20260615 - Are We There Yet? The Journey from NAV to Business Central
Webinar on how a Navision partner business must change to become a Business Central partner: recurring monthly revenue, value-based pricing, product-based offerings, specialized teams and converting customers off timesheets. Based on one speaker's experience, including a customer conversion that took 5 years.
- Introduction and housekeeping
- Speaker introduction and methodology
- Extensions history from 1993
- Pricing model shift and partner ecosystem evolution
- From Navision to SaaS transition 2009-2014
- The 2018 dinosaur presentation and technology shift
- Days of Knowledge 2019 and presentation approach
- WinMine story and investment in tools versus delivery
- Code and tooling differences between Navision and BC
- Business model shift: from Navision to BC partner
- Becoming a BC partner: the right path
- Revenue model and partner transformation
- Cost management and service model shifts
- Customer onboarding, support costs and employee burnout
- Timesheet transition and dual business model challenges
- Cultural change and customer conversion strategy
- Customer adoption resistance and closing remarks
Overview
A speaker traces the path from Navision to Business Central, starting with extensions seen in 1993, the 1997 split between Solution Centers and Independent Software Houses, a SaaS version of Navision shown in Abu Dhabi in 2014, and 2018 as the point where the Navision model had to give way to the BC model.
The larger part covers the partner business model. It argues for ending hourly billing, moving from cost-plus to value-based pricing, selling products and vertical solutions, and using a recurring monthly fee per user. It also covers specialized teams, product managers instead of project managers, customer data ownership, burnout risks, and a phased conversion of existing customers away from timesheets.
Key points
- Extensions were first seen by the speaker in 1993; in 1997 the partner ecosystem split into Solution Centers selling product and Independent Software Houses building extensions for resale.
- Recurring revenue means the partner takes the risk upfront and is paid monthly while the customer is satisfied; a fixed price divided over months is not a true recurring model.
- Recurring revenue pays only after go-live, so faster projects raise partner revenue, the opposite of billable-hours projects in the Navision model.
- BC partners should price on value delivered to the customer rather than cost-plus, and sell products and vertical solutions instead of custom services, ignoring customers who want the spiciest or blandest variant.
- The speaker expects BC delivery to need 10-15 specialists even for a basic system. He estimates fewer than 5% of partners have fully moved from billing time to billing value, while the shift from project to product managers is about half and half.
- Customer self-service (data cleanup, onboarding) lowers paid support but can cause burnout in customer staff; customers should own data quality before import.
- Timesheet systems can only be removed once all customers are converted to monthly billing. The speaker’s conversion took 5 years, could take 1 year with current knowledge, and no customer refused.
Features
| Feature | Status | At |
|---|---|---|
| Extensions concept | status not stated | 4:12 |
| App Store model | status not stated | 5:47 |
| SaaS version of Navision | status not stated, demoed | 7:14 |
| Navision to BC transition model | status not stated | 8:05 |
| Value-based selling | status not stated | 5:21 |
| Recurring revenue model for BC partners | status not stated | 15:42 |
| Product-based BC partner model | status not stated | 16:55 |
| Value-based pricing instead of cost-plus | status not stated | 22:30 |
| Outcomes-based delivery over hours | status not stated | 23:08 |
| Faster project timelines benefit partner revenue | status not stated | 25:18 |
| Specialization required in BC partner teams | status not stated | 26:39 |
| Product manager cost tracking model | status not stated | 27:51 |
| Continuous version updates model | status not stated | 30:18 |
| Customer data ownership responsibility | status not stated | 31:45 |
| Self-service customer support model | status not stated | 31:14 |
| Recurring monthly billing model | status not stated | 39:00 |
| Timesheet elimination | status not stated | 42:14 |
| Customer conversion strategy | status not stated | 44:38 |
AL objects mentioned
As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.
Quotes
- 4:12 “the first time I saw a demonstration of extensions was in 1993”
- 5:21 “we have to break from hourly billing. We hourly billing is has no future, we have to start selling value.”
- 9:16 “2018 was when we had that line where the Navision model had to die and the BC model came across”
- 13:36 “By the time you’ve if you spend 3 months learning it, within the first week it will already be outdated and gone.”
- 13:36 “3 months learning Mythos to write new agentic agents. By the time you’ve if you spend 3 months learning it, within the first week”
Disclaimers in the video
- 18:38 subject-to-change: I didn’t edit this presentation for today, because I just wanted it in its raw form. But maybe this wouldn’t …
- 27:38 subject-to-change: I think this is, for me, the hardest thing to explain. I understand what I mean when I say this, …
Presenters (as heard): David Singleton, Henrik Helgason, Eric, Henrik, David.