In a recent article, the co-host of today's podcast, Peter Joeckel, shared his perspective that the Dynamics AX user base falls into one of three categories as it relates to their Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (D365FO) upgrade prospects:

• Small to mid-market and simple;
• Large and complex but well funded;
• Mid-market and complex but financially constrained

That last cohort, the constrained mid-market customer with complex customizations, is staffed with tense IT managers harboring the legitimate fear that the financial losses tie to an upgrade-gone-wrong could do real harm to the business overall.

In this episode of our Dynamics AX to D365FO Upgrade Journeys podcast series, we meet Irene, an IT director at a manufacturer running a not-so-successful AX 2012 system (she preferred to leave her company out of the discussion). Their AX implementation began in 2012 RTM and "it was not an easy implementation," she says. They faced many of the hurdles you hope not to find when executing an ERP project: the lack of a change mindset, a conservative (and seemingly un-engaged) executive team, and some technical deployment problems. Since their less-than-satisfying go—live, they have been working to steadily bring back features and functions that should have been there from the start.

Now they face the prospect of an upgrade of some sort. Irene explains how she evaluated the two primary choices: upgrading to D365FO in the cloud or upgrading to AX 2012 R3. It's not a scenario (or an outcome) that will earn itself a flashy video at the next Microsoft conference, but it's one that might seem more believable for a certain set of AX customers weighing their options today.

Show Notes

• 3:15 – Introducing our AX customer guest and her company's current state
• 6:15 – Past history: why the company is moving cautiously ahead after its original AX 2012 implementation
• 9:45 – What their upgrade analysis looked like and why others will have to move from AX 2012 to D365FO first.
• 12:30 – How the company made their decision on the next steps considering factors like customizations, reporting, and user experience.
• 15:00 – Can a move from AX to D365FO really be called an upgrade?
• 20:30 – AX was implemented to "make corporate happy" originally. Is anyone happy now, and who's not?
• 22:45 – Why our guest is optimistic about the long term future at her company with D365FO – with some reservations like affordability. Would love to know Microsoft's strategy to keep adding value.
• 26:00 – What it means to be in the midrange of ERP buyers when looking to the cloud.
• 30:00 – How much are service providers quoting for an AX 2012 to AX 2012 R3 upgrade/re-implementation? And how would it have compared to the cost of a move to D365FO?
• 35:00 – What a recent group of AX users had to say about planning for a move to D365FO?
• 37:45 – Concerns over partner pressure to move to D365FO, and what is probably driving it.
• 41:00 – The company's long term plans for the next five years.
• 42:00 – Predicting Microsoft's plans for long term support of AX 2012 versions.