A manufacturing client, United States. A manufacturing client, Dayton, Ohio. Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Sales run the business — and the business kept moving: functionality sitting in the wrong system, an overlapping platform carrying cost, vendor payments still on paper checks, and then an acquisition.
A growing manufacturer in Dayton, Ohio runs its operations on two Dynamics 365 platforms: Business Central for finance, inventory and purchasing, and Sales for pipeline and customer relationships. The internal team knows the business inside out; what it did not need was the overhead of staffing every Dynamics specialism in-house. So the platforms are co-managed — the client's team and ours, working the same environment.
Over time, the platforms had drifted from the business. Operational functionality had grown up inside the Sales CRM that belonged in the ERP. An overlapping platform was quietly carrying licensing and maintenance cost. Vendor payments still went out as paper checks, and finance and purchasing approvals moved by hand. Then the company was acquired — and two Microsoft tenants needed to become one, without anyone stopping work.
The baseline is ongoing co-managed support: we manage, customize, configure and optimize both platforms alongside the client's team as the business changes. Around that baseline, a series of targeted projects reshaped the environment. Business functionality that had accumulated in Dynamics 365 Sales was migrated into Business Central, putting operational work back in the ERP where finance can see it. An overlapping platform was consolidated to reduce licensing and maintenance costs. When the acquisition closed, we assisted with merging the Microsoft tenants into one environment.
Along the way: custom permission sets aligned to how roles actually work, a CRM archive that preserves historical records, a vendor payment transition from paper checks to ACH, and automated business workflows across finance & sales, AP & AR, and purchase requisitions.
The hard part was sequencing. Every one of these changes landed in systems people were using that same day. Moving functionality between a CRM and an ERP, or two tenants into one, is not difficult because of the buttons — it is difficult because order matters: permissions settled before anything migrates, the archive in place before anything is consolidated, and a payment change only once finance trusts the workflow behind it.
An ongoing co-managed engagement is measured in how the business runs day to day. The figures below describe the engagement as delivered — structure, not estimates or projections.
The ERP at the center: finance, inventory, purchasing and reporting. It absorbed the functionality migrated out of the CRM, and now also runs ACH vendor payments, purchase requisition approvals and the automated AP & AR workflows.
The CRM, returned to what a CRM is for: pipeline, relationships and sales workflow. Operational functionality moved to the ERP, and historical records live on in a dedicated archive rather than cluttering the working system.
When the acquisition closed, two tenants had to become one. Identities, licensing and the Dynamics environments were brought together so both organizations could operate as a single company.
Co-managed support is a model, not a ticket queue. It works when the partner carries real accountability for the platform roadmap — not just the backlog.
Where it usually gets harder than expected: the tenant merger. Merging Microsoft tenants after an acquisition punishes shortcuts — identities, permissions, licensing and Dynamics environments all have to survive the move while people keep working. Settle permissions before you migrate anything, and archive before you consolidate.
We sit with the people doing the work and watch what actually happens, including every workaround. Process documents and reality are rarely the same thing.
We prototype and show you your own records in it, not a demo company, before anything is built.
By site, by practice group or by service line — with the group that wants it most going first, to a fixed price.
We report against the numbers agreed at the start, including where the result fell short of the target.
If your Dynamics platforms have drifted from the way your business actually runs — or an acquisition is about to test them — tell us where it hurts most. We will tell you what a co-managed model could realistically do in your environment, what we would measure, and whether we think it is worth doing at all.
Describe the situation in your own words.
