Microsoft Partners: how to capture 40% more enterprise BC revenue through strategic partnerships

Why are market leaders choosing strategic partnerships over internal development to dominate the enterprise Business Central upgrade market?

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ecosystem is expanding at a record pace. With Microsoft Dynamics NAV support ending, extended support for the last version, NAV 2018, will conclude in 2028. Enterprises are finally moving off outdated deployments and accelerating their shift to the cloud. As announced at Directions North America, Business Central online has surpassed 45,000 customers–organizations looking for more than “just another update”.
They expect:

• seamless migration of thousands of custom objects,
• performance that scales with global operations,
• and predictable delivery in the face of growing complexity.

Yet, many partners are stuck. Internal teams are stretched thin. Specialist talent is scarce. The risk of failed or delayed upgrades is real.

Based on our extensive partner network discussions, the most common challenges reported include insufficient internal capacity for complex upgrades, specialized skills gaps in performance optimization and large-scale data migration, and increasing project complexity that outpaces team capabilities.

The Specialist Shortage Crisis

The Business Central partner community faces the same skills shortage crisis affecting the broader technology sector, where talent shortages have reached an 18-year high of 80%. For BC partners specifically, this manifests as:

• capacity constraints for complex upgrade projects,
• specialized skills gaps in performance optimization and large-scale data migration,
• increasing project complexity that outpaces internal team capabilities,
• extended project timelines due to resource availability challenges.

This creates a strategic inflection point: partners can either invest heavily in internal capability development or leverage specialist networks to capture market opportunities immediately.

A Real Story: From Losing Deals to Winning Markets

Take the example of a German ICT provider serving more than 2,500 customers in 19 countries. Eighteen months ago, they were losing enterprise tenders despite strong credentials.

Their issue wasn’t effort – it was depth. Their consultants excelled at standard Business Central projects, but struggled with:

• NAV to BC migrations with 3,000+ custom objects,
• Terabyte-scale database moves to the cloud,
• Performance optimization in high-transaction environments,
• Multi-tenant SaaS transformations with customization preservation.

Instead of over-hiring or avoiding enterprise altogether, they pivoted. The partner positioned itself as a strategic advisor – the face clients trusted while relying on a specialist network for the technical heavy lifting.

The result?

• 40% more enterprise project wins in the first year.
• Project values tripled as they could finally bid for the largest deals.
• Zero post-implementation issues across specialist-delivered projects.
• Geographic expansion without local hiring.

What once felt like a weakness became their new competitive edge.

Why Partnerships Work

Through dozens of conversations with partners, four clear advantages emerge:

1. Positioning Power – by focusing on advisory and orchestration, partners strengthen client trust while specialists handle technical risk.
2. Risk Mitigation – proven methodologies and frameworks reduce post-go-live issues by up to 79% compared to internally delivered upgrades.
3. Scalability – access to expertise across regions and technologies without linear hiring costs.
4. Financial Impact – higher win rates and margins, even with revenue sharing, thanks to enterprise-class opportunities.

The Xpand Perspective

At Xpand, we’ve seen this transformation firsthand with:

• 15+ years in the Microsoft ecosystem,
• 80+ talented professionals,
• 87% client renewal rate,
• and 50+ satisfied global customers,

We help Microsoft partners accelerate complex upgrades while keeping client ownership and brand visibility.

Our upgrade services have already delivered €50M+ in incremental partner revenue across Europe, all with a 99% satisfaction rate.

The Strategic Imperative

Microsoft’s release cadence, Copilot innovations, and SaaS transformations mean upgrade complexity will only rise. The winners will be those who act early: building trusted advisory roles for clients while leveraging specialist networks for execution.

The choice for partners is simple:

• invest internally and risk falling behind,
• avoid complexity and surrender market share,
• or embrace partnerships and lead the enterprise wave.