Executive Briefing

Frontier Application
Consultancy

An AI-first delivery model for Microsoft partners — turning expert time into strategic advantage.

Giel Cuijpers & Marvin Heilemann & Johan Wallquist
Enterprise Partner Solution Architects
FRONTIER APPLICATION CONSULTANCY
01 / 07

The challenge facing our partner ecosystem

Traditional Dynamics 365 implementations are too slow, too costly, and too dependent on scarce expertise.

17 mo
Average ERP implementation
Long, costly engagements with uncertain outcomes erode customer trust and ROI.
30–40%
Higher cost than necessary
Traditional migration & modernization workloads carry avoidable cost — paid by your customer.
AI-First Delivery
The new partner playbook
Agents, MCP and Copilot reshape how implementations are scoped, built and run — partners that adopt early set the pace.

What partners are telling us

Shortage of skilled consultants — pressure to reduce repetitive delivery work.
Customers expect agentic capabilities to extend M365 Copilot into Line of Business.
Key user education and adoption remain the biggest risk to go-live.
Partner skillset must evolve for the AI era — or risk being out-paced.
FRONTIER · THE CHALLENGE
02 / 07

Your best people deserve better than boring work

On a typical delivery project, 25% of expert time disappears into tasks that AI + MCP can handle — starting today.

📅 Today — where your team’s time actually goes
Strategic
35%
Delivery
40%
😴 Boring Work
25%
Architecture & Design
Fit-Gap Analysis
Stakeholder Alignment
Sprint Planning
Configuration & Dev
Integrations
Testing & UAT
Status Reports
ADO Updates
Meeting Notes
Deployment Logs
Backlog Grooming
😴 The boring work nobody wants…
📊 Status reports & slide decks
📋 ADO work item updates
📝 Meeting notes & minutes
📄 Release & handover docs
🔄 Sprint board maintenance
📂 Backlog triaging
📦 Deployment coordination logs
🔍 Tracking blockers across tickets
🤖
AI + MCP
handles this
GitHub Copilot
ADO MCP Server
D365 CRM MCP
Copilot Studio
⇓
🚀 Time flows back to real work…
💡 Deeper solution architecture
🎯 More client workshop facilitation
⚡ Faster feature delivery
🔧 More integration testing depth
🧩 Better fit-gap & process design
📈 Higher sprint velocity
✅ With AI + MCP — where your team’s time should go
Strategic
45% ▲ +10%
Delivery
50% ▲ +10%
😴 5%
💡
On a 10-person D365 team, 25% boring work = 2.5 FTEs spending their day on tasks AI can do.
With Azure DevOps MCP, D365 CRM MCP & GitHub Copilot, that time flows back to what your consultants love — and what your clients are actually paying for.
~12%
of total project effort
reclaimed per engagement
FRONTIER · BORING WORK
03 / 07

An AI-first framework across the engagement lifecycle

Standardized MCP tools + Copilot-powered agents reshape how partners sell, design, build, and operate.

AI-First Framework
🤝 Pre-Sales
RFP agents, personalized demos, solution blueprints
🚗 Delivery (Success by Design)
AI-assisted configuration, coding, testing, training, go-live
🛠️

Tools — MCP Servers

Standardized AI access to Azure DevOps, Dataverse, CRM, ERP and Microsoft Learn — secure, real-time, agent-ready.

~40 tools across 7 categories
🧠

Knowledge — IQ Layer

Work IQ, Fabric IQ, and Foundry IQ bring enterprise context into every Copilot, agent, and custom GenAI experience.

Grounded in customer data
🤖

Clients — Copilots & Agents

M365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Copilot Studio and 1P/3P/Customer agents — the new UI for business applications.

Apps → Copilot · Workflows → Agents
FRONTIER · THE SOLUTION
04 / 07

Frontier Application Consultancy|Approach

Taking an AI-first approach to Application Consultancy revolves around a data-driven approach using Clients, Tools and Knowledge.

Scenarios below are potential use cases, not productized capabilities.
🤝 Pre-Sales
🚗 Delivery (Success By Design)
▶
↗️
Initiate
Get ready to start
🛠️
Implement
👥
Prepare
Deploy
⚙️
Operate
Live
Design
Build
RFP agent
Draft RFP / RFI responses
Personalized customer demo
Based on customer data & public info
Fit gap analysis
Match customer processes with Process Repository
Customer Kickoff
Including Copilot training
Solution Blueprint
Draft, review, evaluate
Task initiation
Populate DevOps from Blueprint
Generate FDD, TDD, IDD
Using workshops & ADO as input
AI-assisted coding
AI-assisted configuration
Using knowledge and MCP
Test plan
With evals defined
Configuration documentation
Generated from application
Data migration
Using Fabric IQ and MCP
Training documentation
Generated from application
Go-Live
Planning & readiness assessment
Ops measurement
Agent that measures batch actions and transactions
⇅
★
Tools | MCP servers
★
Knowledge | Work IQ · Fabric IQ · Foundry IQ
★
Clients | M365 Copilot · GHCP · Copilot Studio
⇅
FRONTIER · APPROACH
05 / 07

Measurable impact on cost, time and quality

Reclaim expert capacity, accelerate delivery, and lift customer outcomes — every engagement.

~12%
Total project effort reclaimed per engagement when AI + MCP handles the boring work.
20–30%
Faster timeline for migrating and modernizing workloads.*
30–40%
Lower implementation cost for migration & modernization.*
500 K+
ERP AI actions available now — agents can do almost anything a person can do in ERP.

Implementation Timeline — Customer TCO

Traditional17 months
⏳ baseline
AI-Accelerated~12 months
▼ 30% faster
* Source: McKinsey, "In search of cloud value," 2023; IRJET, "The Future of ERP Integrations," 2024.
FRONTIER · BUSINESS IMPACT
06 / 07

From conversation to competitive advantage

Three moves to become an AI-first implementation partner — starting now.

1

Stand up the toolbelt

Equip teams with VS Code, GitHub Copilot, Dataverse / ERP / ADO MCP servers and Copilot Studio. Setup in days, not months.

2

Reshape pre-sales & delivery

Adopt the AI-First Framework across the engagement lifecycle — vibe configuration, AI-assisted coding, agentic operations.

3

Lead with Responsible AI

Transparency, human-in-the-loop, governance & iterative evaluation — built into every customer engagement.

Become the AI-first partner your customers are already asking for.
Giel Cuijpers · Marvin Heilemann · Johan Wallquist · Enterprise Partner Solution Architects
FRONTIER · NEXT STEPS
07 / 07