recognition isn’t fluffy HR nonsense. It’s rocket fuel for momentum. Research by Achievers found that employees who receive recognition at least once a month are twice as likely to feel productive. And Gartner research shows that well-designed recognition programs can drive an 11.1% increase in employee performance.

Your Dynamics 365 implementation is a marathon, not a sprint. Feed your runners along the way.

5. Life Support Systems: Balance Workloads and Prevent D365 Burnout

You wouldn’t send a space crew to Mars without oxygen. Don’t send your ERP team to go-live without proper support.

This is where most implementations fail. Companies pile ERP work on top of regular jobs, then act surprised when people burn out.

Avoid Project Space Junk Like:

Double-duty death marches: “Hey, implement the ERP AND run operations AND hit your quarterly targets this week, cool?”

Weekend war rooms becoming the norm: If every weekend is “critical,” your project timeline is broken, not your team’s commitment.

Scope creep turning launches into galactic odysseys: “While we’re at it, let’s also redesign the entire chart of accounts and rebuild all our Power BI reports.”

Mission Control Tips for Managing ERP Implementation Workload

Backfill or reprioritize operational roles: If someone’s spending 20+ hours a week on the D365 project, their regular job can’t disappear.

Sometimes the smartest move is bringing in specialized help. Need a D365 expert who can hit the ground running without adding permanent headcount? Our field guide on hiring D365 F&O contractors walks through when contractors make sense, what to look for, and how to avoid common hiring mistakes.

Allow recovery time between milestones: After UAT, give the team a breather before go-live prep. Exhausted people make expensive mistakes.

Say no to overlapping launches: Don’t roll out Finance and Warehouse Management in the same week. Just… don’t.

Watch for burnout warning signs:

  • Increased mistakes or quality issues
  • Withdrawal from meetings or collaboration
  • Cynical or negative communication patterns
  • Requests for time off spiking

Protect your crew’s well-being, and they’ll complete the Dynamics 365 implementation with their sanity (mostly) intact.

Sometimes the best way to protect your core team from burnout is to bring in reinforcements. Suppose your D365 implementation is stretching your people too thin. In that case, experienced contractors can fill critical gaps in days rather than weeks: giving your internal team the breathing room they need to stay engaged without burning out.

Your ERP Change Management Re-Entry Plan

ERP change fatigue is no joke. It’s the silent killer of D365 implementations, turning promising projects into painful slogs.

But with the right command strategy, you can keep your team engaged from kickoff through hypercare:

✅ Keep communication clear and compelling: Explain the why, celebrate the wins, maintain transparency

✅ Involve your crew in navigation: Champions, feedback loops, and bottom-up design

✅ Deliver smart, user-friendly training: Role-based, practical, and always available

✅ Celebrate every successful orbit: Recognition fuels momentum when the finish line feels light-years away

✅ Watch your crew’s oxygen levels: Monitor workload, prevent burnout, protect your people

Ready to Launch Your D365 Implementation Without Losing Your Team?

Lead like a mission commander. Inject humor, humanity, and snacks when needed. Because at the end of the day, your Dynamics 365 implementation isn’t just a software project – it’s a mission to transform how your company runs.

The companies that succeed aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets or the fanciest consultants. They’re the ones that keep their teams engaged, supported, and heading in the same direction.

Keep your crew informed. Keep them supported. And never underestimate the power of a well-timed meme in the project Slack channel.

Need Expert Support for Your D365 F&O Implementation?

If you’re facing resource gaps, timeline pressure, or need specialized D365 expertise to support your team, we can help. Our pre-vetted Dynamics 365 contractors can slot into your project in days, not weeks- giving your core team the support they need to stay engaged and focused.

Mission accepted?

Tags: #Dynamics365 #D365FO #ERPImplementation #ChangeManagement #BusinessCentral #D365Projects #ERPConsulting #DigitalTransformation #MicrosoftDynamics

How to Prevent Dynamics 365 Projects from Going Over Budget (Unlike 362% of Other ERP Projects)

Posted on by Ryan Carolan

The Confession:

OK, I have to come clean: that headline stat about 362%? We made it up*.

Unlike others online posting ridiculous stats: we’re not afraid to admit it. Tongue in cheek.

But if you’ve ever lived through an ERP disaster, you probably nodded and thought, “Yeah, that’s about right…”

And that’s the problem. ERP overruns are so common that completely fabricated statistics feel believable. Kinda.

In our experience advising and rescuing Dynamics 365 ERP projects, the truth is this: ERP implementations don’t go off the rails by accident. They fail for the same, predictable, face-palmingly avoidable reasons.

Here are the four biggest culprits we hear about time and again.

*The real numbers? According to Gartner research, between 55% and 75% of all ERP projects fail to meet their objectives: whether through project abandonment, significant budget overruns, or extended timelines.*

1. Rushed and Unrealistic Planning (Or: “How Hard Could It Be?”)

Picture this: Leadership announces the ERP project on Monday. By Friday, you’re expected to have a “comprehensive project plan” ready for review. So you cobble together a Gantt chart that looks impressive, slap some optimistic dates on it, and pray nobody asks about the details.

Sound familiar?

More often than not, organizations attempt to compress ERP planning into a matter of weeks. The resulting project plan is full of assumptions, wishful thinking, and timelines that would make a Formula 1 pit crew nervous.

The truth: ERP planning is a specialized discipline. When rushed, it creates a cascade of problems that haunt you throughout implementation and beyond. Underestimated complexity, inadequate resource allocation, and scope creep make cutting corners feel like a good option.

Why This Happens

  • Executive pressure to “get moving”
  • Underestimating the complexity of your existing processes
  • Nobody wants to be the person who says “this will take six months of planning”

The Real Cost

Every shortcut in planning costs you exponentially later. That week you saved upfront? You’ll spend it three times over troubleshooting issues that shouldn’t exist.

Our advice: Take ERP planning seriously. Invest the time upfront and involve an experienced D365 ERP project manager from day one. A proper ERP project plan should span dozens of pages, not a single Word document. Every day spent planning properly saves weeks and tens of thousands of dollars later.

TIP: We have a network of seasoned D365 ERP Project Managers who have delivered multiple implementations, we’d be happy to discuss finding a fit for someone who’s also got experience in your specific industry.

2. Underestimating the Internal Commitment Required (The “Side Project” Delusion)

Here’s a conversation that happens in approximately 99% of organizations:

Executive: “So, Sarah can handle the ERP implementation, right?”
Manager: “Well, she’s currently running the entire finance department, but sure, she can probably squeeze it in.”
Narrator: She could not, in fact, squeeze it in.

ERP transformation is not something people can do “on the side” while maintaining their usual day jobs. Yet this is exactly the expectation many businesses set- and then act shocked when things fall apart.

What Actually Happens

Without dedicated internal ERP resources:

  • Projects stall waiting for decisions
  • Knowledge gaps emerge and never get filled
  • Partners end up making business-critical decisions (because someone has to)
  • Misalignment grows like mold in a damp bathroom
  • Costs escalate while everyone points fingers

The Partner isn’t the problem here. Your team simply cannot contribute meaningfully while also doing their actual jobs. It’s like asking someone to paint your house while they’re still living in it and hosting dinner parties. It can be done, but nobody is gonna enjoy it.

Our advice: Treat your ERP implementation as a full-time commitment. Either backfill your key people or free them up entirely. The “halfway house” approach- where people are supposed to do both their regular job AND the ERP project- works approximately never.

When ERP Projects Go Over Budget: Comparison of planned ERP project timeline versus actual implementation reality showing common delays

3. Cutting Corners on an Inherently Expensive Undertaking (AKA Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish)

ERP systems are expensive. They’re expensive because they’re complex, business-critical, and replace literally every system that runs your company.

Yet somehow, businesses convince themselves there’s a “budget version” that’ll work just fine.

The False Economy

Attempts to drive down costs at every stage – whether by reducing scope, minimizing testing, or treating contingency planning like it’s optional – almost always backfire spectacularly.

In reality: That data migration you’re balking at because it “seems expensive”? Wait until you load your lovely new ERP system with garbage data and discover the true cost of that. We’re talking months of cleanup, lost productivity, and finance teams who’ve stopped making eye contact with you.

The Testing Trap

“Do we really need that much user acceptance testing? Can’t we just… wing it?”

No. You cannot wing it. You’re implementing software that controls your entire business. Cutting testing is like skipping the brake inspection on your car because “they probably still work.”

Our advice: Accept that ERP is a significant investment, because it is. Build a 20-30% contingency buffer into your budget. This isn’t us being pessimistic: project management best practices from PMI (Project Management Institute) recommend contingency reserves to cover ‘estimate uncertainty and risk exposure,’ typically ranging from 10-30% depending on project complexity. For ERP implementations, which are among the most complex enterprise projects, the higher end is justified.

Surprises will happen (guaranteed), and having the flexibility to absorb them beats the frantic, humiliating scramble for emergency funding mid-project.

Your CFO will thank you later.

4. Becoming Overly Dependent on Your Partner (The Hidden Hostage Situation)

This is perhaps the most common trap of all, hiding in plain sight like a ninja in business casual.

When all knowledge, code, documentation, and decision-making authority lives exclusively with your implementation partner, you’ve created a dangerous dependency. Every change (however minor) becomes a negotiation. Every question becomes a billable hour. Every enhancement becomes a six-week project with a quote that makes your eyes water.

How This Happens

  • Partner controls all documentation (it’s in their “system”, their DevOps)
  • Internal team never gets trained on anything beyond basic usage
  • All customizations are black boxes you can’t touch
  • You can’t even change a workflow without calling them

The Long-Term Cost

This dependency doesn’t end at go-live. It gets worse. Years later, you’re still paying premium rates for simple changes because nobody else can touch your system. You’ve essentially entered into a very expensive arranged marriage with your Microsoft partner. You didn’t even get to choose the dress.

Our advice:

  • Demand knowledge transfer from day one (not “eventually” or “at the end”)
  • Maintain documentation internally: in systems you control, YOUR DevOps
  • Build confidence within your team so they can challenge and contribute to decisions: hire internal employees who know D365 implementation cycles
  • Build internal D365 capability by hiring permanent staff who can own your system long-term (our parent company specializes in finding permanent D365 talent if you need to strengthen your internal team)
  • Consider bringing in independent D365 contractors for specific areas to avoid single-source dependency

ERP should empower your business and show undeniable ROI, not create long-term dependency.

Not sure if you’ve fallen into this trap? Take our Partner Dependency Assessment– it takes five minutes and will either give you peace of mind or a much-needed wake-up call.

Final Thoughts: The Good News About Predictable Failures

Here’s the thing about ERP projects failing for the same reasons repeatedly: if the problems are predictable, they’re also preventable.

The four issues above aren’t acts of God or unforeseeable circumstances. They’re choices—sometimes conscious, often unconscious—that compound over time until you’re starring in your own cautionary tale.

The Action Plan

If you’re currently in an ERP project (or about to start one):

  1. Audit your planning: Is it actually detailed or just detailed-looking?
  2. Check your team’s capacity: Are people genuinely freed up or just “expected to manage”?
  3. Review your budget: Does it include contingency or are you planning for perfection?
  4. Assess your partner dependency: Do you control your destiny or are you along for the ride?

Get a Reality Check

If you’re unsure whether your business has fallen into the over-reliance trap, assess your position now. We’ve created a quick Partner Dependency Assessment that takes five minutes and will reveal exactly where you stand.

The earlier you identify these risks, the easier (and cheaper) they are to fix.

The Bottom Line

Whilst our 362% figure was made up, the costs of a poorly run ERP project are very real—and very expensive, and very career-limiting for everyone involved.

Don’t become another statistic (real or imaginary). Plan properly, commit fully, budget realistically, and maintain control of your own destiny.

Get the Talent your ERP project deserves:

DISCUSS YOUR D365 TALENT STRATEGY WITH US TODAY