I spend a lot of time with our ERP partners, and one thing I’d say upfront is this: the best partners are never just implementers. They’ve always trusted advisers to their customers. They know the people, they understand the business, and they’re often the engine helping SMB leaders make sense of complexity when things get messy.

That’s not changing. But almost everything around this relationship is.

The profitability conversation is getting louder

Something I’ve noticed more and more in conversations with our partner community is a sharper focus on profitability. Not just revenue — profitability. And honestly, it makes complete sense. The days of treating every project as a bespoke build, starting from scratch each time, are becoming harder to justify commercially. Re-inventing the wheel is not profitable. Full stop.

What the most successful partners are doing instead is building repeatability into their model. That means developing industry-specific solutions they can take to market again and again, with a delivery framework that’s proven, not improvised. It’s the difference between winning one project and building a practice.

The partners pulling ahead tend to share a few things in common:

• They’ve built targeted solutions for specific verticals — whether that’s manufacturing, professional services, distribution, or NFP — and they go to market with those solutions, not a generic ERP pitch.
• Pre-certified, validated implementation solutions that reduce risk for the customer and delivery overhead for the partner. Less guesswork. More consistent outcomes.
• A pipeline approach that favours quality over volume. Focused go-to-market activity, targeted at the right prospects, with a compelling low-risk story.
• Long-term positioning — because customers buying ERP want to know the partner will be there in three years, not just at go-live. That stability is itself a selling point.

This is the partner model we want to actively support at Wiise. We’re not trying to work with every partner — we want to invest deeply in the right ones, those who are building genuine capability and showing up as long-term players in the Australian SMB market.

The environment around our partners is shifting

What does feel different now is the environment our partners are operating in. Customers are asking new questions. Not just about ERP, but about AI, productivity, workflow, and how to get more from the systems they already have. That creates a real opportunity for our partners, but it also raises the bar. It’s no longer enough to just deliver a solid project. Partners need to be able to guide customers through what matters, what doesn’t, and where new technology can genuinely make a difference.

I’m not an AI power user (yet!), and I’m not pretending to be one here. I’m more relationship than tech. But I am using AI to help me work more efficiently, save time, and sharpen how I think. What that’s shown me is that the real value is not in the tools. It’s in how people use the output in context. That’s why I think the next era of ERP will favour partners who combine strong customer relationships with practical new capability.

What Wiise is doing about it

These conclusions impact the role Wiise should play. If Microsoft wants partners who can create demand, deliver outcomes and help customers adopt more of the platform over time, then Wiise’s job is to help our partners do exactly that.

In the Business Central world specifically, Wiise provides targeted campaigns to prospects who want low-risk solutions delivered by approved partners who are around for the long term. That’s a deliberate strategy — connecting motivated buyers to proven partners with real skin in the game. It’s not about generating volume leads. It’s about creating the conditions for repeatable, profitable wins – and that only occurs when the system and partner delivers impact.

What makes the Wiise Partner Program compelling is that it goes beyond traditional partner management and focuses on helping partners build real capability. We’re not just asking partners to sell or deliver Wiise. We’re investing in the things that will help them win in this market:

None of that is about replacing what makes good partners good. It’s about helping them scale. In a market where customer expectations are rising quickly, we think that matters.

Seeing you at Microsoft Directions Asia — May 2026

One of the things I’m genuinely looking forward to this year is Microsoft Directions Asia in May. Wiise is attending and investing in the event, and that’s a deliberate choice. Directions is where the Business Central partner community comes together — the people building practices, shaping solutions, and thinking about where this market is heading.

For us, it’s not just about showing up. It’s about the conversations. About hearing directly from partners what they need, what’s working, and where the friction points are. A lot of what shapes the Wiise partner strategy comes from those kinds of exchanges — real, honest dialogue rather than slide decks.

If you’re attending Directions Asia this May, I’d genuinely love to connect. Whether you’re a current Wiise partner, a BC partner thinking about what’s next, or just curious about how we’re approaching the Australian SMB market — come find me. These are exactly the conversations I get the most out of.

The partners who will really pull away

For Australian SMB-focused partners, Wiise offers more than a product to implement. It offers a focused ecosystem designed to help partners stay sharp, stay relevant, and create more value over time. The value of platform over app and the impact on our partner strategy is something our CEO Charlie Wood writes about well — worth a read if you haven’t seen it.

When I think about why an ERP partner — BC or otherwise — should join the Wiise Partner Program, it comes back to something simple. We’re focused on the Australian SMB market. We’re built on Microsoft. And we want to help partners stay relevant in a world where customer expectations are changing fast.

The best partners will still win on trust, judgement, and relationships. But the partners who really pull away will be those who add sharper capability around AI and the advantages of platform data — and who have built the kind of repeatable, certified, profitable delivery model that makes every new customer easier than the last.

That’s the primary objective of the Wiise Partner Program. And it’s why we’re investing now.