Directions for Enterprise is arriving at a busy moment for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management Partners: the enterprise ERP channel is being asked to absorb product change, AI pressure and delivery-model questions faster than standard enablement can answer them.
The new Copenhagen event, scheduled for Sept. 23 to 25, 2026, is Directions for Partners’ first dedicated conference for the Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management Partner community. In a PartnerTalks interview with Rick McCutcheon, Directions for Partners leader Torben Kragelund said the idea came after larger Partners with both Business Central and F&O practices kept asking why the Directions model had not been extended to Finance and Supply Chain.
“Many of the bigger partners have been asking us over the years, why don’t we do something for the finance and supply chain people?” Kragelund said.
For years, the answer was focus. Directions had built its identity around Navision and Business Central, giving that Partner community a dedicated place to hear from Microsoft, meet ISVs, compare delivery approaches and build trust across firms that still compete for customers.
Now Directions for Enterprise is applying that model to the Finance and Supply Chain side of the Microsoft business applications ecosystem.
Directions for Enterprise brings F&O Partners into focus
The event is planned as a 2.5-day gathering in Copenhagen for the global Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management Partner community. Kragelund said the first edition will use a structure familiar to Business Central Partners, with keynotes, five parallel tracks and a strong Microsoft presence.
“We have a little over 50% of the sessions being done by the Microsoft Team,” Kragelund said.
He pointed to product, commercial and field teams as part of the expected Microsoft presence, including Finance and Supply Chain leaders and people connected to Fabric.
For Partners, access, context and direct conversation serve as major draws.
McCutcheon described the gap as “tribal knowledge.” Microsoft can communicate technology direction, but Partners still need to know how to build a business around it.
Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management Partners are watching AI, Copilot, agentic ERP, cloud operations, implementation methodology, and customer expectations move in parallel. Product updates alone do not answer questions about quoting, staffing, training, margins, alliances or delivery risk.
Kragelund said the need for in-person validation is increasing.
“I think what you are seeing now is that the need for meeting and sharing ideas and validating how you develop a partner business is increasing,” he said.
AI pressure is changing the Partner conversation
The AI discussion around enterprise ERP is no longer limited to demos or roadmap sessions. Partners are trying to understand how AI changes roles inside their firms, how consultants should be trained, how sales teams should position new services and how delivery models should adjust.
Kragelund tied that directly to the need for a focused Partner event.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a developer, consultant, sales and marketing person or a business leader, you still need to understand how you develop that partner business, how you develop your role with AI and with all the changes that are coming in,” he said.
The same pressure has shown up across recent PartnerTalks coverage of the Microsoft channel. In the AI Business Solutions Partner Show, Partners and Microsoft leaders have been examining Copilot, agents, AI readiness, sales strategy and delivery change. The enterprise ERP side faces many of those same questions, with larger clients, deeper process complexity and higher delivery stakes.
For F&O Partners, Directions for Enterprise provides a dedicated space for those questions.
Community becomes Partner infrastructure
Directions has long afforded Partners room to speak candidly with one another.
“I think this is the community we have created over the years,” Kragelund said. “One where people can share, can network.”
He described a former colleague’s view of the event dynamic: “when we go to Directions, we are the best of friends and we share and we learn. But when we come back Monday, we are out fighting on the street for every single customer again.”
Partner-led communities can create a temporary zone of trust where competitors share operating knowledge they would rarely publish in customer-facing material. The benefit is especially clear when firms are trying to interpret fast-moving platform change.
PartnerTalks has seen the same pattern at other channel events. Its PartnerTalks On-Location coverage from Directions EMEA captured Partners discussing the informal, peer-driven conversations that happen around the formal agenda. A recent PartnerTalks article on Microsoft Partner peer learning also explored why Partners need spaces where delivery, pricing, hiring and alliance lessons can be discussed without customers in the room.
Directions for Enterprise extends that logic to a part of the BizApps market that has not had the same focused Directions-style forum.
A focused event for a changing enterprise ERP channel
McCutcheon argued in the interview that conference size and focus matter. Larger Microsoft events can put product leaders on stage, while smaller, Partner-specific events make it easier for attendees to ask questions, meet Microsoft people and compare notes with firms facing similar business pressures.
Kragelund said Directions considered whether Business Central and Finance and Supply Chain Partners should be combined in one event. Feedback from BC Partners favoured a focused model.
“They were like, ‘Nah, we like it being focused, we like it being partner professionals on this specific area and then having those conversations,’” Kragelund said.
The event gives Finance and Supply Chain Partners their own setting, their own peer group and their own business-development conversation.
For a Microsoft BizApps audience, the launch suggests the enterprise ERP Partner ecosystem now needs a community structure built around the full Partner business: Microsoft access, peer trust, AI interpretation, delivery discipline and commercial confidence.
Business Central Partners have had that kind of community infrastructure for years. In September, Finance and Supply Chain Partners get their own version in Copenhagen.
