The Discover Process

Discover is a cloud-based requirements gathering tool designed to help businesses quickly and efficiently assess their ERP needs. It moves beyond traditional ERP software feature lists and consultant-driven approaches, focusing on core business requirements to ensure a better ERP fit.

Traditional methods rely on free, shallow tools that promote a specific product or expensive consultant-led projects that can take months and cost tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Discover sits in the middle—it’s data-driven, unbiased, and structured, allowing businesses to identify what they need without unnecessary complexity.

Any company considering an ERP transition, whether moving from Microsoft Dynamics GP, AX, NAV, SL, or another legacy system or evaluating cloud-based ERP solutions, can benefit from Discover. Discover helps organizations in finance, procurement, HR, operations, and other departments align their business needs with the right ERP system.

Most organizations complete the Discover survey in 2-3 weeks with just 20-30 minutes of daily effort. The tool streamlines the process, eliminating the need for drawn-out consulting engagements.

Discover organizes business requirements into functional areas, including the General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Inventory, HR, Procurement, and more. Additionally, business requirements can be “flipped” into a critical business workflow view, such as “Order to Cash,” and how they should function or flow in a modern ERP system. This provides an insight not available in traditional “needs lists”.

Yes! Multiple stakeholders across different departments can collaborate on the requirements assessment. Companies can assign specific team members to relevant sections (e.g., Finance handles General Ledger, HR handles Payroll), ensuring a comprehensive and accurate review.

Discover can be used to evaluate any ERP software because it is product-agnostic and data-driven. The Microsoft ERP solutions BC and FSCM have been evaluated thousands of times using the platform, so a large data set shows how those solutions match requirements. Still, the tool provides an unbiased, data-driven view of how ERP solutions align with a company’s needs.

The results are compiled into detailed reports that include:  

• Requirements fit analysis comparing business needs to ERP capabilities.  
• Workflow-based view of how the ERP supports end-to-end processes.  
• Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimate, providing insights into implementation costs and resources needed.

If a requirement is unclear or unfamiliar, users can mark it as “Unsure”. The tool then provides an opportunity to review these items later with an ERP consultant or implementation partner for better clarity. For unique requirements, the tool allows for those to be easily added in a “custom requirements section”

Currently, Microsoft is funding Discover for eligible companies, making it available at no cost. However, availability may be limited to a specific time, so businesses are encouraged to take advantage of it while the funding lasts. Please see our pricing page for companies only eligible for partial funding from Microsoft.