The support platform had run for more than 15 years. Before replacing it, the client needed to know everything it did.

What we did

• —Catalogued everything the current system does: its forms, queries, and every connection to other systems.
• —Scored the core business requirements one by one against Dynamics CRM, marking each as standard, configuration, integration, or custom build.
• —Produced a solution blueprint with a conceptual design, a proposed proof-of-concept architecture, and the components where custom work carried the most risk, such as concern routing and fault coding.

The economics

A fixed advisory fee, agreed in writing before work began. The findings changed what leadership needed to fund next. Around 60% of requirements could be met by Dynamics CRM as standard, with no code. Around 20% would have needed integration on any platform. That left under 20% as the real risk, sitting in a few named components. Leadership could fund a small proof of concept on that part first, and hold the full replacement budget until it had proved itself.

The outcome

The client left with a fit score built from its own requirements, a blueprint for the replacement, and a clear view of which components carried the risk. We then ran the proof of concept on those components, and it confirmed the analysis. The next decision was made on evidence from the client's own system.

What we would recommend

Score the requirements you actually have, not the ones the new platform is good at.

When you're replacing a system that has run for years, list everything it does today and score the new platform against that list.