Directions EMEA 2025 Preview: Expanding skills and professional networks in the new Consultant Zone

Directions EMEA 2025 (#EMEA2025) is just around the corner. The annual conference brings together Microsoft business apps professionals from Europe, the Middle East, and beyond with a focus on Dynamics 365 Business Central, Power Platform, and the latest SMB channel initiatives from Microsoft. 

This year, the event will be held between November 4-6 in Poznan, Poland and will be adding a new feature: spaces reserved for role-specific zones with additional presentations, networking opportunities, and other resources and activities. 

Much like the Developer Zone being organized by Freddy Kristiansen, the Consultant Zone at the event has been designed for consulting professionals who want to discuss and learn about project implementation, functional and technical consulting skills, and client engagement topics. Martin Karlowitsch, former CEO and co-owner of Netronic Software, which was acquired by Boyum IT Solutions in 2024, told MSDW that the growth he has witnessed in twelve years of attending Directions EMEA conferences has influenced the new plans. (MSDW is a media partner of Directions EMEA.)

“While being part of a massively growing ecosystem obviously is great for everyone, it makes networking somewhat harder,” Martin explained. “This might sound strange, but is an experience that I have witnessed myself. When a conference is small, it is more personal. And being more personal makes it much easier to connect with new folks and to have awesome spontaneous hallway discussions. In a 3,000+ conference, you tend to stay in your ‘tribe’ of colleagues and contacts.”

With the Consultant Zone, Directions EMEA organizers aim to create a space that brings back “a bit more personal” flavor that invites more spontaneous meetings and introductions, Martin explained. The Zone’s organizers will supply attendees with dedicated activities, including during the welcome reception, the lunch breaks, and the expo evenings. 

There will be four types of planned activities in the Zone. 

• Structured relationship-building based on complementary skills and experience levels. This includes planned activities such as meetings with Business Central consulting MVPs
• Problem-focused activities to transform individual frustrations into collective wisdom, with the goal of creating actionable solutions to implementation roadblocks.
• Collaborative sessions where consultants surface real challenges and develop practical solutions together.
• Finally, many companies—and their consultants--have developed their own version of a “consulting Swiss army knife” with tools, templates, and best practices. Sharing these “Swiss army knives” is encouraged to build a comprehensive toolkit by pooling the best resources, sparing consultants the need to reinvent existing solutions.

Beyond those plans, organizers believe that enabling informal and spontaneous networking is the most important goal. 

“We want to provide a relaxed space for consultants to build genuine connections through low-pressure interaction, conversations, and having fun together,” Martin said. 

And he added that the goal of the Consultant Zone is to complement the other elements of Directions EMEA that people have come to expect. 

For me, the most important part is to re-create room for making spontaneous and unexpected connections with peers that you did not yet before. My goal is that every consultant who enters the Consultant Zone will leave it with having made at least one new connection to someone he can call later for solving real problems. Hence, we will put a lot of creative thinking into the informal networking activities. If they fly, this goal will get achieved.

Martin hopes that the new attendee experiences will help alter the perception of the consultant’s role in the community. 

“If we achieve this, we can also build collective wisdom as a permanent resource – that will last post-Directions EMEA and will be a hook for further networking, even when folks are home from Poznan and in their day-to-day jobs again.”