The Onsite & Offshore Talk with Suresh Ashok

Offshoring and CRM Excellence with Gill Walker: Insights from Australia to India

• Gill Walker • Season 2 • Episode 5

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Curious about the realities of offshoring? Join Gill Walker, CEO of Opsis, as she shares her firsthand experiences in building effective offshore teams over the past four to five years. From navigating language and cultural barriers to achieving successful collaboration, Gill offers a candid look into the challenges and successes of offshoring. Her insights provide a balanced perspective, offering practical lessons for businesses in Australia, India, and beyond.

Offshoring Insights:

  • Gill's journey into offshoring, including the highs and lows.
  • Strategies for overcoming challenges like language barriers and cultural differences.
  • The importance of strong leadership and team dynamics in offshore success.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Expertise:

  • Gill’s expert analysis of the evolution of Microsoft Dynamics CRM over the past two decades.
  • Key milestones such as the multi-tenancy and multi-currency features in version 4.0.

How Dynamics CRM integrates with the broader Microsoft ecosystem, including:

  • Power Platform
  • Power BI
  • Power Automate
  • Why Dynamics CRM stands out against competitors like Salesforce and HubSpot, especially in its seamless compatibility with tools like SharePoint, Teams, and Outlook.

CRM Training and Education:

  • The critical importance of proper CRM training for successful implementation.
  • Strategies for effective CRM education, focusing on understanding the 'why' behind every action.
  • Tips for both beginners in CRM and those managing international resources to maximize CRM training and offshoring success.

Whether you're new to CRM or managing international teams, Gill's insights are packed with actionable advice for maximizing CRM success and navigating the complexities of offshoring. Don't miss this episode full of expert knowledge and practical tips!



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Speaker 1:

Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in. Welcome to another episode of the Onsite and Offshore Podcast. I'm your host, suresh Ashok, founder of Munsee Infotech, with a passion for selling and supporting offshoring projects, where we chat with business owners and professionals involved in offshoring initiatives and also connect with entrepreneurs who outsource their work to India. Joining us today is Jill Walker, from Australia. Jill is the CEO of Opsys, a Sydney-based consulting firm, which she founded in 2004. As a Microsoft MVP certified trainer and CRM solution architect with over two decades of experience, she has been at the forefront of CRM success, particularly with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Jill has helped numerous businesses transform their customer relationship management system. Let's welcome her to the show. Let's dive into the journey and gain insight into CRM success. Welcome to the show, jill. How are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

I have had an awesome day. Thank you for asking, Suresh.

Speaker 1:

Well, my God, it's 6, 6.30, 6.45 in Sydney. Now what 7 o'clock 6 of the 3.

Speaker 2:

6.45 is the closest 42 to give you an accurate answer.

Speaker 1:

Well, the reason I asked you was You're sounding very energetic. Thank you, fantastic.

Speaker 2:

The night is yet young.

Speaker 1:

Jill, you're my first international guest. Just to let you know, I've interviewed so many people in my podcast in season one and season two, so you're the first international guest. We're going to talk about offshoring as well as your career and the business, what you do, so really really happy and excited. I'm truly excited. I hate this word using excited off lately because everywhere I see in LinkedIn, using AI and chat GPT, you know I'm thrilled, I'm excited, but today I'm really so welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Suresh. It is really good to be here.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. So let's dive straight to the topic. Jill, as you know, our podcast is based on the on-site and offshore theme, so my first question I always ask my guests is when did you first? I mean, for you it will be different. The reason is all my guests I ask when were they exposed to on-site projects and offshore projects? For you, my question would be when did you first started using offshore resources and any particular reason for you to? You know, to explore offshoring team and resources?

Speaker 2:

the fine detail of when I'm struggling with, probably about four or five years ago, why? Quite simply because opsys was growing and Opsys has grown and shrunk and grown and shrunk over the 20 years since I founded it, and it was in a growth phase and I was struggling to find resources in Australia. So I started exploring offshore people and I've used some technical people offshore people and I've used some technical people. I've also used VAs and I've now got a marketing person, none of whom are Australian-based. I have also, by contrast, had Australian people in all of those roles as well.

Speaker 1:

Right. So just you know lack of resources in Australia, I mean.

Speaker 2:

I'm not sure, like you know, should I say that or not. Or I know you mentioned that your organization was growing and you wanted to explore some other option as well Is numbers of the shortage per year. Now, that's IT, which obviously is far bigger than where I specialize in Microsoft Dynamics, power Platform area, but the shortage is massive. That shortage in turn leads to what I call the revolving door that you can take someone on and then you can put a fair amount of effort briefing them on projects, how you work, because the opsys approach is somewhat different to a lot of people, to a lot of organizations, and we may return to that point later on right and what has been your experience so far while interacting?

Speaker 1:

I've interacted with you, I mean, by the way, for the audience. Like you know, I've chased jill. I've been interacting with her for the last four or five years, or even more than that, I mean as a sales guy. Like you know, my goal again was was to get some business out of her. So yeah, so, sachil, how is it like? What is your take so far in interacting and using offshore resources?

Speaker 2:

You can be very straightforward and honest it's been. I have got one person at the moment who is leading my team and he has been awesome. He's from Nepal and he has been awesome. He's from Nepal and he's been great. I've had a few other people from a number of different companies and it's been mixed, to be honest.

Speaker 2:

There's been challenges with language, which is one of the things that you mentioned earlier. There's been challenges with people saying that they've got experience that they certainly haven't got. There's been challenges on working hours. So I've had people that want to work an Indian nine to five day and then they assume that the Australian people will also work an Indian nine to 5, which, of course, means staying up to 11 o'clock at night, which is not really feasible to do on a regular basis.

Speaker 2:

There's also a lot of cultural differences, something that this wasn't when I was using resources, but I was on a project that had an Indian company doing a lot of the technical work. There was big festival in November and no notice was given and just the entire team was off and really, quite now, what do we do? Sort of situation, because, again, it was a misunderstanding that I am sure the people themselves were so embroiled in whatever the festival was, they couldn't believe that Australian people didn't know about it and it's someone else's job to alert them them. So I think I've seen both ends and probably some of the middle of that spectrum, which may well not be the answer that you were hoping for.

Speaker 1:

No, certainly not. I want you to give an honest answer. The reason is my audience is largely Indian audience and everybody knows about it. What's the purpose of discussion is so that someone can pick up and learn, like you know the point which you made, I really you know. I was also surprised that nobody informed you that they were going on a holiday, and I can understand. You know how you would have encountered that situation. It could be any particular projects or you would have committed to your client on a delivery or completing a particular task, and when nobody turns up and tells you that that's pretty horrible, particular task and when nobody turns up and tells you that that's pretty horrible.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't just sort of nobody came in one Monday or whatever day, but it was something like there was a conversation one evening and how long will this take? But we won't be able to work on it for another week because we're all off, that sort of approach.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I think it must be Diwali. I think it was Diwali, right, yes, so if I summarize it like you know, what you've said communication I mean you have, you know, you've mentioned it very clearly. Like you know, there are some positives as well as there are some negatives as well, and some of the folks who are still working with you, be it from resource, from Nepal as well as from India, and some of the challenges, what you've encountered is communication. That's the top one. You say.

Speaker 2:

I think communication and then going back to that festival, all of the cultural differences and the culture that you live and work in, is something that you just take for granted your own culture. But once you start working very closely with someone in a different culture it can be quite challenging to manage and of course, a lot of the management does fall to me as pretty active, interacting, you know, in a public platform as well.

Speaker 1:

What is the general perception about Australian companies over, you know, tech resources in India, either offshore resources or the resource they hire, like you know, move from India to Australia.

Speaker 2:

I think the perception is that there's definitely good people out there, but you have to work hard to find them and you need to be very selective. You need to have a good selection process so that you can really find good people. So sure, they are there to be found.

Speaker 1:

They are there to be found, but if you employ the first person that you interview, the probability of you getting a good person is probably quite slim, absolutely, and I just recall you also said about experience like people are not showing their real experience, because, as an individual with so much of expertise what 24 years of experience?

Speaker 2:

I've been running Opsys for 20 years 20 years. This month, in fact, I posted it'll only go out later this week a blog about my 20th anniversary running Opsys.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic Congratulations.

Speaker 2:

But I've been in the CRM space more than just dynamics for probably about 30 years now.

Speaker 1:

Right. So I'm sure you can easily figure out, like you know, when people come to you with fake experience or expertise just to win that contract.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, and I will ask three or four questions. And there have been some people who, well, it's really quite interesting. And there have been some people who, well, it's really quite interesting. One of the worst experiences someone did exceptionally badly in interview and they wanted time to go and do some prep and they wanted to come back someone that can read the script, because this is an example. It will be very different to the project that you're working on right and was this from india? I think that person was from india.

Speaker 1:

Yes okay, okay, yeah, I'll put that across as a feedback. Like you know, when, know, when I published this episode, any, any good experience you know at all on, because you do lots of CRM work, CRM development, anything good that comes to your mind.

Speaker 2:

Like you know, you have interacted with Well my current tech lead, who's been with me now two years, is absolutely fantastic. Years is absolutely fantastic, and there are times when I reflect on his journey and how his confidence has grown working with me and the quality of work and not only the quality of work and that is really really good but also quality of the conversations. I wish I could go back and listen to some of the recordings of our early meetings, when getting him to say more than yes or no was a challenge, whereas now he will push back and argue and tell me I'm wrong and it's absolutely awesome, because that is what it takes to deliver quality work to the customer. Somebody who just says yes, jill, no, jill, three bags full Jill and doesn't tell me when I've got the wrong idea or they don't understand, is not likely to deliver quality work. I just wish we could get to the position that I've got my current person to without it taking.

Speaker 2:

Well, he's been with me two years but, in fairness, it didn't take two years, although it's constantly improving, but it would be nice to be like that from day one, but I think that's one of the cultural pieces that we've got to understand that the whole of the Indian subcontinent culture is very different to Australian and of course I'm not Australian originally, I'm from the UK and it's very different also to UK and it's very different also to UK. So I've employed people in both areas. I've also worked across Europe when I was with Microsoft and again, it's just different, different, different. That doesn't make it better or worse, but you've got to go with the flow. You've got to go with the flow. You've got to understand how that culture works, make quite a lot of accommodation for it.

Speaker 1:

Well, absolutely Completely agree with you. So both sides you know the team which is offshoring the work to India need to have some understanding about the cultural differences, the time zone you know, before they start using the offshore resources, because that's a kind of investment, what they have to do, like you know, for a, you know for a long-term partnership with offshore resources or Indian companies. Do you want to drop his name? Like you know the person who is working with you, I would like to talk to him as well, like in my next episode or in the future. His name's Abhishek. Abhishek, okay, fantastic, okay, fantastic Sounds good. That's a fantastic experience you have shared so far. And my next question is I know in Microsoft Dynamics, as a Microsoft MVP and someone who has worked with Dynamics since the early days.

Speaker 2:

Very early days. As I say lots of things, I cut my teeth on version 1.0 beta 22 years ago 22 years ago.

Speaker 1:

That's a long time. So what do you think? How you know the Dynamics CRM has evolved and what do you think the future holds for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, as well as CRM in general?

Speaker 2:

Well, the product, without a shadow of a doubt, has evolved enormously. I wrote about this in an article that I'm publishing tomorrow or the day after, when I'm talking about the 20 years since I founded Opsys. Microsoft CRM, as it was called then 1.0 and 1.2, didn't even have any marketing. It was purely sales and customer service. Now it is the keystone of an entire suite of products that will support pretty much every area of the business. And well, it's not even an evolution, because in that time we've had a number of major changes. I remember when what was it called? I think it was Dynamic CRM at this point, but I'm honestly not completely sure but version 4 came out in about 2007. And I nicknamed that release Multi, multi, multi, because what it then supported was multi-tenancy, multilingual and multi-currency.

Speaker 2:

To say that today, in 2024, 17 years on, most people would laugh at it, because those three concepts are just so integral to the product. We've now, of course, got all of the power platforms, so not just the apps, but we've got power portals so that you can give external people access to the system without a license external people access to the system without a license. We've got Power BI, which augments the native reporting that you can get inside Dynamics 365. We've got Power Automate, which will let you automate almost anything. So you can get now pretty close, if you design it correctly, to what I call the worm approach to an overall system and worm stands for write once, read many. You implement the system, and this is not just CRM, this is everything that touches your customer from cradle to grave. You should be aiming for any one element of data only gets entered once and the system then gives it, takes it to all the places that it's needed, not users re-keying the same information. So that's one of my mantras, I suppose Aim for a worm implementation, right.

Speaker 1:

And what do you think about the future of dynamic CRM? It's going to as well. As you know, there are other competition as well. Salesforce HubSpot a lot in comparison to dynamics. You know where do you rate the other CRM?

Speaker 2:

I think dynamics mainly because of it coming from Microsoft and the whole Microsoft ecosystem. That ecosystem has given it a massive jumpstart and I think it will just keep taking advantage of that jumpstart and going on and on and on. If we look at what's happening in the AI, artificial intelligence space, that obviously co-pilot is really big. But Microsoft foresaw that and there was functionality in Power Platform, power Apps, probably three years ago, which we didn't call artificial intelligence, we certainly didn't call co-pilot, but things that are now under that umbrella of co-pilot, ai, artificial intelligence, were available then with some of the bots, with some of the other image recognition and a whole suite of other stuff. So it's been coming and it's going to keep going.

Speaker 2:

My instinct is to get similar functionality from Salesforce. The integration is going to be much more complex and that causes problems in that the more complexity you've got there, the more chances of links in the chain breaking and therefore it's harder. So Salesforce I was reading an article earlier today that Salesforce is buying up left, right and center, but nevertheless they are originally separate products and sure they've got a team, a massive team of developers bringing them in, but they're still starting from separate products where Dynamics 365, maybe not the ERP stuff, the Copilot, the Office Suite and a whole heap of other things that form that foundation, that have given Dynamics the jumpstart. They have all come out of the Microsoft stable and it shows.

Speaker 1:

Right and also I completely agree with you the Microsoft suits of products, which makes any organization, like you know, the first preference for dynamic CRM. Do you think that also makes the implementation process easier? Because you mentioned about integration, how about the implementation process, like when someone is already in the dynamic CRM ecosystem? I mean the Microsoft ecosystem.

Speaker 2:

In some areas undoubtedly yes. In other areas undoubtedly yes. In other areas undoubtedly no. So, for example, there's a really nice integration with SharePoint. Now, there's a lot that SharePoint has in common with other members of the Microsoft family, of the Microsoft family. So if it's appropriate for a project to do that integration, to put the file storage into SharePoint and there's a lot of reasons for doing that, there's also some for not doing it then that knowledge will, without a shadow of a doubt, be beneficial. Same goes for making Dynamics work with Teams with well, even with Microsoft Outlook, which, way back when, one of the big leg ups that Microsoft CRM got was the fact that it had native email functionality, which a lot of the competition at the time didn't have. So even though the Outlook add-in was really quite clunky and memory-hugging in the early days, it still gave it that leg up over a lot of the competition.

Speaker 2:

That will continue. I can't tell you exactly how it will continue. If we'd been having this conversation a year ago, the chances are we wouldn't have discussed Copilot. And here we are. Copilot is part of many people's world. I used it yesterday to design an image for the 20th anniversary blog design an image for the 20th anniversary blog.

Speaker 1:

That's a very, you know, useful piece of information and any feedback you have received from any of your clients who are using Dynamics CRM. You know, with Copilot as well as Field Service, and you know the Power Apps, power Automate. Like you know any feedback you've received from them, like you know how things have evolved in the Dynamics space, crm space.

Speaker 2:

Technical people are aware of the evolution evolved in the dynamic space, CRM space, Technical people are aware of the evolution.

Speaker 2:

The majority of my clients, unless they are technical people, have usually only come across dynamics maybe a year or so prior to the project, so they won't have that rear view vision. In fact, there've been a few people when I say I've been working with Dynamics for 20 years or 15 years or whatever was true at the time, and, as I said, it's now 22. And they fall over and they say what I didn't even know it existed, but no, they weren't in an environment where it added any value For a lot of organizations 22 years ago. They weren't in an environment where it added any value For a lot of organizations. 22 years ago they didn't even have anything worth calling a customer database. The whole CRM thing was only for the big end of town telcos, the utilities, the large companies, where now even for a small business. If you haven't got at least a CRM solution, it might not be massively technically complex, but you should have a CRM solution, Otherwise you can wave your business goodbye.

Speaker 1:

Well, absolutely. Who will manage those kind of data? Who will do proper follow-up? I mean I'm talking about from the sales perspective. It's pretty hard to remember. I mean earlier, when I started my career, like you know, people were using Excel sheets Even when there was a CRM in place. I mean when I was working, they had this Microsoft Dynamics CRM, but it was pretty hard to use it at that point of time. You need to go through multiple applications one pop-up, another pop-up and updating things was pretty tough, but now it's far easier. It's easy to use as well as, as you said, the integration with other business applications is also much more user-friendly. So now I think people have started using it and for you to be a successful sales or marketing person, you need to use a CRM system as well, as you know, to present it to the management as well. You need to have a proper system in place.

Speaker 2:

Otherwise, it's impossible to operate without something that keeps that information up to date.

Speaker 1:

Right, and you also do a success RM program. Yes, it focuses on improving CRM success rate. What are the biggest challenges companies face when implementing CRM and how does your program interest them? And you've been also popular in working on rescuing projects right, a project like which has failed or someone has failed bad implementation.

Speaker 2:

I do a lot of picking up projects that are failing or have failed and when I look at it, there are probably two common reasons that these projects fail. The first, and maybe the biggest, in fact, definitely the biggest of all of these is a lack of understanding on both sides. So a lack of understanding on the technical side of the business drivers for a particular project and a lack of understanding of the technology by the business decision makers. And in fact, I was blogging about that only today, and one of the things that SuccessRM does is puts a lot more education throughout the project. So making sure that key decision makers people who will make decisions about how CRM will be implemented, what problems it solves make sure that they've got reasonable knowledge of the out-of-the-box functionality so that they're focusing on the areas that the out-of-the-box the detail that the out-of-the-box can't deliver to an organization that is important, rather than and this is a true story going off and saying, oh, but you don't understand how important having addresses of our clients is. I don't need to understand how important addresses are, because you're going to get that regardless. Any CRM solution is going to give you basic contact details. So focus on that delta, on the gap between what the technology gives you and what you need.

Speaker 2:

A story I often tell to illustrate this is a birthday cake. I am sure most people listening to this will at some point have bought a birthday cake for a family member or a friend or a partner. And when you do that, you take the basic cake and then you focus on getting the colors of the candle, the exact wording and so on. Right, you don't start saying, well, having chosen a chocolate cake, I want it to be coffee flavored. That's just not going to work successfully. So focus on that fine detail that no cake comes with the exact words, the exact candles and so on that you want. So that's where you focus, not on how the cake was made previously or what flavor it is or so on and so forth. Those are things that essentially, you're getting regardless.

Speaker 1:

Any case, you want to mention Jill, you know, like someone reached out to you with a bad implementation and, as I said in my you know, as my question was also rescuing failed projects. Any case, you want to share, like you know, a proper case study. A customer reached out to you with so-and-so reason and what went wrong over there and what solution did you provide?

Speaker 2:

Well at the moment, the best one at the moment is a project that is only about to kick off and the organization in question is a small not-for-profit that helps people who are or have been incarcerated get back on their feet at various ways.

Speaker 2:

And they had an implementation done under prior management where there was no proper scoping done at all and they just picked up on the idea that, as one of the requirements was delivering to specific addresses, they jumped straight in and went with field service, where, in actual fact, field service is complete overkill for what this client needs. And had they done detailed scoping, looked at the processes, looked at the data that needs to be handled, they would have come up with a very different solution. And it's a friend of mine who I'm now on the third project with him, all with different organizations, and he had a meeting with the CEO of the organization, who I won't name, who did the original implementation, and apparently the CEO said but we don't do design, we don't do support, we don't do training, we just build it. And I cannot figure that out at all. How can you just build it without doing appropriate design, support, education, that supports getting the build correct?

Speaker 1:

right. So what have? What happened looking after your information or your organization?

Speaker 2:

so well we have. We're only just kicking off, but the project that we deliver is going to be blowing away several tens of thousands, many tens of thousands of dollars of investment that prior management spent, money that the prior management spent. And we will go back to basics and put in Dynamics 365, sales implementation and also a customer service implementation.

Speaker 1:

Right, just out of curiosity, I want to ask this Someone who's already had a failed implementation how did you convince them, how did you convince the company that you can do much better or you can handle a situation like this?

Speaker 2:

There is no one fits all for that, but generally will be conversations. It will look at what they were promised. It will look at the headaches that they've got and typically I will do simple demo showing them how to overcome some of the headaches that they're experiencing. So they've got a headache, I've got a painkiller approach.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic, more like a consulting approach and Jill. Opsys has been providing CRM services for over two decades. What is the core mission of Opsys and, by the way, congratulations again like in a completely 20 years, and how has your organization evolved over the years to meet the changing needs of businesses?

Speaker 2:

Well, keeping on to learn the technology and people who are being willing also to do the move to the middle, being across education. So the business people want to learn some of the technology, not the detail but the functionality that they've got. And then technical people that I engage have to be interested in the business side of the project, not seeing the technology as bright, shiny things for them to play with. They need to remember that their reason and how they get paid is by solving business problems.

Speaker 1:

Right. And for example, if someone is listening to this conversation, what value does your organization bring to the table? Something different from you? Know the other competitor in the market in the CRM space?

Speaker 2:

The education and because of this, leading with education, typically our projects are cheaper because we can do them more quickly and we can keep the team smaller. Also because everyone in a project is across the entirety of the project we don't have these chains of communication so just generally much more knowledgeable, and that knowledge leads to shorter projects, quicker results, faster return on investment.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and you've been recognized as the most influential women in CRM, training and education. And I mean, how did it all start? What does this recognition mean to you and how do you maintain your influence in such a competitive space?

Speaker 2:

It's not actually being an influencer in the way that I am is not as crowded as it might seem Because of my approach and my massive interest in the business and the business drivers, the majority of people who are blogging, youtube, all of the other podcasting and so on. A lot of that is bright, shiny, technical toys. There's this new feature, there's that new feature, and then often not linking it to the business value that using something can deliver. But aside from that, I've written e-books, I blog on our website, I post on LinkedIn, I comment on other people's posts, I provide training courses and I develop my own training courses. I keep other profiles up to date. So just recently I was recognized again on Thinkers360 as one of the most influential CRM people and that's again because of that breadth of approach.

Speaker 1:

There's a bit of arrogance in you by getting recognized everywhere in the CRM community. That was also the light of notion.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, maybe, maybe not.

Speaker 1:

And also you mentioned about training. You know I mean, we've had this discussion during our offline conversation that what are the options available to train Indian resources in CRM. So that's something, like you know, which we should explore as well, I'm sure, because there will be so many Indian folks, because we have so many training center. But there's always a bit of criticism on the training side as well, that they kind of promise a lot. I mean, the thing is like you know, we'll train you as well as we'll place you in the job. But it never works in that way and I feel that you know having an international exposure to our developer in the early stage, like you know, someone with just two to three years of experience. You know getting a chance to interact with people like you or, you know, in your team, in your training team, I think that will be helpful.

Speaker 2:

And because throughout my training I would challenge people, and so I suspect that some Indians would find me hard going until they got to know me. But I'm constantly asking why? So it's not just you do X by clicking on Y? I'm constantly emphasizing why is that important? What happens if you do X rather than doing Y? What are the benefits?

Speaker 2:

My training has a lot of questions that I want people to answer as they go through it. So not just follow these steps, but as you follow them, what do you see? Again, my favorite three-letter word why? Why did that happen? Why couldn't this person now perform an action based on what you've just done? Based on what you've just done maybe changing a security role or doing a field profile or some other change why did that change lead to that change in behavior? Another thing about my training, compared to a lot of people's, is I insist on allowing time. There are so many people that try and put a quart into a pint pot over training. They say, oh, it can't be that hard. I know you think you need two hours, but I'll give you 30 hour. Your people, I can guarantee, will not get it and understand the why in 30 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Right, but trust me, our folks will be very, very happy and excited to get trained by someone like you Because I've interacted with even I get. I put this thing in my website but I'm not doing it. Like you know, that Microsoft Dynamics CRM training In the early stages. We used to do it, but now I don't have the resources or time to focus on the training aspect. But there are people who still reach out to us from different locations. Listen, we want to be a certified Microsoft Dynamics consultant. Where to go about it?

Speaker 1:

I'll tell you how it works in Indian organization, even on the bigger companies. So an individual who is completed his engineering and getting a job in an IT company, he doesn't have the choice to choose which technology he can move in because he doesn't have the knowledge. So what most of the companies most of them, not everybody, most of them do is they kind of, like you know, depending upon the qualification and the training, they will allocate the resources in testing or in development or in so-and-so technology. So by then, like you know, it takes a guy, like you know, three to four or five years to mature in technical knowledge. So most of the people don't get into specialization right. It also, you know, depending upon the environment, the circle, the, which organization I mean.

Speaker 1:

I got into Microsoft because I was working with Microsoft partners, so that is how the tree is. But there are many people who have reached out to me that, listen, I'm a full-stack developer, I want to try my hands or a NET developer, mostly, yeah, a NET developer. Listen, I'm a full-stack developer, I want to try my hands or a NET developer, mostly a NET developer, because they want to get into Dynamics, crm or some functional consulting, want to move into Microsoft. So there is lots of scope in training, especially for Indian resources, that much I can assure you, and I can produce some people immediately for you.

Speaker 2:

As in trainers or people that want to learn, want to learn, I'd be more than happy to talk to them and make it work.

Speaker 1:

Let's sit and create a plan, like you know, once this session gets over, maybe tomorrow or day after tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

I was going to say, talking about how we both build our businesses might not be the best thing to do on a podcast.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I've just taken a few minutes of their time, not more than that. And also, you know you emphasize the importance of training and education and CRM implementation. You mentioned about a failed project. Can you explain why this is so critical and how can a business ensure you know the teams are properly trained? What are the steps an organization needs to do to ensure the sales, the marketing team are trained properly and the usage of CRM system is fully used?

Speaker 2:

That's massive. We could be here for a week talking about that. Five bullet points, maybe? Yes, so there is no organization on this planet that is going to use the entirety of a tool like Microsoft Dynamics. It is just not possible. And even if we found that rare organization that was using everything, no user within that organization would be using everything.

Speaker 2:

So what is important is that people know what they need to do in order to get the maximum support for their role from the solution, and that, of course, means, if we take the perspective of any one user, they need to know what is happening before particular data comes to them and that might be a particular customer ticket, whatever and what happens after them. So we need to take the blinkers off. So, instead of people just well, my job is do this, fill that in, put name in there, phone number in there, whatever they need to understand why and the why they need to do what they need to do because of what comes later and how to meet the customer client prospects needs. Again, it all comes back to why we need also to provide training in a form that people can get their questions answered. That also comes back to the comment I made about time and not trying to put to use an English phrase a quart into a pint pot with the training, because if you've got a huge amount of material to get through and only a small amount of time, there is no way that you can encourage free-form questions. But as well as questions during the training which I'd like to think all trainers do, but they don't there also needs to be opportunities the following day, the following week, once people have had time, they've slept on the training, they've gone back to work.

Speaker 2:

They've seen, well, yeah, they've tried to apply the training to their work and they think, well, I can remember doing something a bit like this, but I'm not quite sure. They need to be able to have a forum where they can get those questions answered. They need to feel heard when they think surely I shouldn't be doing it this way. This feels awkward, it feels a long way round. Well, maybe it is, maybe their way is better, or maybe there is a reason for doing it the long way round Again, what's happened before? What's going to happen next? What is the whole reason for performing the process?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, jill. I agree with you. And, jill, what advice would you offer to someone who wants to start a career in CRM, maybe a fresher, or someone want to switch from a different field to Microsoft Dynamics?

Speaker 2:

Learn the applications. I think that would be, if we're looking for a bullet point type, so learn the applications. I think that would be if we're looking for a bullet point type, so learn the applications, get the exposure. And if there was one thing to echo what I said earlier, understand that whether you're a fresher, you're a little bit further on or you're even approaching the end of your career, the reason you get paid is because you are delivering business value to the end client, and I think that is something that particularly people starting out in this career should print on a piece of paper and put on their pillow at night. So it's there. Or maybe they should write it on the mirror so they see it when they're cleaning their teeth in the morning. It should just be through everything that you're doing.

Speaker 1:

That's a good piece of advice. I'll do that for myself as well, not on the CRM side, but other stuff. And how about, like you know, I know it's pretty hard. Like you know, you do training as well as managing a company. So how do you manage your day-to-day activities, your morning schedules?

Speaker 2:

there is no such thing as a routine. I frequently say I am a long way from being a nine-to-fiver, so I don't have two identical days. I spend a lot of time on the phone, on calls, mentoring people, and I fit that in between lots of other things, but there's no, I certainly don't have get up at eight o'clock. Do this, do that, do the other, go to my desk, whatever it just no complaints from your family.

Speaker 2:

No, yeah, they'll get used to it now well, I don't have kids, so that makes life a bit easier well, I don't want to get into that line of conversation.

Speaker 1:

I think that will take back me to 19. What 1970, 80, 80? It was a pleasure talking to you. If you want to give any feedback to us or our resources, I'll be more than happy to take it, as well as put that in the podcast as well. Again, anything from your side you want to say in closing.

Speaker 2:

I think just there's a lot of value for Australian people in using offshore resources. But be aware, do your preparation and make sure you get the right people for your project, for your organisation. The right people are there, but they probably won't be the first one that you interview. So work out what your criteria are and work out how you would recognize those criteria when you fall over them.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, jill. I'm sure the people who will listen to this podcast I'm sure they're going to reach out to you as well. I hope so. Yeah, stay away from the people who do the sales pitch. Like you know, I'll do better. I'm always here. I'm always there for you, so don't worry about it. Thank you, it was wonderful talking to you. Pleasure, talk to you soon and that's a wrap for today's episode. A big thanks to our guest and to you for tuning in. If Thanks to our guests and to you for tuning in. If you enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe, rate and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your support helps us bring more awesome episodes. For more updates, visit our website at onsiteandoffshorecom and do follow us on social media. Stay tuned for more exciting content in the coming weeks. Until next time, this is Suresh Ashok signing off. Take care and keep thriving in your offshoring journey.

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Suresh Ashok

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