How The TM Group Turned Business Central into a Hit for Clients from a Swing and Miss

December 16, 2021 Allie

How The TM Group Turned Business Central into a Hit for Clients from a Swing and Miss

During our 30+ years of serving the business systems needs of our clients, The TM Group has helped hundreds of organizations in a wide variety of industries, from automotive suppliers to retail to nonprofits and more. Virtually all of them have dealt with business issues that were unique to their organization that our CRM and ERP expertise could help them resolve.

Every now and then, we come across clients who — despite being vastly different in the products or services they offer — are facing the exact same challenge. They have chosen a very capable solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, but they selected a partner that could not properly guide them through their implementation or properly support them on an ongoing basis.

That was the case recently for two new clients who were both struggling to get good advice and support from the partner that performed their original Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central projects. Once The TM Group got involved, they got a better understanding and appreciation for all that the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central solution could do that their previous partners had failed to convey. Consequently, they chose to work with The TM Group, and we processed a partner of record change with The Microsoft Corporation.

 

The Clients
As previously noted, these two clients provide very different services. One specializes in non-medical supplies (e.g. cleaning, janitorial, etc.) for nursing homes and seniors centers. The other is in the energy industry and designs power systems that allow vehicles like RVs and boats to operate off the power grid with batteries and solar.

As many of our previous clients can attest, The TM Group is very skilled at assessing an organization’s system requirements and guiding them through what can be a very complicated Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation project. In these instances, though, both clients already had Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in place. But they weren’t getting as much out of their solution as they wanted because the partners they hired didn’t take the time to understand their needs and goals.

As our new supplier client relayed to us, their original partner clearly had a comprehensive understanding of how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central worked. The partner walked them through basic setup and training of Business Central’s many features, but what they didn’t do was show the client how each feature could address their specific challenges.

When the health care cleaning supplies company first approached The TM Group, they were moving to a new warehouse because the one they were in was too small for their expanding business. In short, they needed more room for inventory. However, with more inventory you need better processes, and the system needs to be setup and configured to efficiently manage their inventory. During the initial implementation, the partner only setup and trained them on the bare minimum inventory management capabilities of Business Central.

They either needed more consulting guidance from their existing partner or to find a new partner. The fact that the partner was located on the West Coast — an entirely different time zone from the Midwest — only added to the client’s frustrations because the partner wasn’t responsive to their requests and issues. Consequently, they decided to switch to The TM Group as their Microsoft Partner of Record.

 

The TM Group specializes in CRM and ERP implementations and support

One of the things that makes The TM Group different from many partners is that we are 100% focused on the Microsoft Dynamics solutions — not just Business Central — and specialize in both CRM and ERP implementations. Many partners are either an IT services firms specializing in networks or development while doing a little Dynamics consulting on the side, or are CPA firms that have a couple Dynamics consultants on staff.  These types of organizations don’t do the volume of projects or support enough clients to gain much practical knowledge of how-to best setup and configure the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central application, let alone train a client’s staff properly.

The original partner of the power systems company was not doing Business Central projects as their primary business focus, it was only part of what they did in terms of services. Since it was a CPA firm, its core services were related to accounting and taxes. And because the partner didn’t have any experience in manufacturing — which was the client’s industry — the CPA firm even ended up subcontracting that part of the project to another partner to handle those aspects of the implementation. This made communication and the implementation itself highly disjointed and convoluted. And even though the partner was local, the client received sluggish response time.

Our Microsoft Dynamics specialization allows us to configure the solution to best help our clients achieve their objectives based on their needs and goals. Armed with more familiarity of Business Central through client process specific training, our clients are better prepared to get the best return from their investment in a new CRM/ERP solution and gain greater satisfaction with the solution as a whole.

Sometimes, it isn’t the product that is the problem; it’s the delivery. That was the case for both of our clients. With a deep bench of Microsoft Dynamics developers, consultants, project managers and IT specialists on staff, The TM Group is a Microsoft partner fully committed to ensuring every implementation we perform is a home run for our clients. If you’re in any way dissatisfied with Business Central — or your implementation didn’t go as you planned — contact us at The TM Group today.

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