Looking Back on Directions North America 2023

Directions North America 2023 wasn’t just a success. It was the most-attended in-person Microsoft Dynamics partner event in history. Over 1,100 people came to Orlando eager to invest in their practices and step into the future with Dynamics 365. It was an excellent opportunity for partners to connect and learn more about the solutions that are available in the marketplace-- and as a result, partners around North America are now ready to better serve their customers.  

As a Gold Sponsor, Enavate offered three sessions about the importance of clients migrating from their on-premises legacy systems to Cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.  

Don’t Lose Your Legacy Dynamics Customers: The Time for Migrations is Now 

This session was delivered by Henrik Salicath, the leader of the Microsoft Strategy Pod. And let’s just say he wasn’t subtle: You need to be migrating your legacy clients to Business Central right now. (The only other acceptable time is probably yesterday, but unfortunately, time travel doesn’t exist yet.) As Henrik explained, half of your Dynamics GP clients will be gone by 2028. Why? Because they’ll all be in the Cloud by then.  

“Migrate your legacy customers now” is easier said than done, of course. That’s why Henrik also emphasized the importance of partnering with Enavate to build trust with your customer—after all, migration can be a daunting task, and Dynamics customers want someone they can trust to guide them through the process. With a foundation built on trust, you can move forward migrating your customers to the Cloud and then activating their new solution. As Henrik said, if you don’t start building that trust and working towards migration today, a year from now you’ll find yourself wishing you had, because then your company would be set up for triple annual recurring revenue (ARR) going forward.  

The Time for Migrations is Now: If You Don’t Move Your Customers to the Cloud, Someone Else Will 

Chad Sogge, our EVP of Partner Services, and Robert Shurtleff, our Global Microsoft Solutions Evangelist, delivered this session, and they were no more subtle than Henrik when it came to the importance of migrating your customers to the Cloud ASAP. Chad and Robert emphasized the competitive aspect of this sense of urgency: Your customers want YOU to lead, and if you don’t, they’ll just find someone else who will.  

One of the most interesting facts Chad and Robert shared in this session is that 1 in 5 cybersecurity breach victims were SMBs, and the resulting medium-cost of losses was $21,659. That’s not exactly pocket change for most small businesses. Combine those security concerns with the risk of losing clients and edging out of compliance, and it’s no wonder that customers want leadership when it comes to ERP solutions. 

As Chad and Robert explained, Enavate’s Partner Services can:  

• Help you build trust with your customers with our white label services 
• Provide training, free health checks and free tooling to make the migration process easier 
• Provide functional consultant training and help build ARR to ease your burden in the activation phase 

Microsoft Dynamics GP to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Made Easier 

Kasey Metzger, a Product Leader here at Enavate, delivered this session on the tactical aspects of migration. She covered the recent and upcoming enhancements to Microsoft’s Data Migration Tool, which Enavate has helped develop. The Migration Tool brings over much more data than it did in the past, which allows our consultants to spend more time training clients and supporting their transition from Dynamics GP to Business Central.  

Kasey also discussed the free Dynamics GP Assessment Tool, which takes less than five minutes to run, doesn’t require users to log out of Dynamics GP or have Business Central licenses, and only needs read-only access to GP SQL databases to do its thing.  

These two tools, along with other partner and customer resources such as the GP Migration playlist on YouTube and Microsoft’s support blogs, give partners just what they need to help Dynamics customers make the leap to Business Central.  

The Time for Migrations is Now: Enavate Enables and Supports Partners! 

One of the biggest takeaways from Directions this year is that the SMB market continues to be the top focus for Microsoft, from product enhancements to tools for partner entablement and everything in between. SMBs are top-of-mind for both Microsoft and Enavate, and you can see it in the restructuring of CRM and recent licensing add-ons. At Enavate, we plan on continuing to improve how we enable and support partners as they migrate their clients to the Cloud.  

But of course, the absolute biggest takeaway is that the time for migrations is now! So, get the ball rolling by contacting us or using our free Dynamics GP Assessment Tool today.