Challenge
A leading home and commercial cleaning company needed to renew their Microsoft Dynamics software licensing, but before they did so, they wanted to ensure their licensing costs aligned with their true usage. They certainly didn't want to overpay for unnecessary enterprise licenses, but underpaying could result in hefty fines (sometimes millions of dollars) assessed by Microsoft.
More companies who use Dynamics are looking at how they can ensure compliance as Microsoft increases focus on license reconciliation, and our client was no exception. They were already partnering with New Era Technology for Microsoft Dynamics support, so it was a natural solution to rely on our team to run a Dynamics licensing assessment.
Solution
As a Microsoft Dynamics partner, our New Era team helps clients reconcile the money they are spending on licensing to ensure they are neither over- nor underspending as part of our services. We had recently taken over as partner of record for this cleaning services company, so their New Era Dynamics support contract covered their licensing assessment, helping our client save even more.
To perform the Dynamics licensing assessment, our team conducted a comprehensive round of interviews with Dynamics users in the organization. We spoke to a variety of individuals throughout the company, including employees who pump fuel into the work trucks to line-of-business managers, such as warehouse and IT managers, all the way up to the CFO. We then ran usage forensics and compared that to licensing needs.
The assessment revealed that the company’s licensing was not accurate. They needed fewer enterprise and functional client access licenses (CALs) than their current licensing fees reflected. After calculating what they needed compared to what they were spending, our client would see a 38 percent savings on their annual costs.
We facilitated the paperwork and all communications with Microsoft to make the necessary licensing changes and save our client a significant amount of time, and within two weeks, they experienced lower costs.
