Focus: Enter the Cloud

From Military Pay Clerk to Workday Financials Leader: Career Transitions and Remote Work Challenges with Kevin Isaac

• Lloyd Gordon

Share episode

Send us a text

Have you ever wondered what it takes to transition from a military pay clerk to a leader in the world of Workday Financials? Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Isaac, an industry veteran whose journey is as inspiring as it is insightful. Kevin takes us through his eclectic career path, from his early days at Lloyds of London and American Express to managing projects in the insurance and gaming sectors. He reflects candidly on the financial pros and cons of moving from permanent roles to contracting, and how those choices paved the way for his venture into business transformation and leadership. 

In a fascinating recount, Kevin gives us an insider’s view of the early days of Workday's financial management system (FINS) implementation during an IPO transition in 2006. He shares the strategic decision-making behind choosing Workday over Dynamics and the hurdles faced due to the system's novelty. With vivid descriptions, Kevin outlines the meticulous nine-month journey that led to a groundbreaking deployment, setting a benchmark for future projects. His experiences managing complex implementations for companies like Clarion, especially during the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, offer valuable lessons in adaptability and leadership.

As remote and hybrid work reshape our professional landscape, Kevin provides a nuanced look at how these shifts have impacted project dynamics and team cohesion. He delves into the nuances of maintaining productivity and morale in a remote setup, the importance of balancing work and self-care, and the crucial role of integrations in successful project rollouts. Highlighting both the challenges and opportunities presented by remote work, Kevin’s insights are a treasure trove for anyone navigating the evolving terrains of project management and business transformations. Don't miss this episode packed with lessons from a seasoned expert in Workday implementations.

Check out more of the Focus Cloud Group Podcasts and chats on your favourite media players!

Youtube, Spotify, Apple, Google!

Speaker 1:

Welcome everyone to this episode of Enter the Cloud. I'm very pleased to be joined this time by Kevin Isaac, a very, very experienced Workday project stroke program manager. You seem to have carved out a small niche, if you don't mind me saying, within Workday Financials, within Workday Financials.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, I think getting in very early. So I did the first Workday Financials in the UK at which point it wasn't really selling, so there weren't many financials clients out there and a follow-on from that. So doing two or three financials very quickly and then got my name into the financial space to be able to then get picked up, so known by that.

Speaker 1:

Also.

Speaker 2:

I managed to work for Workday for six months as well, so got known within the Workday company and therefore recommended on. I've now had the pleasure of doing two HR deployments as well, so I'm on my second one now.

Speaker 1:

So it's a good reach. It's really strange, because every time I think about you, I think about Workday Financials. I know we did. This is the second time you've joined us for a podcast, isn't it as well? We will come on to that a bit later, but so tell me about the early career of Kevin Isaac. Pre-work day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, pre-work day, pre-work day. I started out in the city of London. Actually, it's like coming back to London and finding out they've built more buildings. So I started out at Lloyds of London Pre-this oh, finding out.

Speaker 1:

They've built more buildings. So I started out at lloyds of london pre this, oh, pre lloyds of london. So you was, you was uh, you was, uh, I was in the army, I was in the army.

Speaker 2:

I joined the army at 16, right, okay, so straight from school and I spent. I left the army when I was 30. I've been gone to hong kong, germany, northern ireland and the southeast. What did you do in the army? So I was a. I was a pay clerk, actually, so I looked after the soldiers pay, but, as they used to say, soldier first, so you do all the soldiering bit and then you go and sit in an office and make sure the numbers add up.

Speaker 1:

Which is actually where the financial piece came into it. When you mentioned Army, I had a vision of you on the front line with a big gun Not quite the front line.

Speaker 2:

Close to the front line with a big gun. Not quite the front line close to the front line, but I did carry a gun occasionally. That was my time in Northern Ireland, so I got to carry a loaded weapon then.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to do that again too often, but no, so I did that. Then I came out, worked for Lloyds of London for a few years. I was a programmer then. So I programmed, went down to American Express and that's when I got into project management. So I project managed at Merkham Express, Electronic Arts in the games company and then insurance. Then I went into contracting and ended up at King.

Speaker 1:

So project management is a huge skill in itself, right, and I think people that end up in project management, they obviously have a path within their career that ends them up there. So you know, you go from. You go from being in the army right to being a programmer.

Speaker 2:

Where do they whether the train, where they go so I went through through the ranks of permanence up into team management and all that sort of thing. So I got to that area then and I didn't want to get into the director type level and then, having managed a team, you then manage a project. So it's a step over almost from managing a team and you're used to organizing things and organizing people's time and allocating tasks them as a team leader yeah becoming a project manager.

Speaker 1:

It's the same type of skill set this is within within an old program and technology, I'm assuming yes, in technology I started off in as a project manager.

Speaker 2:

In technology, yeah, and I think you, there's only a certain. Nowadays actually probably more projects encompass business transformation, whereas when I started it was just putting in a system. And putting in a system has a greater reach now, especially where they're cloud-based, when you're not really putting the system in. So then you move over and you tend to then lean into the business side and you manage the business to have a project delivered to them rather than managing the delivery of the actual technology, and it's sort of morphed into that area there and then into business transformation.

Speaker 1:

When did you realise that perhaps management or leadership might be the route that your career is going to take?

Speaker 2:

At what point did you think this is probably well so I think when actually got made redundant out of a small credit card company and at that point there I thought I probably done enough in the leading a team and leading people in that way. And then I've got opportunity Electronic Arts to then go into project management and I've done that. I've dabbled a little bit in project management on the way up as managing a team and I thought, no, I want to get back into managing projects and governance and that sort of thing. So that's where the step over and I think that sort of break is career break or change or forced into a change. Similarly, when I went into the contract market I made redundant from Electronic Arts.

Speaker 2:

I seem to have got this redundancy at Electronic Arts. I was perm and then I got made redundant and the payoff from that gave me the leg to go contracting because it's a jump financially to go from perm to then think going contracting. You've got to think, well, I won't get probably paid for another two or three months, it's going to take me a while to get a contract and then contracting you don't get paid for two months because you've got to work and invoice.

Speaker 2:

So you've got to think I've got to have a bridge of three to four months' worth of money to carry me over into contracting. I had that bridge, so I jumped into contracting.

Speaker 2:

Had you been thinking about it for a while before. Yeah, I had done really, mainly because you see all these contractors around thinking, well, I could do that and they're on more than me, quite significantly more. Yeah, and I think it's also you've got the. You haven't got a freedom as such, but you've got a freedom of expression. I think it's the freedom of expression and when you build up, you build up a knowledge base or a level of experience, your expression becomes more trusted, oddly, than a permanent member, I find. Anyway, certainly in project management, I think in contract project management comes in with experience of different companies and different cultures. And then you've got that freedom and you're horrible to say I think you're listened to more than PMs that have stayed in that company for a while. They're in a not a rut as such, that's the wrong word but they're in a mindset and you come in with a different mindset and you sort of just tip the balance of the discussion a bit and therefore, not necessarily trusted.

Speaker 1:

But listen to, it's interesting. I hear I hear conflicting stories on that, you know. I hear you know some contractors say that you know you're not, you're not treated like one of their staff and I know that's not the same with all companies. Some companies great the contractors, they welcome contractors in, contractors in, and you are treated like that. But I do hear conflicted stories with that. So it's interesting that you say that.

Speaker 2:

But I think I get the not treated and I don't want to be treated and I actually make sure I'm not. So everyone knows I'm not a member of that company, but as long as I'm treated nicely but not part of the company, member of that company, yeah, but as long as I'm treated nicely but not part of the company, I've never, I've never, been felt like an outcast or in a way that I've got a different hat on. I think that's where it can be and I do. I do recognize that. I have seen that in companies and I've seen that from a contractor more more actually in the technology space.

Speaker 2:

So where you've got, say, contract programmers or contract technology people, I tend to find they sometimes they're in a different room. And I have seen that where all the permanents are here and the contractors sit over there and I think, well, that's odd because you're doing the same thing, so why can't you sit together? So I've seen that probably not so much now, but I would say 15 years ago. The contractors then would be in a different area, as if they were going to somehow spread some sort of disease over the permanence and they'll be running out the door to get a contract. So that that, yes, I, I noticed that and I see that, but I think I've ever entrusted that differently, that I felt awkward, yeah yeah, yeah, that's something.

Speaker 1:

that's an interesting comment, because I certainly haven't heard of contractors being banished into different rooms, but I have heard various things. I think the contracting space has changed a lot now, hasn't it?

Speaker 2:

It's almost professionalised itself, really, over over the last sort of five, ten years, I would say I think I think it's more expected of a contractor now because of the, because of the difference in in the money.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so if you're bringing someone in on your standard x hundred pound a day, they're expected to earn that, expected to bring the value of what they are getting. Yeah, and I'm going to start more probably in my last three contracts, certainly on the one I'm at the moment. You know I'm the only contractor in at the moment. I've just brought somebody else in for a short period of time and they look at you and you could see that the CFO expects me to earn my corn. Yeah, and the person I brought in I had to write a value for money statement on that and the same at Opencast before that. You could tell that they didn't treat you differently in that respect but they treated you the same as any other consultant that had bought in from a big four or something like that yeah that you're expected to bring the value that you're there.

Speaker 2:

But that's part of treating you professionally as somebody who's got that value and the reason why you're out there on your own is because you see yourself in that sort of professional way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, so let's move on to work day. How did this all come about for you?

Speaker 2:

Luck, really, I would say so I was at King. They weren't necessarily thinking of changing their finance system. I was brought in because they were going through their IPO, so they were at King. They weren't necessarily thinking of changing their finance system. I was brought in because they were going through their IPO, so they were going public. They already had HCM in. They'd somehow managed to convince Workday that a company of less than 300 could have HCM, because at the time Workday weren't selling to that size company.

Speaker 1:

That's of course changed now.

Speaker 2:

That has changed now, so Workday are much more flexible with the potential customer base.

Speaker 2:

Which the last two clients are also of the size they would never have gone for before. So, going through the IPO, we had what do we have? It wasn't Sage. It might have been Sage, it was an old version of Sage, so that wouldn't have stood up going into an IPO and it certainly would have stood up coming out of an IPO and going public with the US on the US market. So we did an RFP, did the full RFP, got the big four you know, oracles and all of those into quotes for the finance system. And someone said, well, we really should get Workday in, because we've got Workday already. So we got Workday in and in the end it was between them and Dynamics and they won. Probably at the end it was because they were in and it was a sort of single system. So I managed that. This was when this was 2006. 2006.

Speaker 1:

So very, very, very early days, very early For Fins.

Speaker 2:

It was the first UK based FINS implementation. They were they had a US company putting FINS into the UK, yeah. And then I got in there and I thought, well, hey, I like the system. It was a very, very you know it's a very, very good system and the deployment and the way of doing the deployment was different to how I've done it before and I recognized that this was going to grow. I've got it now, so I've got that on my cv.

Speaker 1:

Not many other people had on the time so I just chased workday contracts where they were didn't took a while, so you was contracting at a time I was contracting at king yes, as a, as a pm, as a pm, as a, a PM and they decided to implement. I actually had King as a customer of ours and we've placed many people with them over the years and it's interesting that 2006 you're a contractor, you're in there doing what before this happens?

Speaker 2:

So I was brought in to work with the finance team on all the other projects they had whilst they concentrated on the IPO. So they were upgrading parts of their finance system. They were building a shared service centre down in Barcelona, so I was brought in to help build the shared service centre and just take care of all the noise, of all the little things that would go around whilst they're concentrated on my IPO. And then myself and the systems accountant sat down and thought we need to get off this old system that's sitting on a box underneath the CFO's desk. We need to get on something bigger. So the two of us went out and convinced everyone we need to get on something bigger.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's a turn, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

It was a turn, that was a turn, it was a turn, but it took a while I went to a law firm after King because there were no other workday. There were no other Finns workdays going out there, and then it took a while to get moving 2006.

Speaker 1:

Sorry to go back. I promise we're going to gonna move forward, but I'm interested in this. So so you go in, you go and choose workday and then you you implement workday as a pm at king. Yeah, but you're talking about 2006, 2007, now, even today. You know 2024. We are today. Even today, finns consultants in Workday are very, very difficult people to find. Yes, so what was it like back in 2006, 2007? I was recruiting for Oracle at the time, so I was recruiting for 11.5.10. And then later on, there was the R12 boom. Yes, and I know you've done some stuff around.

Speaker 2:

Oracle as well. I did on R12, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But I mean so. I hadn't even heard of Workday back when you first started your project. But what was it like? Because you obviously had to use a consulting partner to implement the product. You perhaps went out to market to try and find some FINS consultants, and I'm going to take a consulting partner to implement the product. You perhaps went out to market to try and find some Finns consultants, and I'm going to take a guess there was none.

Speaker 2:

There were none so Workday implemented it. They had one Finns person in the UK. Workday did so. We had him.

Speaker 2:

Two people came over from the US and we got someone from another SI that were doing HR and he came over because he had HR experience and had just certified on Workday. So we had a mismatch on the Workday side. I think we had five consultants working on their side. I knew a business analyst that I'd worked with at Electronic Arts. She was a very, very good business analyst. I've used her a number of times since she's in my team of must calls when I have a project to work on. So she came over and obviously never heard of Workday but knew finance, yeah. So she came over on the client side and did all the finance work. I also knew a very good data guy who knew finance, also from Electronic Arts, so I got him over to pick up and work on the data migration, the systems accountant at King. He knew finance and systems so he helped to lead it as well.

Speaker 1:

And that was it.

Speaker 2:

And we just built that team. We got another couple more in as we grew and needed to get closer to the implementation.

Speaker 1:

And that was it.

Speaker 2:

Small team five on our side, five on Workday's side. How long did it take? Nine months, Nine months.

Speaker 1:

Nine months. And was it plain sailing? No, are they today Plain sailing, sometimes plain sailing today.

Speaker 2:

Well, they're plain sailing for now because Workday they've got the methodology that they use the launch, so that comes in and that is a well-worn path. We didn't have a well-worn path. They didn't have the configuration workbooks in the way they've got them now. So it was a little bit of a. We trod the path out using a standard methodology in that respect and actually get caught out on the same things as you do now data and and integrations. We integrated out to an expenses system and that was a problematical thing. And data getting all the data out to the finance system we had, getting it in the right format, cleaning it, all that. So you get caught on the same things that you would normally get caught on.

Speaker 2:

Luckily, king didn't have any niche bespoke finance processes. The CFO said to the finance team we don't make our money about how clever we are doing finance. We make our money out of our games, so just take what work they've got. So we did. It was quite raw at the time. It didn't have a VAT system for the UK, so they wrote it for King. Luckily, king didn't have any weird VAT components but that was written not completely, but it was written for us to do VAT in the UK and then they built on it. So that was interesting because they were developing it for UK market as we went. So those sorts of things were bumps on the road but it was all good fun. Bumps really, because when you're in at the beginning you sort of fly a little bit by the seat of your pants. But it was good fun, it was an enjoyable one, I think with Workday.

Speaker 1:

Now, as soon as you get that Workday experience, things for you definitely as a contractor change. You start getting a lot more calls, but of course we're talking very, very early days here, right? So once you've got that experience in Workday Fins and you probably the first person really in the UK to project manager a Fins implementation. Of course, it was the first one right, so so did you. Did you see a change in the attractiveness of your profile immediately?

Speaker 2:

from a workday perspective, that took a couple of years because at that point I suppose I was bracketed in the Finns market. So that's a Finns PM, you can't do an HCM. So actually I didn't even go for an HCM. So if there's an HCM roll out there, I had no background in HR so I couldn't go and say, well, I know HR and I didn't know Workday, so I was trying to sell myself as a Workday Finn's PM, of which there were no other Finn's implementations at the time. Yeah, so I had a gap where nothing happened to say.

Speaker 2:

I went to work for a law firm implementing a new legal system, so I sold my CV, hoped to never do it again. Oddly enough, nuffield were doing their RFP at the time, because I know someone who worked on the King at Workday went to sort of bid in on that one there. So I sent my CV off to Nuffield to try to get on their RFP, under no guarantee they were going to do workday. And then three years later I'm implementing workday fins at Nuffield, having not got onto their RFP. So I ended up going to work day. So I ended up went to work for work day.

Speaker 1:

That was after King, that was after King. So after the law firm, after the law firm, you went to work for a day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so then, I was there, got certified engagement manager. I was working at work day on site at a Clarence events and there the client side was being managed by PwC.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And their PM left PwC. And the PwC director said Kevin, do you fancy coming over the fence and manage our project instead of working for Workday? So I did, Got back into the contract market and that was my second Fins and then it rolled on from there. But then the Fins market had picked up.

Speaker 1:

So we are when wise here that would be 2010 yeah, because clarion events. Clarion events was one of our very early customers on the Finn side and that was post 2015, so you must have been yes yeah, I got the King one wrong.

Speaker 2:

That was what did I say? King was 2014. Yeah, not what I said, so it was 2014. Okay, so this would have been late 2015.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yes, so King implemented Workday Financials in 2014. Yes, and then you went to Workday and then switched across to Clarion Events yes, which was our second FINS implementation. Okay, which is when it really started to hot up pretty much in the FINS space.

Speaker 2:

In the FINS space it started to move.

Speaker 1:

then yeah, so how did that one go and what lessons did you learn from your time at King and also your brief time at Workday?

Speaker 2:

I think at the brief time at Workday I learned what it was like on the Workday side, what it was like on the SI side and what the SI needed from the client, which we didn't really get at King because the SI it wasn't a function SI, it wasn't the way the SI turns up now with all of the roles in place and a well-oiled machine, so never really got it at King. We sort of bounced off each other and did a bit of everything and it wasn't such a clearly defined set of roles, whereas working at Workday you learn those roles and you learn what they're after and the reason why they ask the questions. And then, coming back onto the client side, you then understand what pressures and what constraints they are on the SI side to therefore understand what the client needs to bring to the table and how they interact. So that was a good learning.

Speaker 2:

And then Clarion I hate to say a company name and say they were a bit of a mess, but they'd stopped and started the project twice and the SI had sat there and wait for them to start the project the second time. So the SI thought they were at this part of the project, but Clarion were a long way away from there because they'd stopped the project Right. They'd had the lead of the accounts payable department had gone off and had a baby and come back again, at which time she changed all the requirements. So it was a bit of a mess really getting it to where it needed to get to and over the line and deployed yeah, getting it to where it needed to get to and over the line and deployed. And actually that's why they'd brought PwC in to put them back into shape again and get the project back on track and running and delivering.

Speaker 2:

And we delivered in the end, but it was a struggle.

Speaker 1:

So second FINS project, how long did that one take? I was there a year, and that one was a lot more complex, I'm guessing because the product had moved on a few times since the product had moved on.

Speaker 2:

They had HR again in place, which is advantageous at that stage having HR in, because you've sort of got backing in the company for workday. You don't have to convince finance that it works because they're still early days and finance couldn't understand why they'd bought workday. So that was an advantage again. But that was a struggle. But the marketplace was picking up. There's more knowing. You had more SIs. You had more people to turn to if things were needed to.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so a year with Clarion. So now you're almost turning into where you are today, of course, as somewhat the go-to Fins PM in the marketplace. You've got two projects now, right. So what happens then from a contractor's point of view, after the Clarion project, does your attractiveness in your profile start increasing and do you notice that?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, people start to ring you up or I've got this project. It took a while. There was a gap between Clarion People like me, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, people like you. I mean, there was a gap.

Speaker 2:

There's still not a lot of work day out there. I took another contract in in another area for a few months out after clarion because there wasn't anything out there but when it. But when they picked up and the next project dropped, then the call started arriving because that's, oh, I've got a financials who's done that, kevin isaac. So that started pick up there and actually I had I had two companies at the same time. I had a choice. Never had a choice before. So I had two offers at the same time, then both on workday to choose from, and that was the first time. So then the financials market had taken off in the fact there was two out there and I've chosen our field.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which was a good implementation. Which was a good implementation. It was very good there. They actually, when I arrived, they were just implemented HCM. They started off as a if they were called platform at the time, I don't know. They started off doing HCM and financials and they turned financials off Because they didn't have the organisational strength, I suppose, to do both at the same time.

Speaker 1:

So they did.

Speaker 2:

HR. And then we did financials, all wrapped up with a business transformation, setting up a shared service centre, bringing all the finance teams into the centre alongside Covid, with two breaks of the programme two, six month and five month breaks of the programme. Two six-month and five-month breaks of the programme Changed our SIs halfway through. It was good.

Speaker 1:

So you started that one before COVID yes started before. Covid and then talk to me about what happened when we were all told by Boris and I think we have gone through this before in a previous podcast, right, but for anyone who hasn't listened to that previous podcast, so for the benefit of those people that's not listened to that could you tell me what happened in the project the day that Boris said you've got to let everyone work from home, because I'm assuming at the time you're on site, right?

Speaker 2:

yeah, we're on site for four days a week, or five days, we depending. A lot of people would have worked from home on Friday, so the ability to work from home was there, but permanent people didn't generally work from home contractors did.

Speaker 2:

So it wasn't a concept that everyone worked on. I knew probably two weeks, three weeks, before the rest of the programme knew that we were all going to get sent home. Nuffield were already working on how do they operate from home. And then we all sat down on a Thursday and CFO told the finance teams and everyone related to finance that from Monday, the X of March, we're all working from home.

Speaker 1:

And what happened? What happened to your project team, including any externals that you had in your team at the time and, obviously, the internal client team and the SI externals that you?

Speaker 2:

had in your team at the time and obviously the, the internal client team and the si. So the si, who we were, we were enlightened at the time. Well, they were remote anyway, so there was no real change working with the si. So they were remote, we were used to them working remote and workshops or whatever. They came in occasionally so that part didn't change initially. Um, from a program team perspective, I think you sort of the biggest impact was you tend to then work in smaller teams. I've said it a number of times to people that I lost. I lost the walk by conversations with my program team. I used to be in the office just after seven o'clock half seven, yeah and there's about half a dozen of us who are in the office at half seven. I had no reason to talk to these people on the programme because they weren't project managers, they weren't people I would normally interact with. But I found out loads of stuff because I just asked them and they'd ask me so between us.

Speaker 2:

We had this little group of people and I knew what was going on and that, far away from the people I'd need to know, and it gave me information. And it wasn't a secret, they weren't telling tales or anything like that, but it just gave me information. Now I'm working from home. I only talk to the people I need to talk to regularly. So that drive-by that coffee machine chat stopped. You pick up your meetings, all that structure goes on. So things tick along as a project, but I think you suffer from those interactions by not happening and then we close the project down.

Speaker 1:

Did it? Did it affect you as a person, as a person um yeah, it probably did, because I've always, I've always known you.

Speaker 1:

as you know, we've well, we've known each other for the best part of eight years now. Yeah, probably, and I always associate you with someone that you know. I enjoy speaking to everyone, but I genuinely enjoy speaking to you, you know, on the phone, right? So, and you're quite an upbeat guy and whatever, and there was a few, obviously a few changes during COVID and it did affect people, right. So how did it affect you?

Speaker 2:

I think you probably do go inward a little bit. I mean, I've been in an office since March 2020, the last time I worked in an office apart from mine so I live and work at home, so that getting out and meeting people's side has disappeared and I tend to build very small social networks of people I've worked with because I've never lived in the same place for long enough to build them outside of work. So I've got a small little social place for long enough to build them outside of work. So I've got a small little social group of people I know from electronic arts that have moved to King because I moved them to King. So I've got that group and I've got a little Nuffield group. But now I don't have a little group from the companies I've worked with subsequent to them, because I've never done You've never been able to make those relationships, never made those social in-the-office relationships, going out for a beer after work or something like that.

Speaker 2:

So, apart from knowing their working life, I haven't got that depth of anything beyond working with them. So luckily, the people I worked with at King Electronic Arts and Nuffie are still like me, so I still go out for a beer with them. But I probably would have had another couple of little groups in other areas if I'd have been back in the office and working in the office. So I think that's the bit that you miss. Conversely, since nuffield I've worked in oxford and newcastle twice and I probably wouldn't have worked in newcastle without covid, because I would never have gone to newcastle to work there. I'd have worked in London and the southeast. I've not been in London. I've worked in London since Covid. Yeah, because the reach is greater and people reach out more. So there's benefit there that you have no, no constraints of travel anymore. Yeah, I work in Newcastle and people who live in Newcastle only go into the office one day a week.

Speaker 1:

So the remoteness of working, even when you're close to the office, is here to stay probably Did you find during this obviously change of working, did you find it more difficult to be an effective project manager and do you find You've obviously nailed it now right, but in that initial change did you feel that, did you worry that you wasn't an effective project manager with the change?

Speaker 2:

I think when we came back because we locked, so we locked the project down to six months initially at Nuffield and when we got back together remotely, I thought the pace of the project would just trigger straight away and we'd go. And I said to the CFO it'll take us a couple of weeks, we'll be up and running. Here's our new dates. Off we go. It took us nearly two months to get going again Because we weren't all in the office and because we weren't all in amongst each other and hitting problems and solving them within minutes. It took us that long to get going again and you generate, therefore, you generate a new pace in the project because the conversation doesn't happen straight away.

Speaker 2:

I was in newcastle yesterday and something happened and the person who who I needed to talk to was around the corner so I could go past there and have a five minute conversation and it was closed within an hour. Yeah, that wouldn't happen unless I was in the office. Those sorts of can I have two minutes? Because if you say to someone on teams, can I have two minutes, well, two minutes on teams isn't two minutes. It's suddenly yes, I'm free, and I'm free tomorrow morning. I said well, I only want to ask you one question. Let's go for coffee, those sorts of very quick interactions.

Speaker 2:

That's how it's changed and that makes it more difficult. You've got to be, you've got to be more organized. Which is a PM? You think that would be second nature, but you've got to be more organised. You've got to prepare for something that has to happen. If you want to have a conversation with someone and you're all remote, you've got to be prepared for that conversation, to get that time slot in their diary, whereas before you wouldn't need to. You just go and say hello to them and have that conversation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I find I find it quite difficult with them with our hybrid working. So we work in the office twice a week for London. For London it's Tuesdays and Thursdays. And it's quite frustrating because if you're on a Monday or you're on a Wednesday or a Friday and you want to talk to someone in London, you can't just walk over to their desk. And I've got to admit that I do miss that. I do miss that, you know, being around people every single day of the week. It's funny, isn't it? Because we miss it. But if anyone said, would you go back to how it was, you'd go. No, I wouldn't go back.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. No, actually no, if someone can get me a contract where I'm two or three days a week in london, I'd take it tomorrow, would you? I would do that I've got. I have the advantage I'm half an hour out of london on the fast train, so you know, if it's if it, that's not a problem because the travel time is is okay. Um, but I would. For the human interaction and I think sometimes issues become more complex because you don't have that first simple conversation, 100%. So getting something solved, if you solve something over email, it just goes wrong because email's not a conversation. Teams is slightly better, but it's still not face-to-face, whereas you can close something down very quickly by saying, okay, let's all get in that room you can see body language, you can see facial expressions.

Speaker 1:

You can see everything.

Speaker 2:

I totally agree and, as I say, you generally only interact with people because you've had, because you've got a problem or you want them to do something. You don't have that walk by interaction and discuss what was on Netflix last night or something like that.

Speaker 1:

Do you watch Netflix? Not really. No, Well, I don't know actually, Because I watch a programme and I don't know what it's on, necessarily.

Speaker 2:

So you know, I watch loads of things and it could be Prime, it could be Netflix, it could be Disney, it could be Sky, I don't know. It could be Disney, it could be Sky, I don't know. I get a recommendation on email. Sarah and I discuss whether it's something we both want to watch and we do, and then three weeks later I realise it's on Netflix. But I wouldn't have known. I don't go to Netflix to find things really.

Speaker 1:

You must have a Netflix subscription. We're supposed to be talking about workday projects Netflix Prime. Disney.

Speaker 2:

Paramount, all the ones you realise, actually I.

Speaker 1:

Prime, disney, paramount, all the ones. You realise, actually I really don't need this, but I'm paying for it every month. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, I have those. You kind of get to the bank statement. I don't know whether you're the sort of person and we will come on to the organisation part but certainly for me, I'm not a project manager, right, and I don't ever want to be a project manager. No, offence, no. But I'm the sort of person that I'll notice something and go, I didn't know I was paying for that. Let's see how long I've been paying for that. And then you go right down for two years and you realise you've been playing for Disney+. We never use it. Do you know what I mean? But you're right, sometimes you're sitting there and you're watching something on Disney Plus, so you wouldn't necessarily go to Disney Plus to thing, but you come into the living room and the kids are watching something, so you sit there and watch it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so how do you deal with your life must be very crazy. I know projects can be really crazy. How do you tend to organise yourself and your mind to be a great project manager, which you are? I get on a daily basis.

Speaker 2:

I'm in early, in early. I've only got to walk from the kitchen to the office. So I like to get on line before everyone else and then I can organize myself for that day. I can go through my actions from the previous day you make sure I know what I'm doing and get organized in that way. I organize my projects by planning. So I I have a plan and I move by the plan. I make sure everyone has it all my.

Speaker 2:

PMs are working with me and I have a plan and we walk by the plan. Therefore, we know what's happening this week. We can tell people what's happening next week, the week after and when things are happening. I have a risks and issues all of the things that project managers have and I go through them regularly weekly with the PMs, so everything is up to date. Everything's online. I don't know if my military background helps me on this. I was going to say that. I wasn't going to say that but it's the small parts that make sure the bigger parts are there all the time. If you make sure you're updating the risks and issues that need to be updated this week every week and you turn them over, they don't get any bigger. If you make sure your plan is turned over every week, you don't become unplanned and it doesn't take long. It just becomes a continuous thing you do.

Speaker 2:

You're never playing catch up long and it just becomes a continuous thing you do. You're never playing catch-up and, as I say that, that first half hour in the day enables me to get my mind and train. Who am I talking to? What am I doing? Have I closed off yesterday? And then I go for the day at the end of the day. I do half an hour at the end of the day as well. I rinse and repeat, but it's but it's pretty.

Speaker 1:

it's pretty full on, right. So you know, you've got several different project managers in your program. So how do you tune your mind to make sure that you are giving your PMs the best of you? Because, yeah, okay, you get up early in the morning, great Okay. But there's something else.

Speaker 2:

I think I'm always there. So the PMs are the ones that I treat the best. They'll say I don't if anyone's listening, but they're the most important people. So if they come to me with a problem and say, kevin, have you got five minutes, then I'll make that five minutes straight away. Can we have half an hour? Yes, yes, we can have half an hour. So that's the person who I'm going to create a space in the day for. If they've got something because I think they're only coming to me because it's important, right, and therefore they don't either don't want to make a decision on their own or they don't know what that decision. You know what I mean They've got a problem that needs to be solved straight away, because otherwise they wouldn't come to me and therefore it needs to be solved. And if I give them the time, then they'll keep bringing the problems to me.

Speaker 1:

Would you say that's how to build a high-performance and sustainable team? That's quite important for you. It is important.

Speaker 2:

Because if a PM comes to me and I say go away in the nicest possible terms, or yeah, okay, I'm free tomorrow or free Tuesday or whatever, they'll go and solve it and then they'll stop bringing problems to me because I'm not making time for them. But if I make time for the PMs, then they can take away, we've solved the problem, they can go away. If they keep bringing me the same problem sooner or later I'll say go away and do it yourself, but I think you've got to for me. I've got to look after the PMs on the project, then everything else gets looked after. From my perspective, how do you look after yourself I don't know if I do.

Speaker 2:

Actually, I must admit, I'm not very good at looking after myself. I mean, at the end of the day, I'll take the dogs for a walk or something like that, or I'll go and watch West Ham, like I am this evening.

Speaker 1:

I'm not a Hammers fan. I am a Hammers fan, probably not the best way of looking after yourself.

Speaker 2:

But I do now, and actually probably maybe Covid has helped this bit I now know how to switch off in the evening. So I close the book, I close the laptop and that's it. I'm done. Um, I think before I probably didn't. I, oddly, I bring it home on the train and I'll still get home and still turning it over, but now I can close the book, close the the laptop go away, yeah, so I'm quite interested in that part.

Speaker 1:

Right? So, pre-covid, you'd bring your work home, as we all do, right? So how did that affect you, how did that affect your relationships, whether that's your home relationships or whatever and did it have an effect?

Speaker 2:

I suppose the effect when you're always on, because that time I was always on, I'd have it on my phone, I'd have work emails on my phone and I'd bring home the laptop and it would be. I knew where it was, so something buzzed on here. I'd go and fix it on the laptop. Yeah, therefore I wasn't relaxing and therefore I wasn't spending time with the important people sitting down watching TV, whatever PMs not those no.

Speaker 2:

And then, oddly, you could say, having the laptop at home and working at home, it seemed easier to make a separation because I could close that door, close the laptop, stop having things on my phone, so, at six o'clock or whenever, when I finished that all stayed in that room, not having work emails on the phone, so it never buzzed, so that never went back over there to the laptop, and that made the difference. Oddly, because, covid, you think having it at home it would be easier to go there and do something, but I forcibly, I suppose, changed so that it didn't because I wasn't bringing it home anymore. It's odd, isn't it? It's an odd saying, it is.

Speaker 1:

It seems to have worked out. I find it quite fascinating this area because I know, as I've already said, I'm not a pm, right, and I have no intention of ever going down that route in my career. But um, I guess. I guess running a company has a lot of plates spinning, spinning at the same time so in a way you are project managing, because you're project management, managing your company, right?

Speaker 1:

I'll tell you, um, I'll tell you a story. Remember when we first, when we first met each other probably 2015, 2016 and early early on focus cloud was like crazy, crazy hours. The way of our explain this to you? I don't think I have, but it was crazy, crazy hours for me. I was doing 16 to 20 hours a day and in the first two years it was seven days a week. Wow, it was crazy. And that continued for a while. Actually, that continued for probably four years, until pre-COVID, when I knew that things had to change for myself, because, you're right, it's almost like a trigger that happens, something happens and then you change Without that thing happening. Then you don't change. I was.

Speaker 1:

We had a very large project, put a lot of people onto this project and it meant that I had to work crazy hours, um, in that particular part of my career, and I remember I I dropped my car off somewhere, um, and this was probably on the back of maybe four or five days where it was, let's say, 18 to 20 hours a day. So I'm tired and I'm walking down the street, going to a cafe and feeling, you know when you're feeling really rough within yourself because you haven't slept properly. You've got so much on in your emails and the worst thing is, when the emails, you don't stop looking at the emails. Yeah, it's crazy, you're going, I can't do this, no more. But then the email comes and then you look, of course you don't.

Speaker 1:

So I'm walking down the street and my head is literally going and it felt like there was a thunderstorm in my head. That was when I thought something's got to change, and it was only that. That made me kind of tweak what I do on a day to day basis. So has anything like that ever happened to you?

Speaker 2:

I did have an epileptic fit at work, did you? Yes, um, and they said that was probably stress related. So I manage it. Now sarah manages it for me and tells me to go and sit down. Yeah, so I think that was part of it. Um, I think your email thing, I think you're uh, I think I became my own worst enemy because I would work a few extra hours. Of course, if I'm generating emails, all I'm doing is giving everyone else more work. They respond, so you get into a cycle of self-generating work, and I was probably everyone's own worst enemy. On a Sunday, I'd sit down and clear my inbox.

Speaker 2:

Well, all I'm doing is filling everyone else's inbox up on a Monday morning yeah so you get into a cycle of everyone chasing each other to be the best at answering emails or whatever. And now the last two companies I've worked for, their company policy is no one works a weekend, no emails a weekend. So we all finish at Friday and come back in on a Monday in the same place. We were on a Friday and no one's been hammering the keyboard at the weekend. So I think that's a differential of the type of company you work for, because if you work for a company that is massively active and massively at a stress level, everyone is chasing each other down.

Speaker 2:

The I can do more work than you in essence, and I got into that not necessarily trying to be the best, but wanting to always clear my diary. It's always like if I clear all my emails, I can relax. All I'm doing is churning everyone else to do their emails, to get back to me, to get my email. So you're on a cycle of never getting to the end of your inbox do you think?

Speaker 1:

do you think when you? Do you think when you work to that level, do you think that you get more done with that? Or do you think that it's much better from a productivity point of view to to work like you maybe currently are?

Speaker 2:

There's a balance you get. I think the more you do, the less productive you become, because you can't concentrate necessarily on any individual thing and your mind just wants you to clear. Therefore, you don't become productive. Years ago I was working at Lloyds London and we had these. We needed to get a lot worked on.

Speaker 2:

And these two programmers said, well, why don't we work 12-hour days or 10-hour days? For three months and they were hyper-productive for the first two weeks and then they just became less productive because they just spread the work out over 12 hours, because they just couldn't keep up the pace. They just spread the work out over 12 hours because they just couldn't keep at the pace, but they still did the 12 hours, but they just managed to spread eight hours work over 12 hours because they couldn't keep being 12 hours worth of productivity. And I think it's the same in any role that you think to begin with you're very productive, but then you chase the wrong thing and you become less productive. But now I'm probably more productive now than I was at the height of churning stuff out and working excessive hours. Whatever, there's a balance, I think, and it's in between probably now and at the height of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, interesting very interesting yeah, I didn't. I didn't learn my lesson for years and you were probably not very productive when you were doing 18 to 20 hours a day. You can't be at that sort of pace.

Speaker 1:

I knew that I had to. Throughout that period. I knew that I had to look after myself. It's like you're working 18 to 20 hours a day and I'm saying I needed to look after myself. You're working 80 to 20 hours a day and I'm saying I needed to look after myself. So I knew that if I ate properly, if I ate regularly throughout the day and I achieved a certain level of sleep, which of course, is very difficult when you've only got six to four yeah sorry, four to six hours available for you, that would. The truth is, that would last for about three weeks.

Speaker 1:

I was fine for three weeks and then, after the three week period of absolutely running like mad, I would have a crash and and I wouldn't necessarily tell anyone about this crash, because you don crash, because you almost don't want people to see that the leader, the manager, the whatever has had this crash. So I wouldn't tell anyone that I'd had it, but behind closed doors. What I would do is I would just sleep for as much as I possibly could for a period of two days. So I lost two days. Now you asked whether was I productive in that time? I would say yes, because in that three weeks. There's so much work done over those, over those extra that, actually those extra hours that I've worked, and the weekends and all that sort of stuff that that I can afford those two days. Do you see what I mean? But what I've found is over a long period of time and I'm talking over years. It does 100% affect you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah of course 100%.

Speaker 1:

I'm not the same person. I don't know whether it's the company that's maybe not the same person. I think I'm better than I was because I'm aware of these things. And once you become aware of these things, then you do tweak certain things and make that time. Do you? Know, Kevin, no one's ever asked me. No one's ever asked me that question, so I want to give you the right answer. Would I do it again?

Speaker 2:

Now not. Would you repeat what you did?

Speaker 1:

would, I would, I would. I would I do that again now? No, yeah, because I know what the result is. Would I do it again now if I didn't know what the result is? Yes, yes, because I know what you can achieve, of course, but it's just a sacrifice of your own personal nature, your time with the people that matter and all that sort of thing. It does harm you.

Speaker 2:

But now you know, if you wanted to achieve the same again now, you'd know how to do it differently. Absolutely, yeah, I know how.

Speaker 1:

I know how to do that and when when to take a break, which is you know, which I think is very important. Yeah, so okay so your you are on your X amount of what are they Fins projects now Seventh Fins and second HR Seventh Fins.

Speaker 2:

I think it's seven, six or seven.

Speaker 1:

How do you find the product has changed?

Speaker 2:

Oh, significantly. I suppose the very core hasn't changed at all. So the very core of finance is paying invoices, receiving money, banking and the core accounting. But around the edges it's changed significantly the procurement side projects. So at Opencast we connected Salesforce to time tracking, to projects, to customer invoicing. So you bring on a contract and contract goes in and raises a project. People book time into it, not into the project but into the timesheet part of Workday which is always there, pushes the time to the project and then you do an invoice off the project. That wasn't possible eight years ago yeah now we could do it.

Speaker 2:

We could do it with very, very small integration in the middle, so that grows what can be offered to companies far greater, because they would have had to have connected all those pieces together themselves. So that's brilliant. At Newcastle we're bringing in a supplier management process. They bought Scout a couple of years ago. That's rolling into Workday. So now when you run an RFP to choose a supplier, you do that all in Scout. When you've chosen your supplier, it sends the supplier to Workday. You contract management decisions in Scout Workday. I hate me calling it Scout because it's called Workday Supp, strategic sourcing, but that sort of puts that front-end bolt goes into workday so you're all in there. So from a full core financial application it's grown significantly.

Speaker 2:

If they just add inventory management it would serve a lot more because the inventory management portion is is missing. So that bit there is still missing, um and the customer management of the c to the customer side, not a business as a customer but a person as a customer. So like at nuffield, all of the customer side of nuffield you couldn't put in workday the newcastle, all of the customer side of Nuffield you couldn't put in Workday the Newcastle. All of the customers who've got their mortgages can't go into Workday. It's more a business-to-business type relationship. So there's that bit missing. But otherwise finance has grown those pieces on either side.

Speaker 2:

I don't have a lot of experience of knowing what HR was all that time but it appears you can put everything in Workday from an HR perspective. They're bringing more pieces in. All got those pieces in and as a single product. Having deployed one full platform and now on the second full platform, you can see more the benefits of doing it all at the same time because you make more joint up decisions when it's all done at the same time. Finance following HR. There's compromises being made in the HR implementation that finance has to unwind and then make changes, which affects HR because they've got to change. But doing it all in one go is by far the best way of doing it. It's big but it's worth doing it in one go because you make those right decisions at the right time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what advice would you give to customers looking to hire at your level?

Speaker 2:

Do it number one.

Speaker 1:

Hire Kevin, hi Kevin.

Speaker 2:

Do it as early as possible. You're probably not going to necessarily do it whilst you're going through the selection process to decide whether to buy Workday or buy another, but once you've decided to go down the route of Workday or even actually, you could do that if you're gonna do a business transformation and you've never done it before, you're probably best to go out and find someone who's done it before.

Speaker 2:

When you've selected Workday, you then need to go and get in people who've done workday before, not that workday. The system is significantly different than another ERP system. It's not. It's not significantly different to Dynamics 365 in the way it does finance and the way it does HR. It is different in the way it's put together. But other than that. But if you've never done a business transformation in-house, then you've not got that understanding of the scale.

Speaker 2:

And I think the difference with Workday is you've got the SI partner who come in and you've got a fairly set methodology. There's a way of doing it that is different to the dynamics way of doing it or something like that, and it's the experience of working with the SI and understanding what the SI want from the customer and how they want it and why they want it. And if you don't have that knowledge, then you're going to continually ask them why do you need to know that? Or what are you doing that for? And why do we do it in this order? Because the Workday Launch Methodology is significantly different to how you would do a standard project. And if you try to turn it into a standard project then you're forever going to be arguing and challenging the SI as to why you're doing it. So bringing in people who've done it before as early as possible sets you better up. That's what I would say. Yeah, absolutely critical. I would say it is critical. Yeah, so where I'm at the moment they took themselves to the RFP, which not a problem.

Speaker 2:

Doing that People who did it probably never done an RFP before. The company had, but they've never selected in the ERP system before because their systems are 20 years old. So they wouldn't have done. And if they did, it was a different process then. So I don't. They didn't select the wrong product but it wouldn't a product against any other one. So the selection process was good because they have got a very robust RFP process. But whether they'd had experience on board in selecting the RP project and setting them up for success was debatable at the time. Their SI processes selection they probably at that point before they started the SI process, is when they should have got a me in someone like me. Pwc got in because PwC, when they were either when they were selected or got down to the final two had obviously told the CFO or the head of change you know you need to get someone in to manage you, who knows, having done this before? Because you haven't got anyone in-house and you we that we need to be managed.

Speaker 2:

We need someone with the same level of strength on the client side to manage us and keep us in the right place and make sure you're bringing the right people to the table in the right organisation. So I arrived just before the project started. Just before the project started and there were components and areas within the budget and the way the programme was governed that needed change. So I implemented that change in and if they hadn't got me in then it would have been harder to have changed it later, when the programme was running, and I'd rather have been there probably two or three months earlier. It would have been better.

Speaker 2:

But it came in at just about the right time to bring in, put the governance in place.

Speaker 2:

Talk to the people in in the society who were in in charge of group change, who had their own methodology, but to explain to them that your methodology is brilliant but it's not going to work for workday. They have to do it. This way I can get the right things lined up to go through your governance, but it won't be at the time you think it should go through your governance because it goes along a different path and there's a reason why it goes along here and explain to them that reason, and you could see that there would have been a continuous but against two different methodologies if that wasn't in place and someone who'd done it before wasn't there telling them where they'd gone wrong Not gone wrong, but where they were ill-advised or didn't know. And if you don't know, you're not going wrong, you just don't know. And then I think the SI probably gains a level of confidence if they know that the people they're talking to have done it before, because then they're not spending all their time educating the customer on the reasons why they're doing it.

Speaker 1:

Every SI I speak to right, and we've got a multitude of clients on the SI side, as you know. It really matters to them about the customer side team and if the customer side team are good, actually it makes the implementation a lot easier, you know, for them. Yes, it might cost the customer a little bit more to have the right people on their end, but in a roundabout way you're gonna save lots of money. Oh, you do down down the line in any case, because without their wanting to draw a line.

Speaker 2:

There's a line at which the si doesn't want to step over, yeah, and in fact I don't. They're not really allowed to step over, as allowed in brackets. So when we were at nuffield a light for the si we had we had gaps on our side, on the client side, of knowledge and analysis that we wanted to plug and we said to like what could, could you just step over and do some of our client side? And they said no, they wouldn't do it because of a conflict. Yeah, so we got Accenture in. Accenture said that, so they came in and Accenture did some client consulting side. But it was very, very much having a boundary and it's not a physical boundary and you try not to make it a boundary. It was very much a boundary of ownership, of role and ownership on both side and therefore I'd always want on my side, on the customer side, I'd want to have skilled, knowledgeable people in place to be able to support the SI and support the customer. Otherwise the customer ends up being a bit of a vacuum, trying to understand what the SI wants them to do and trying to understand how Workday works, all in one go and it becomes a bit of a vacuum On Newcastle.

Speaker 2:

I've actually have I am the only one on the project who's done it before, because they don't have any customer side consultants. I've got one who joined last. This week she's filling a 12 week gap and you could tell immediately. She walks in the door, she knows workday, she's done it before and she's talking to the finance SMEs and they're going oh well, that's what it means and oh, that's how it works and you could just get that engagement straight away. And she's often gonna redesign their cash bank settlement process next week because she's done it before.

Speaker 2:

So it just as you say, it costs. But back to the value for money, you get a greater value for money from bringing someone who knows what they're, who's done it before. And you also need to have internal people, because every company's got their own way of doing things, their own cultural way of doing things, their own cultural way of doing things, and this is how we operate. They've got to bring that to the table. People on the client side who've done it before, who you know, know the answer mainly and the SI choose the right.

Speaker 1:

SI. Here's a question for you. In most projects, you've normally got your budget as a program manager, project manager, whatever and, yes, you can bring in, to a certain extent, whoever you want to onto your team to be able to deliver the project for the client alongside the SI. If you were on, let's say, a small to medium-sized enterprise client and you only have budget for one of those individuals but you knew you needed five what would the one be? What's the one person that's absolutely critical? I'm talking role wise, yeah, so, in other words, if I'm going to deliver this program, I need this person 100%, otherwise it's going to be a bit of a problem. At some point you still might be able to deliver it, yeah, but yeah, what would you choose? And you've got a number of different options, I know.

Speaker 2:

A few years, two or three implementations ago. I would have said a business analyst Would have been my business analyst who's done it before, who knows Workday and knows. I'd have said a business analyst would have been my business analyst who's done it before, who knows workday and knows. I'd have said that now I'd say integrations, I would say a project manager who's managed a complex set of integrations between external parties and workday, yeah, be my key man or woman, key person, because that's the area we get tripped up every time. I've got tripped up at Nuffield, getting tripped up now at Newcastle, but someone who can navigate their way through understanding. I've got internal IT resources, I've got an SI potentially work day if there's something they need to do and I've got all these third parties. Pull all those strings together. That's probably the one that will delay the project, the only one that will delay the project probably.

Speaker 1:

Interesting People always I've asked that question a number of times People always say either say integrations or data yeah, that was the choice, so but you could only have one, so you've got the integrations.

Speaker 2:

It would be integrated data does, but I found there's all I think there's always. You can always get the data. Yeah, it'll be a problem and it's either complexity or size. Nuffield, it was the size and volume of the data we were converting over 16,000 invoices.

Speaker 2:

It was huge. Where I am at the moment is it's hard to get the data because it's buried in a system that's 16 years old and the client IT team don't have access. They don't know how it works and they don't want to go and talk to the owner of the system and they don't know a great deal because it's out of license, right. So that's our challenge. But, yeah, data or integrations, which, oddly, are nothing to you can't go back on it now.

Speaker 1:

No, no, they're not nothing. You said integrations. I said integrations which?

Speaker 2:

oddly, isn't part of the implementation of the Word they sell and you could say that would be the same if you do an Oracle Dynamics. Always is it always is Always the integrations.

Speaker 1:

It's always the same two things. It doesn't matter which implementation, which product you're implementing it's integrations and data. Those are my two critical things and I have to get those ones right. If I get those ones right, I can work around the rest to a certain extent. To a certain extent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think probably because the workday path is so well trodden and the SIs have trodden it so well, and you come to your integrations and they'll go oh, barclays, yeah, that's no problem, barclays, and that's all. Oh, we've got a LinkedIn, so we've got a Salesforce that Then suddenly the customer turns up with their 20-year-old systems that have never been integrated to before or some other third party that they've been acting with and dealing with them. That's your problems. There. It's the customer's unique world of integrations rather than the ones that won't. They build connectors to as many as they think are relevant. Yeah, but now it's the, it's the. I've got this expense system around the corner that no one's used before and I want to keep it. So, yeah, those are the complex ones.

Speaker 1:

I mean anyone, I ask funny enough about that same question. Always says mainly integrations and obviously data data as well so yeah great well look, kevin, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you so much and good luck.