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At the recent DIRECTIONS4PARTNERS event for all Microsoft Dynamics 365 partners in Europe, Middle East and Africa region, Microsoft published data regarding the performance of her new cloud ERP solution for small and medium business, Dynamics 365 Business Central. And there was all reason for happy faces! The number of organisations using Business Central grow with 250 percent compared to the same moment last year. An impressive result that gives all parties involved confidence for a prosperous future. At last year’s DIRECTIONS event in Vienna, Microsoft reported over 4.000 customer organisations around the world who implemented Dynamics 365 Business Central. A great number considering that all the traditional Dynamics NAV partners had to prepare themselves to become ‘market ready’ for the cloud. Just think about training their staff and migrating their add-on solutions to the new and modernized development environment. This year, Microsoft general manager for D365 Business Central Mike Morton announced an accelerated growth to 10.000+ customers. So that is a growth of 6.000 new customers in total with an average of 500 new customers per month! All these organisations trust on Business Central SaaS to be their source for taking countless small day-to-day operational decisions as well as their important strategical decisions. Many of them also use the solution as the backbone of their digital transformation processes.                                         Microsoft did not only report a growth in the number of customers. The number of transacting Dynamics 365 BC partners also had a phenomenal growth. That number went up from 750 a year ago to 2.200 partner organisations today covering over 100 countries worldwide. This number is expected to keep growing since there are still many traditional Dynamics NAV partners on their way to this new product and the cloud. A tangible result of that is a growing number of certified D365 BC apps on AppSource – Microsoft’s global app store for Business Central. Today there are more than 1.000 of these apps certified, published and available for use.    Morton shared some more interesting insights with the partner community. While the focus of Dynamics 365 Business Central continues to be organisations with 10 to 250 employees, the largest BC customer today counts over 1.000 named users where the smallest customers have less than 5 named users. Most of the customers have between 20 and 40 named users.    Microsoft has a clear goal for the near future. The company is committed to make Business Central “the world’s best ERP solution for small and medium businesses”. One of the focus areas for the development department is to streamline the implementation – the ‘onboarding process’ in Microsoft terms. The goal is to make the onboarding process both easier, faster and cheaper. The improved onboarding process combined with the fast-growing number of reselling partners and the growing number of available apps holds great expectations for a further rapid growth in the near future.

For this 2019 report, we surveyed more than 500 buyers who purchase from manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors. We found that, although 75% of product purchases are already made online, buyers are still not buying as much online as they’d like. But is meeting this demand as simple as offering them the ability to buy online? Or do buyers expect more? In this report, we review the role of and demand for e-commerce in the B2B buying process. We look into professional buyers’ current and future needs. And we advise you on how best to meet them and how you too can benefit. Download the report to get insights on the following topics: B2B e-commerce today: The prominent role of online channels in the B2B buying process The unmet demand for (better) B2B online sales How to meet your buyers’ needs and move them online: What do buyers expect from B2B online buying channels? What can deter buyers from buying online? Meeting B2B buyers’ KPIs through e-commerce Choosing the right e-commerce platform for your customer and for your business Preparing your e-commerce platform for the future of B2B buying Use these insights to better understand your buyers, stay ahead of trends and gain a competitive edge.