If you’re planning to review your current systems this year then it makes sense for most mid-market to lower corporate companies to evaluate Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Why? It’s Microsoft so you’ll benefit from your existing Microsoft investments (compatibility, familiarity, future-proofing); NAV typically delivers the best return on investment of the Dynamics ERP solutions due to functional fit and time to implement and Microsoft invests heavily in the products so you know you’ve bought something that will last you easily 10 plus years.

One of the first questions may well be “what does it cost?” especially these days when increased capital expenditure is not top of most FDs favourite things. What will it save you, what will it cost you not to do it; are also valid questions which we’ll save for another day (if you can’t wait then contact us or look at our paper on The Business Case for Microsoft Dynamics NAV).

Our white paper, How Much will my Microsoft Dynamics Implementation Cost? goes some way to explaining how your budget will look but there are some variables that make it difficult to supply the information without asking a few simple questions first:

What business areas are you looking to address?

Consider the following:
• Finance
• Stock Management
• Project and Resource Management
• HR and Payroll
• Warehouse Management
• Customer Relationship and Service Management
• Manufacturing

If you’ve just ticked the first four then you may well fit the cheaper Business Essentials pricing option. If you’ve ticked the lot or any of the last three then you’ll probably need Advanced Management. “Probably” because until we understand your requirements in more detail, this is all guesswork.

How many concurrent users will you have?

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is priced primarily on the number of concurrent users, the more you have, the cheaper the price per user. If we assume that you’re interested in a 20 user system then price per user will be around £1,000 for Business Essentials and £1,765 for Advanced Management. If you’re looking at 100 users then price per user will be around £720 for Business Essentials and £1,275 for Advanced Management. (As always, if you would like the figire for the licence type and number of users you are interested in, then please contact us.)

Are you likely to require development?

You probably have a good feel about how unique some of your processes are. It may be that you have an interface requirement; it may be that you are in a niche industry. We might be able to fit the gap with an existing add-on or you may need some bespoke work. Dynamics NAV is perfect for you as it has the flexibility; however, this will increase your budget.

What level of services will you require?

Consider the amount of time and resource you can devote to the project. The more you can allocate (especially for training and testing) the better. Two areas that can become money pits are training and data migration. If you can adopt a “train the trainer” approach then this will be more cost effective and increase the success of your project as it improves user buy-in. If you can live with data migration of static data, month end balances and open items then data migration will be more manageable than if you require full transactional history.

As a general rule, very broad rule, useful at early stage of budget setting, the services will be two to three times the software value.

Our Dynamics NAV projects range in price due to size and complexity. Typically the budgets can range from £60,000 for a relatively simple 10 user system to £250,000 and upwards for larger, complicated systems. The pricing is competitive for the mid-market; in addition, Microsoft frequently run promotions and are happy to discuss price if you feel it is not competitive.

Ten years ago Gartner research showed that price is a high concern for companies who have little experience of implementing business systems. For those with more experience, price is far less of an issue with value and capability much more important. The long term benefits of investing in Microsoft Dynamics NAV tend to be extremely attractive. The initial budget is pretty good too!