Published 2025-11-27
For decades, companies have been sold the idea that ERP implementation is a well-defined, predictable process. The ERP industrial complex has convinced executives that the cost of implementing an ERP system should be around 3% of total revenue. They sell you on a rigid playbook: software selection, RFPs, project management, change management, requirements gathering, global templates, user training and most importantly, NO customizations.
But here's the truth: it's a hoax. A marketing myth designed to pad consulting fees, justify expensive software, and make companies follow processes that often fail to deliver value.
The 3% revenue scam
D365 F&O costs are highly variable depend on: number of users, business complexity, integration needs, legacy systems, data migration, customization needs and industry-specific requirements. Using revenue alone tells you nothing about what your ERP will actually cost. It's a marketing number, not reality.
Here's the kicker: with the D365 F&O fastlane approach, the cost of implementation can be around 0.5% of revenue, a fraction of the traditional 3%. By focusing on bare minimum features, leveraging Power Apps, and smartly extending functionality with AI, companies can implement D365 faster, cheaper, and with far less risk, while achieving real business outcomes.
The ERP playbook
Consultants want you to believe the followings are non-negotiable:
1) Software selection & RFPs: are usually run by people who have never actually implemented an ERP in their lives. Often a months-long exercise in checking boxes rather than delivering real value.
The smartest move is simple: just choose D365 F&O. It's modern, scalable, flexible, and widely adopted. Skipping the bloated software selection circus and RFP theatre alone can save you 1000s dollars and months of wasted time. And with the Fastlane approach, you get up and running quickly without the endless delays of traditional ERP projects.
2) Project management & change management: Sold as critical, but frequently add bureaucratic overhead. change management is closer to corporate brainwashing than genuine enablement. If you need months of workshops, training decks, adoption campaigns, posters, and resistance management, the problem isn't your people the problem is your system. When the system is easy to use, you don't need to manage change.
3) Steering committees and project governance: The most expensive illusion in D365 projects. Endless meetings, status reports, steering committees, and governance structures that slow the project down, burn hundreds of hours in admin, and bloat consulting invoices without pushing the implementation forward..
4) Requirement gathering & global templates: The "best practice" cookie-cutter template rarely fits your business. Every company is different, even within the same group and industry. They're about protecting consultants fees and giving the illusion of control.
The nonsense of never customize
It sounds wise. It sounds safe. It sounds like the kind of best practice that no reasonable organization would argue with. But in reality?
1) The most successful D365 implementations don't avoid customization, they MASTER It.
2) Layering Power Apps and AI on top of D365. Avoid touching core code and moving the customizations outside of D365. Keep it upgrade-safe.
3) Organizations that avoid customization at all costs often end up with: massive spreadsheet ecosystems, manual workarounds, poor user adoption and adow IT solutions built in the dark
The old model is dead
Many millions wasted on D365 projects. The old model delivered all the wrong things: months sometimes years spent on D365 projects that never went live, never delivered meaningful value, and never justified their cost.
The truth is simple: the traditional approach was never designed to create value for the customer. It was designed to create revenue for the consulting ecosystem.
The new approach: D365 F&O Fastlane
There is a smarter way. You don't need an army of consultants, millions of dollars, or years to implement D365 F&O. The new approach focuses on:
1) Instead of paying premium rates to consultants (mostly juniors and cheap offshore resources) who are learning on your dime, hire your own internal team. People who have actually been there and done that. When the people building the system are the same people who will live with it, the results are always better and far cheaper.
2) Use the industry configuration template with bare minimum features to get up and running fast.
3) Use Power Apps to extend functionality easily and safely. Built by business users who closest to the problems, with drag-and-drop interfaces replacing months of custom development.
4) Power BI combined with Synapse Link for D365 gives you real-time, scalable and enterprise-grade analytics platform for business insight.
5) AI and MCP layers to automate and enhance processes without heavy customization.
This is what we call the D365 F&O Fastlane: fast, practical, cost-effective, and tailored to your business, not the consultant's bottom line. Stop buying the story. Start implementing D365 your way. Operators build, consultants advise. Hire doers, not talkers. In a world where cares about resumes than receipts, be the one who brings the receipts. The D365 F&O Fastlane is your ticket to success.
We're seeing D365 F&O customers reduce implementation and support costs by 80-90%, while actually increasing the sophistication of their solutions. Please contact us and we'll show you where to start..
D365 is NOT DONE at Go Live
Many companies think their work is done once the implementation is finished. But a new type of work starts after the go-live... Those tiny issues you ignored during implementation? They're about to make themselves known, and loudly. And those business requirements that were not urgent enough? They're popping up left and right now, because users want more.
Here are some strategies for post-go-live success:
✔️ Have a post-Go Live support plan.
✔️ Invest in ongoing training & adoption.
✔️ Have a stable internal team for stability.
✔️ Keep improving & optimizing, not just maintaining.