Directions North America 2025: Business Central customer base hits new growth mark, AI features progress

MSDW Insight: An AI-focused Business Central vision should come as no surprise as Microsoft communicates intent to aggressively grow its SaaS ERP market share in the next year. News on new channel flexibility and marketing plans could buoy partner sentiment.

Microsoft announced that Dynamics 365 Business Central has hit a new milestone in its customer base, topping 45,000 customers. And the company made the case to partners at Directions North America 2025 today that AI-focused investments will propel the product’s growth as more agent and copilot experiences begin to near general availability.

BC customer base grows

Business Central now has more than 45,000 customers, announced Microsoft VP Mike Morton, a new high after the company revealed it had reached 40,000 BC customers in July 2024.

To accompany the growth, the company has also acquired and deployed the businesscentral.com domain, which CVP Bryan Goode said will help the company advance their marketing efforts around the product specifically.

“Business Central is white hot right now,” Goode told the partner audience, adding that in his role over marketing for Business Apps and agents at Microsoft, he is positioning applications like Business Central as “AI-first” and propelled by agents. He also noted that Microsoft now allows for CPOR, or Claimed Partner of Record, for Business Applications as part of CSP. He explained that Microsoft hopes this change will enable more partner-to-partner collaboration tied to Business Central. 

The reason [CPOR] is important is because it allows partners who didn't transact a deal to earn credit towards [their] solution partner designation, which is obviously important to partners, and it unlocks the ability for partners to work better together. That's one of the things I heard as I met with round tables and the partner advisory council, that there is an interest in doing more collaboration, especially with M365 partners, but this was a blocker.

And Goode identified some of the goals he is watching for the Business Central channel. The first is the on-premises to cloud ERP opportunity. “Obviously if a customer isn't yet on cloud, if they're on-prem, let's move them to cloud aggressively,” he said, noting the “huge base” of customers still on-premises. 

For the other two priorities, he said Microsoft is counting on partners: