A global industrial company needed to create a clearer and more consistent role structure in Microsoft Dynamics 365. What started as a purely role-focused project soon evolved into a broader review of the company’s permissions and licenses.
Together with the company’s process owners, Implema mapped who should have access to what and what each user needed to be able to do. By linking the technical roles to users’ actual job responsibilities, the company gained more precise roles, stronger security, and easier management.
The work also reduced the risk of over-licensing and helped operations in different countries steer their processes in the same direction. The company estimated that future cost reductions would be at least twice the investment in the project.
The project started as a purely role-focused initiative. The company wanted to create a clearer structure in Dynamics 365 and make it easier to understand who should have access to different parts of the system.
It was about both what users should be able to do and what information they should be able to access. The goal was to improve security, simplify administration, and create a role structure that would be easier to manage over time.
Because it was a global company with multiple production sites, the solution also needed to work across different countries and parts of the organization. There was therefore a need to harmonize how the technical roles were handled.
During the project, it became clear that roles had a major impact on license needs. Permission to certain features can mean a user needs a more comprehensive Dynamics 365 license. The role project therefore evolved into a combined review of roles, permissions, and licenses.
The most important part of the work wasn’t only the technical analysis. To create useful roles, the project needed to start with the business processes.
Implema worked together with process owners from different departments and countries. Among other things, they reviewed ways of working in procurement and production.
For each process and user group, two key questions were asked:
The answers were then compared with the existing roles and permissions in Dynamics 365. This made it possible to identify where access was too broad, where it needed to change, and how roles could be adapted to day-to-day work.
A role should give the user enough access to perform their tasks, but not include features the person doesn’t need.
By starting from the processes, the company could link each role more clearly to an actual responsibility. The technical roles were synchronized with users’ practical job responsibilities instead of being based on historical permissions or generic job titles.
The result was more precise roles, making it easier to understand:
The clearer link between responsibility, access, and licensing made the structure easier to both use and manage.
Over-licensing can occur when a user has broader permissions than their tasks require. If a role provides access to more advanced functionality, it can affect which license the user needs—even if the feature is rarely used.
By mapping the actual content of the roles, the company could identify access that didn’t match users’ needs. Roles and permissions could then be adjusted more precisely.
The goal wasn’t to restrict users as much as possible. The goal was for each person to have the right access and the right license for their work—no more and no less.
This reduced the risk of unnecessarily high licensing costs while ensuring the business’s needs were met.
Broad and unclear roles don’t just increase license requirements. They can also mean users get access to features or information they don’t need.
When roles were tied more clearly to tasks and responsibilities, it became easier to control who could do what in the system. This gave the company a more controlled permission structure and better conditions for monitoring access.
The new structure also made administration easier when employees started, left, or changed responsibilities. Instead of building on individual exceptions, the company could rely on clearly defined roles.
The project also had a harmonizing effect. When process owners from different countries jointly reviewed roles, responsibilities, and tasks, differences between the operations became visible.
This created an opportunity to agree on a shared foundation for how processes should be carried out and how roles should be designed. Operations in different countries could then start steering their processes in the same direction.
A shared role structure gave the company better conditions for:
The company estimated that future cost reductions would be at least twice the investment in the project.
The financial impact came mainly from better control over which licenses users actually needed. At the same time, the project created long-term value through improved security, clearer administration, and a more manageable role structure.
The result shows that a review of roles and licenses isn’t just a technical effort. It’s a business initiative that can impact costs, processes, and security.
No. Even a smaller company or an organization with a more limited Dynamics 365 setup can gain valuable insights through a scoped analysis.
For example, you can start with one process, one department, or the roles suspected of driving the highest license requirements. This kind of mapping can quickly show where permissions are too broad and where there are risks or potential savings.
What matters is starting with the areas that can deliver the biggest impact and then implementing improvements step by step.
Do you want better control over which roles, permissions, and licenses your users actually need? With a structured review, you can identify unnecessary access, reduce the risk of over-licensing, and create a more secure Dynamics 365 environment.
In Implema’s license workshop, we map the current state and analyze what drives your license needs. You’ll get concrete recommendations and a prioritized next-step plan—tailored to your processes, users’ responsibilities, and your organization’s goals.
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