Alan Wyne does not spend much time chasing net-new Business Central deals. Instead, the Innovia CEO says the company’s Business Central growth strategy involves finding businesses already on NAV or Business Central whose relationship with their current Partner has thinned, stalled, or broken down.
Wyne says Innovia captures around 30 customers per year that way.
Innovia calls them “free agents,” though the channel refers to them as orphaned customers: companies that already bought the software, but no longer believe the firm attached to the account can take them much further.
“It’s, ‘I got on BC, but now [our past Partner] can’t help me with warehouse management or tying into an MES system,’” Wyne explained. “It’s, ‘I know the system’s good; I just don’t think we’re using it really well.’”
A Business Central growth strategy built on depth
“We really try to limit what we tell people we’re good at,” Wyne said. “If you want to be good at something, pick one.”
Innovia, it seems, has made its choice.
On its homepage, the company says it “only support[s] Business Central and Dynamics NAV,” while its support page says it has specialized in Business Central and NAV since 1999.
In a Busch Systems case study, Marty Pepper, Busch’s vice-president of operations, said, “I switched to Innovia as our partner of record primarily because of the depth and breadth of knowledge that each member of their team brought to the table. That’s what I was missing: getting the feedback I needed to move forward.”
That emphasis on post-go-live depth also echoes recent PartnerTalks reporting on managed services for Business Central Partners. In both cases, the opening appears after launch, when the customer still has the system but needs a different kind of Partner around it.
Business Central growth strategy, by the numbers
In Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2022, Innovia ranked No. 58 with $14 million in revenue. In Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2024, it ranked No. 47 with $24.5 million. That is roughly 75 per cent revenue growth over two years. Bob Scott says the ranking is based solely on annual revenue, though some figures are estimated when companies do not provide them.
Innovia shows us that a good Business Central growth strategy does not have to begin with brand-new buyers. It can begin with the installed base, especially when a Partner stays narrow, goes deep and becomes the firm customers call after the first relationship stops delivering.
