What the Forrester TEI study says about Dynamics 365 Business Central ROI

Q: What does the Forrester TEI composite organization represent?

The composite has $50 million in revenue, 300 employees, and 15 core finance users. It migrated from a legacy on-premises ERP and a mix of point solutions: a profile representative of the SMBs included in Forrester’s interviews and survey.

Q: Does the Forrester study account for AI capabilities in Business Central?

AI benefits are not independently quantified in the study. Forrester notes that standardizing data and processes in Business Central positions organizations to realize value from Copilot and AI-powered agents faster as they adopt those capabilities.

Q: How does implementation quality affect the return?

Partner quality, scope discipline, and user training are material variables. The Forrester study models a $50,000 partner fee and structured training costs. It signals that a well-executed implementation is part of what delivers the projected return, not an optional add-on.

The 2026 Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned by Microsoft puts the Dynamics 365 Business Central ROI at 209% over three years, with a net present value of $464,000 and a payback period of under six months. Read the report to find out what it means for SMBs and how they can scale their business with Business Central.

The report identifies four benefit areas with Business central implementation – improved finance operations productivity, retired legacy solution costs, improved profitability, and improved reporting. Total three-year benefits reached $685,742 in present value against costs of $221,776.

What Forrester measured: The gaps with legacy ERP solutions

Forrester interviewed four decision-makers across retail, professional services, manufacturing, and finance, then built a composite organization to model three-year costs and benefits.

The composite has $50 million in annual revenue, 300 employees, and 15 core finance and accounting users alongside 100 light users. Before deploying Dynamics 365 Business Central, it ran a legacy on-premises ERP alongside point solutions and spreadsheets.

Moving from legacy ERP to Business Central : A return that starts within the first six months

The Forrester TEI study puts the Dynamics 365 Business Central ROI at 209% over three years, with a net present value of $463,966. The payback period is under six months.

For most SMBs building an internal business case, that last figure is where the conversation starts: the investment breaks even before the end of the first half-year, and the remaining two-and-a-half years represent compounding return.

Months 0–6

Investment and payback

Break-even before end of H1. Finance productivity gains surface within the first quarter after go-live. < 6 Months

Year 1–2

Compounding returns

Legacy licenses and infrastructure wound down. Finance gains and profitability improvements build over time.209% ROI

Year 3

Full return realized

Three-year net present value reached. Remaining two-and-a-half years represent compounding return.$463,966 NPV

Business Central total cost of ownership

Legacy ERP deployments rarely fail on software alone. They fail on the accumulating weight of infrastructure maintenance, redundant point solution licenses, and the partner hours needed to keep customizations running.

Business Central moves that cost structure to a predictable monthly subscription, with implementation and training front-loaded rather than spread across years of unplanned spend.

According to the Forrester TEI study, total three-year costs for the composite organization came to $221,776 in present value. That is the complete picture: licensing, implementation, training, and ongoing management included.

For businesses carrying legacy infrastructure, redundant point solution licenses, and the IT overhead to maintain them, the Business Central total cost of ownership is a materially simpler structure to plan around.

Improved finance operations productivity

For most SMBs, the finance team is the first place Business Central makes a visible difference. Month-end close that runs across spreadsheets and disconnected systems is slow, error-prone, and difficult to scale.

According to the Forrester TEI study, Business Central reduced close time by up to 30% by Year 3 and cut time spent on AP, AR, and billing tasks by up to 50%, delivering a three-year risk-adjusted present value of $215,719.

One COO told Forrester they took two full days off their month-end close. A retail CTO reported a 50% reduction in close time. Across sa.global’s implementations, this is the benefit area that surfaces fastest, typically within the first quarter after go-live, once finance teams move off disconnected spreadsheets and into a single consolidated ledger.

Improved profitability

According to the Forrester TEI study, net margins improved by up to 3% by year 3, with a three-year risk-adjusted present value of $245,530.

For the composite with $50 million in revenue, that translated to $120,000 in risk-adjusted improvement in year 3 alone. The driver is visibility: Business Central gave interviewees the ability to catch project overruns earlier, identify unbillable time, and act on cost data in real time.

One professional services COO told Forrester that project margins improved from 42% to 43% as a direct result. This is a benefit that compounds: the longer a team works in one consolidated system, the more confidently they use that data to protect margins.

What this means, and what determines the return

The Forrester composite is a benchmark, not a guarantee. Results depend on where inefficiencies sit today and how well the implementation is executed. Retired solution savings, valued at a three-year present value of $175,121, tend to begin in year 1 as legacy licenses and infrastructure are wound down. Finance productivity gains come early. Profitability improvements build over time.

The Dynamics 365 Business Central ROI case is strongest when the implementation is built around actual business processes. That is where projected and realized returns tend to diverge, and where an experienced partner makes the difference.

sa.global has delivered Business Central implementations across professional services, manufacturing, and distribution for SMBs in over 25 countries. The benefit areas Forrester quantified map directly to what surfaces in those projects.

If you are putting together a business case and want to pressure-test the numbers against your own situation, an sa.global consultant can help you work through it.

FAQs

What does the Forrester TEI composite organization represent?