SUYS Czechia: From NAV2017 to Business Central in a Single Weekend

Roller shutters, screen blinds, insect screens, garage and industrial doors – that is the portfolio of SUYS Czechia, the only company on the Czech market that specialises exclusively in rolling systems. It has been operating here for 30 years, building on its Belgian parent company founded in 1973 in Waregem, with more than fifty years of history behind it. Today its products are distributed through a network of trusted partners in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary. In short, an experienced manufacturer that knows what it is doing.

Even a well-established manufacturer is held back by an outdated ERP system. SUYS was running NAV2017 and needed to move to the modern, fully supported Dynamics 365 Business Central platform. The requirement was clear: the upgrade must not disrupt operations, which meant full connectivity to the e-shop, B2B portal, automated warehouses, CRM and SharePoint had to remain intact.

„Illustrative image – manufacturing of rolling systems."

We therefore opted for a phased transition. The first step was a technical upgrade to Business Central 14, which made it possible to develop and test customisations while still running on the original NAV2017. We then reimplemented the key parts of the system and, in close cooperation with the suppliers of the connected systems, continuously verified that everything worked as expected. Because data continuity was guaranteed, the move from NAV to Business Central could take place at virtually any time – so we were able to train users on live data and run several test migrations, which helped us fine-tune and schedule the go-live. The result? The upgrade and the data migration itself were completed over a single weekend. And the go-live was not the end: we fully supported the customer during the launch and continue to develop the system together.

What did it bring the company? Above all, continuity of a system it has been using for over 10 years, without unnecessary compromises in day-to-day operations. The solution was designed as cloud-ready from the start, and although it currently runs on-premise, a move to the cloud is possible at any time. Upgrades to new versions are now a matter of days, rather than the demanding projects they used to be with the original NAV. Most importantly, the company now has access to modern technologies – from API connectivity through Copilot to other Microsoft products that the old NAV was drifting further and further away from.

The SUYS Czechia story shows that modernising an ERP system does not have to mean starting from scratch. A well-prepared transition can preserve key processes and integrations while opening the door to further development and modern technologies for a manufacturing company.