4 Reasons to migrate from NAV to Dynamics 365

4 Reasons to migrate from NAV to Dynamics 365?

Dynamics Navision and AX are both used around the world. Both were developed by Danish companies, Navision and Damgaard (Axapta). The companies merged 2000 and were sold to Microsoft 2002. Microsoft rebranded both ERP systems: Axapta became Dynamics AX, Navision became Dynamics NAV. Both systems are quite successful.

Dynamics 365 for Financials and Dynamics NAV are business management ERP for small and midsized organizations that automate and streamline business processes and help you deal your business.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 for Financials are very similar products. These two solutions are not really competitors. They target different markets and cover different needs. Dynamics 365 Financials is a complete cloud SAAS solution based on the NAV platform. Therefore, two ERP systems have more things in common than things that set them apart.

Deployment

Most likely the biggest difference between the two solutions is deployment.

Dynamics 365 for Financials is purchased as software as a service. The benefits here are lower cost, scalability, accessibility, etc. For Software as a service customer doesn’t care about the hardware and its maintenance. 

Dynamics NAV has a little more flexibility in this involve. You can host the software on your own servers, or in a 3rd-party cloud like Azure if you choose. Dynamics NAV actually works very well when hosted by a 3rd-party cloud, so don’t base your choice between these two products on whether you want “the cloud” or not.

Pricing & Licensing

Dynamics 365 for Financials can only be licensed as a subscription for $40/month for every person. It can only be for named users. This means that Dynamics 365 for Financials will have a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than Dynamics NAV.  This is because Dynamics 365 for Financials licenses are less expensive per named user ($40 monthly vs $65 monthly); and all infrastructure costs are included in its price.

Dynamics NAV can be purchased either perpetually, or as a subscription. This means you can bear the full cost of licenses up-front, or subscribe to retain access rights. You can also purchase Dynamics NAV users as concurrent users, or named users. This means you can either buy the rights for up to [x number] of people to use Dynamics NAV at the same time, or you can buy the rights for certain people to use the solution whenever they want. Your choice.

Customizations

Financials can only be personalized through extensions. This is a new development approach (also available for NAV), which is only just starting to be used by partners.

If you require a lot of customizations, Dynamics NAV will have the edge. It has one of the most open codebases of any ERP about everything is exposed to the system developer to customize. It also has a lot of customizations created by Independent Software Vendor (ISV). Due to its longevity, a lot of the customizations are already developed, and a rich talent pool of developers already exist. For Dynamics 365 for Financials, you would have to reach into the Appsource and find an app that plugs right in to Dynamics 365 for Financials. Dynamics 365 for Financials currently does not have all of the configuration options available to NAV.

Dynamics 365 Financials is not a competitor to NAV 2017.

It is a powerful cloud solution based on the Dynamics NAV technology, targeting the needs of small businesses. Although there are several current differences between the two solutions, Microsoft will expend a significant amount of resources on updating Dynamics 365 Financial to make it a complete cloud based robust solution.  They are announcing new features every month to the software.

Functionality

I believe that the standard of the choice of the system lies at the junction between the company size (including the amount of data) and the industry represented, as well as between the complex management of processes in the company and the need for an easy-to-use and simple, customizable interface. For example, Dynamics AX is more powerful in the management of complex processes such as production, offering greater functionality. Therefore, manufacturing companies which implement complex processes in their operation should definitely choose Dynamics AX. And the fact whether the company has five or 1,005 users is not so important here. Conversely, if the company operates, for example, in the wholesale sector, where the primary goal is the possibility for the users to easily and quickly process data, Dynamics NAV would probably be a much better option. User customized and simple data display will provide higher efficiency, because less time will be needed to get to the information required. For example, by entering the customer name in the customer number field, the system will be able to filter out the necessary information immediately.

When examining the size of the company, in our case we refer to the amount of data (how effectively the system is able to process large amounts of data) and their complexity (the complexity of the processes). The key lies in the functionality delivered by both systems. In this case, I am reviewing the standard functionality ensured by Microsoft in the standard versions of the systems. Dynamics AX is definitely functionally richer in terms of management of a kind of processes, such as processes related to project management, the public sector or manufacturing (in this area, Dynamics NAV is capable of displaying only discrete manufacturing, whereas Dynamics AX can also reflect incline and process manufacturing. Moreover, Dynamics AX has a ready built-in barcode scanner interface for mobile devices (handheld) specially designed for warehouses). By contrast, in sectors such as wholesale, Dynamics AX loses its functional advantages over Dynamics NAV, which provides the same full functionality and is easier to use. Dynamics AX, likewise, cannot be considered to have all the functionality of Dynamics NAV, while Dynamics NAV cannot be considered to lack something: Dynamics NAV also offers features that are not present in the basic version of Dynamics AX, such as the breakdown of additional costs by goods. Unlike Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV can do this work automatically.

Looking at the data display and modulation functionality, it must be said that although the Dynamics NAV solution offers possibilities of an extensive and advanced analysis by dimensions, these possibilities in the Dynamics AX solution are broader with more control options.

Conclusion: when choosing a system, it is important to take into account not only the number of users or amount of data, but also the business processes

Conclusion: the standard functionally of Dynamics AX is richer than that of Dynamics NAV in areas such as manufacturing or the public sector

Both systems have functional differences that can determine the choice of the system for a particular customer. On the other hand, if you are planning to have complex multi-country implementation, strong budgeting, workflows, Project Management, Advance Process & Lean Manufacturing, RFQ & Requisitions, Warehouse Portal (Web based), Case Management, Audit Control etc. modules, advance system security and multi-country localizations in single platform, Microsoft Dynamics AX would be the right option.

Conclusions

If someone asked me to select three main advantages and differences of the two products from all the arguments, my choice would probably be as follows:

Dynamics NAV

-Ease of use (a comfortable user interface)

-A successful benefit-cost ratio

-Orientation towards cloud services

Dynamics AX

-Rich manufacturing and project management functionality

-Excellent operation with large data volumes

-Extensive options for analysis