5 upsides to hiring a Consultant for your Dynamics 365 deployment

Are you planning a Dynamics 365 deployment or upgrade? If so, have you considered that hiring a Dynamics 365 consultant might bring a lot to your project?

Of course, the natural path to a successful Dynamics 365 deployment involves looking for, selecting and hiring a Microsoft Dynamics partner.

However, we see more and more organizations  hiring one or several Dynamics 365 freelancers in addition to the partner. This approach has several upsides – here are five of them!

1 – Increase the effectiveness of your Dynamics 365 deployment

Any business application deployment will put a strain on your resources. Even if you hire an excellent partner, you will need to appoint someone internally to coordinate and manage the process.

For companies who don’t already have an employee with the right expertise, hiring a Dynamics 365 consultant is a popular approach: as the role is temporary, a contractor offers both the expertise and the flexibility you need.

This approach also allows your employees to remain focused on their usual tasks rather than investing time and effort into managing and coordinating your Dynamics 365 deployment.

Microsoft Dynamics Partners usually welcome the use of a Dynamics 365 consultant focused on your organization: their expertise makes the collaboration easier and smoother.

2 – Remain in control

A freelancer hired by you will be reporting to you directly. Their expertise can help you to have more control over a partner-managed Dynamics 365 deployment.

Ultimately, having a successful implementation that is on time and on budget is your responsibility, not the partner’s.

The freelancer will be:

• Bridging the relationship with the partner.

• Escalating any issues both ways.

• Making sure that both you and the partner allocate the right resources when required.

It’s very hard to outsource this role entirely to the partners as they are not part of your organisation and might not have access to all the stakeholders when required.

Having your deployment team report to you directly also gives you the chance to build a close and long-term relationship with the consultants.

This can be of great benefit for when your Dynamics solution needs support, updates or upgrades.

3 – Bring in specialized skills and expertise

Microsoft Dynamics partners usually have strong teams whose skills span many relevant areas. But the array of skills and knowledge involved in Dynamics 365 deployments keeps expanding as the technology gets more elaborate.

Depending on your industry, the level of customization you require or the types of third-party software you’ll want to integrate with your Dynamics 365 solution, there may be scenarios in which your Microsoft partner of choice won’t have all the skills you need.

In this situation, many organizations decide to bring in a freelancer with the right skills to complement the partner’s team.

It’s also worth mentioning that many of the most highly skilled Dynamics consultants are only open to freelance engagements.

Considering consultants therefore gives you the opportunity to bring their unique expertise to your project.

4 – Increase the speed of your deployment

Dynamics partners have, many, very effective tools and methodologies to manage your Dynamics 365 deployment.

These methodologies, which are usually built for bigger projects, will still, in many cases, be applied to smaller projects too.

With Dynamics 365 and its application-based structure, smaller projects are becoming more common.

In these situations, having the flexibility to use a deployment methodology customized to the size and complexity of your deployment might save you a lot of time.

A Dynamics consultant can offer this type of flexibility.

5 – Reduce the cost of your Dynamics 365 deployment

Hiring a team of Dynamics 365 consultants directly removes the partner margin and can reduce the daily rates of your consultants significantly.

For smaller projects, this is very much worth considering. You might also save yourself the internal resource cost of a lengthy partner selection.

Essentially, hiring a consultant to help and support you during your Dynamics 365 implementation means bringing a Dynamics 365 expert into your internal team. This is a great way of increasing your deployment’s chances of success.

365 Talent Portal is the Microsoft Dynamics platform that “has developed the right model to meet today’s demands with openness, transparency, and a focus on adding value.”

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