Long View's aging ERP system caused security risks, hindered performance, and fragmented workflows, leading to operational inefficiencies and poor data quality.
Implementing Dynamics 365 Human Resources, Finance, Sales, and Project Operations streamlined operations, enhanced data integrity, and supported future growth.
Dynamics 365 improved forecasting, centralized data management, and increased efficiency, enabling Long View to make informed decisions and optimize staff allocation.
Long View is one of the largest privately-owned IT services and solutions companies in North America, with offices across the continent. As a technology company founded on putting people first, Long View supports the world’s dynamic businesses by empowering their workforces with agility, simplicity, and insight through modern workplace, business transformation, data modernization, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure solutions. After a quarter-century of delivering innovative, flexible, cost-effective solutions that resulted in exponential growth, the company’s systems strained to keep up with its business needs. Long View became its own client, replacing its aging enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources, Finance, Sales, and Project Operations to improve efficiency and data integrity and support future growth.
“At Long View, we are committed to driving efficiency and innovation, not just for ourselves, but for our clients too. With Dynamics 365, we’re not only positioned for scalable growth. We're further positioned to deliver on our commitment—to employees and clients alike—to use technology to help the world work.”
Brent Allison, CEO, Long View
Long View doesn’t only look for quick wins. Its name comes from the phrase “to take the long view” as a reminder not just of the right way to do things, but also that in a changing world, keeping eyes on the horizon and putting challenges in perspective is the only way to succeed in the long run. That’s why, when it became clear that its aging legacy ERP solution could no longer support the company’s evolving business needs, Long View turned its workplace modernization expertise on itself.
The old Microsoft Navision ERP and Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation solutions were heavily customized, running on outdated infrastructure and built on unsupported SQL versions and operating systems. In addition to security risks and hindered performance, manual, error-prone processes for critical functions compounded operational inefficiencies. The user experience was outdated, project management workflows were fragmented and overly complex, and data quality was less than optimal. The need for a modern, cloud-based, flexible solution capable of streamlining operations, enhancing data integrity, and supporting future growth presented Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation partner Long View with an exciting opportunity to practice what it preaches—strategic simplification, unmatched agility, and driving value and innovation with Dynamics 365.
Deployment of Dynamics 365 Human Resources in February 2024 anchored the multi-phased project. A simultaneous rollout of Dynamics 365 Finance, Sales, and Project Operations with five key business processes, like Order to Cash, Prospect to Quote, and Record to Report, for instance, as outlined in the Microsoft Business Process Catalog, followed in October 2024. Adhering to the Dynamics 365 implementation guide’s process focus approach to using out-of-the-box functionalities eliminated 22 customizations that had been required in the old system, saving Long View a staggering $440,000.
A key goal of Long View’s transformation, as it is for Long View’s clients, was to replace manual processes and disparate systems with a unified, efficient system that serves as a single source of truth, centralizing data management to enhance cohesion throughout the business. With Dynamics 365 that’s exactly what Long View has—a fully integrated ERP solution that allows for end-to-end management and oversight of business processes from start to finish, capable of meeting the company’s needs both now and in the future.
“It’s not just about visibility—it’s about identifying opportunities to make this process more efficient. If it typically takes six months to move from prospect to revenue, we can now analyze the data to find ways to shorten that cycle. This level of insight simply wasn’t possible before Dynamics 365.”
Yvonne Greenlees, Sales Operations Specialist, Long View
$440,000 saved by eliminating 22 customizations.
The dual-write feature in Dynamics 365 syncs data in near real time among Finance, Project Operations, and Sales, offering a complete view of the entire project life cycle that allows Long View to track performance metrics, identify inefficiencies, and improve processes all along the journey from prospect to lifelong customer.
Before Dynamics 365, business data was fragmented and unreliable, living in multiple systems and relying on manual integrations and disconnected workflows. But today, says Yvonne Greenlees, Sales Operations Specialist at Long View, “From the moment a prospect enters our pipeline through becoming a customer, converting to a contract, selecting products, and eventually turning into a project that gets billed, we can track every stage seamlessly. We can see exactly when we first engaged with a prospect and when the first dollar of revenue comes in. It’s not just about visibility—it’s about identifying opportunities to make this process more efficient. If it typically takes six months to move from prospect to revenue, we can now analyze the data to find ways to shorten that cycle. This level of insight simply wasn’t possible before Dynamics 365."
Because the legacy system made it difficult to get a clear, real-time view of business data, forecasting was less than optimal. “We didn’t have a lot of confidence in our forecasting,” says Michael Kochorek, Vice President, Marketing, “which made it really difficult to make decisions for the business.” Uncertainty was more than an inconvenience; it directly affected the company's ability to invest strategically in its most critical asset—its people. As a service organization, Long View's largest investments are operational, especially related to hiring new talent. Without accurate forecasts, decisions around recruitment and resource allocation were fraught with risk. Now? "One of the key Dynamics 365 benefits we’re seeing is improved forecasting,” says Kochorek. “While we're still learning and optimizing, this integration has already streamlined how we track and manage data, making the process much more effective and efficient.”
This newfound clarity has been transformative. With Dynamics 365, Long View leaders have reliable forecasts that allow them to make informed decisions, optimize staff allocation based on real-time data, and assess new hires and growth initiatives with confidence, reducing the risks associated with expansion. Now, executives, sales leaders, and support teams can easily access customized dashboards with just a click, providing instant insights into performance metrics.
With higher visibility comes more engagement. Previously, account plans were static documents stored in places like SharePoint, limiting access and possibilities for collaboration. Now, account plans and business reviews are in Dynamics 365. A centralized, single source of truth gives everyone a comprehensive 360-degree view of each client. Executives, sales leaders, account managers, and technical teams can easily access, update, and contribute to real-time account data, and deeper insights into the frequency, status, and outcomes of client meetings ensure a proactive position in client engagements and drive more informed, strategic decisions.
“One of the key benefits we’re seeing with Dynamics 365 is improved forecasting. While we're still learning and optimizing, this integration has already streamlined how we track and manage data, making the process much more effective and efficient.”
Michael Kochorek, Vice President, Marketing, Long View
With nearly 1,300 employees, most of them working on billable projects, the utilization rate is one of Long View’s most critical performance metrics. Accurate time tracking is essential in determining utilization rates—one of the company’s most critical performance metrics. But before Dynamics 365, the risk of inaccurate timesheets was high. In the legacy system, correcting an error on a timesheet was a cumbersome process that required multiple manual steps and a separate negative transaction to back out the incorrect entry. But with Dynamics 365 Project Operations, corrections can easily be made at any point. Native integration with Dynamics 365 Finance eliminates the need for duplicate offsetting entries. Timesheet data flows from Project Operations directly into financial records, reducing manual effort, minimizing errors, and ensuring balanced financials without extra steps. With the integrated end-to-end capabilities of Dynamics 365, Long View has greater confidence not only in its utilization rates, but also that billable hours are all accounted for and financial reporting is more precise.
Almost as important as accurately tracking time is saving it. With expense management in Dynamics 365 Long View employees have an end-to-end solution for tracking project related expenses for billing and reimbursement. Long View project managers used to create invoices one by one, sequentially, waiting for each invoice to be generated individually. Creating 100 invoices took 10 hours. Now in Dynamics 365, invoices are created in batches, and 100 invoices are generated in only two hours.
The holistic approach that Dynamics 365 takes to ERP increases efficiency by breaking down silos. At Long View, sales used to operate in isolation, using a basic module that was disconnected from other critical functions and required manual coordination among sales, project management, and finance, slowing the sales process and operations. Now, contract details flow seamlessly between Dynamics 365 Sales and Project Operations for smoother project creation, resource allocation, and time tracking. Project managers can compare actuals to budgets using built-in views, and the solution’s integration with Microsoft Excel allows effortless data export and deeper analysis.
End-to-end integration does more than eliminate manual handoffs, reduce errors, and accelerate the entire project life cycle, from closing the deal to completing the project. It also connects the early stages of a project, like selecting a product or service, with the later stages, like calculating taxes—which wasn’t possible in the legacy system. In Dynamics 365, the selection of services and products is tightly linked to the entire sales-to-finance process. In fact, that selection is critical because it triggers actions downstream and flows through various validation checkpoints that ensure that all the relevant financial and tax details are correct and aligned with the selected offering. This process helps the company comply with regulations, reduces the chance of errors, and ensures that data is consistent across all systems, from Sales to Finance.
Long View’s financial processes benefit from the elimination of manual workflows. Expense reporting, previously done manually in Excel, is now fully automated in Dynamics 365, saving time and reducing errors. The company is also automating credit card statement import processes, reducing the manual workload for both the finance department and cardholders. Using built-in expense management functionality to handle transactions within the system will eliminate the remaining need for Excel worksheets and save significant time.
A holistic, end-to-end view of operations creates a more unified and connected data model across Long View’s business functions. Previously, the company had to pull data from different, disconnected systems to answer even simple questions, making any kind of analysis difficult. But with Dynamics 365 Finance, Project Operations, Sales, and Human Resources, all data is stored in one place, Microsoft Dataverse. When a manager wants to know where a financial transaction came from or review an employee’s project history, they can easily trace it in the system. And now that data is more accurate, reporting is more precise. Leadership can make better decisions, and practice leaders can better understand the performance of different offerings.
Long View plans to take advantage of other Dynamics 365 capabilities, including implementing Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Journeys, Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales, LinkedIn integration for lead generation, and the automation of partner center reporting.
But its Dynamics 365 implementation wasn’t just about managing projects or streamlining operations. It was about instilling confidence in business decisions at every level and building a sustainable infrastructure for growth. Long View CEO, Brent Allison says, “At Long View, we are committed to driving efficiency and innovation, not just for ourselves, but for our clients too. With Dynamics 365, we’re not only positioned for scalable growth. We’re further positioned to deliver on our commitment—to employees and clients alike—to use technology to help the world work.”
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