March 26, 2025 • 26 mins
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FULL SHOW NOTES
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/669
Peter Ruiter shares his journey from PHP developer to Microsoft MVP, highlighting his career transformation and expertise in Microsoft's contact center technology.
• Born in the Netherlands with a family that spans continents – wife from Argentina, two sons aged 14 and 10
• Started in Media Technology, working with PHP and marketing automation before transitioning to Microsoft technologies
• Currently serves as Principal Solution Architect and Cloud Domain Lead at Capgemini
• Leads Power Platform initiatives within Capgemini Netherlands, focusing on complex Dynamics projects
• Passionate about Microsoft's contact center capabilities which integrate Teams, Dynamics, and Azure Communication Services
• Explains how Microsoft's platform approach gives it advantages over competitors like Genesis and Amazon Connect
• Provides insight into the practical considerations of implementing contact center solutions, including cost comparisons
• Planning to speak at the BizApps Summit in Düsseldorf and attend the MVP Summit
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Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Smith (00:06):
Welcome to the MVP show.
My intention is that you listento the stories of these MVP
guests and are inspired tobecome an MVP and bring value to
the world through your skills.
If you have not checked it outalready, I do a YouTube series
called how to Become an MVP.
The link is in the show notes.
With that, let's get on withthe show.
(00:31):
Today's guest is from theNetherlands.
He works at Capgemini as aprincipal solution architect and
cloud domain lead.
He was first awarded as MVP in2024.
In his free time you can findhim tinkering with new
technologies or spending timewith his family.
You can find links to his bioand socials in the show notes
(00:51):
for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Peter.
Peter Ruiter (00:54):
Thanks.
It's great to be here, Mark,thanks.
Mark Smith (00:57):
Good to have you on and good to hear your story, and
I always like to start withfood family and fun.
Peter Ruiter (01:09):
What do they mean to you?
Obviously, family is a key partof it, based on the
introduction, but tell me more.
Yeah, yeah, my family.
I got two kids.
I got two boys, 14 and 10.
I got a wife that is fromArgentine origin.
Well, she grew up in America.
We met, actually, at aMicrosoft conference at the
previous Ignite in Orlando whileshe was just living there.
(01:32):
We met up in Disney Springs.
She's not a tech nerd, as I am,but yeah, that's how life goes.
And now we're in theNetherlands.
She made the big jump to hereand is constantly complaining
about the horrible gray weather.
So in the end, we plan onliving in Florida, where it's a
(01:53):
little bit warmer than here, butfor now, the kids are still.
Mark Smith (01:56):
Where are you?
Peter Ruiter (01:56):
going to live to Florida.
She has.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's.
The weather is much, muchbetter than here.
Mark Smith (02:05):
Quite different.
It's a 10-year plan.
Peter Ruiter (02:07):
It's not next year , but it's a 10-year plan.
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Smith (02:11):
I like it, I like it , I like it.
And so then, what do you do forfood Like what's the best food
in the Netherlands?
Peter Ruiter (02:19):
Oh, the Dutch cuisine is horrible, to be
honest.
We have all of the crockets andthe bitterbollen, but it's
basically the stump of themashed potatoes and with carrots
, but basically it's notsomething that I would recommend
anyone.
So, no, no, but to be honest,we like a bit of everything.
So you can find Italian kitchen, some Chinese, basically
(02:43):
everything.
The French cuisine cuisine, um,yeah, that's good everywhere.
I, I personally, really likethe meats, right.
So so the steaks, uh, etc.
And it's.
It's really sad if you go toargentina, where we got married,
uh, it's a whole different ballgame than it's here, but uh, no
, no, the steak is great.
(03:04):
I like the meat still.
Mark Smith (03:07):
I couldn't go to the Netherlands without having
bitterbollen and croquettes,though.
Peter Ruiter (03:12):
I know, well, we do good sweets.
I would say the stroopwafelsand that sort of stuff.
That's pretty good, we'll takethem for….
Waffles are great.
Yeah, take them for the familyand the friends abroad.
So yeah, that's, that's prettygood, we'll take him for.
Uh, waffles are great.
Yeah, take them for the familyand the friends abroad.
Mark Smith (03:26):
So yeah, that's good and, and I find you can get
some special chocolates andgummies and all sorts there and
and the netherlands that arequite unique.
Peter Ruiter (03:34):
You don't get everywhere else in the world no,
no, that is absolutely true,and I I think that the chocolate
in in well, basically in europe, is much, much better than it's
in America.
The American chocolate is awful, it's an acquired taste, but if
you come from Europe and youmove over there, then it's not
that great.
Mark Smith (03:52):
Yeah, so true, so true.
At the end of the day, yourcountry founded our country.
Well, New Zealand is namedafter the Netherlands, right?
Peter Ruiter (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, and a bunch of places in in the states
as well, I mean in new york.
You see all of the, the, thenames of the cities that are
still resembling a lot of uh, umcities here, like brooklyn is
brooklyn and new york wasobviously new amsterdam before.
So there's much, much heritagehere and there that you come
(04:24):
across.
Yeah.
Mark Smith (04:27):
I went to a wedding in Canada, in Vancouver, and the
family name getting married wasStroop, and so Stroop waffles
were part of what was given outto everybody and, yeah, it was
really good.
Oh, that's cool.
Tell me about your journey intotech.
(04:48):
Why did you take this career?
Peter Ruiter (04:51):
Well, my journey was a little bit curvy, to be
honest, when I well, I graduatedin 2006 and back then there was
not that much choice in in uheducation as there is now.
There's not so many, so manydigital careers and so many
(05:12):
different programming careers.
It wasn't the thing back then.
Obviously, you had javaprogramming and that sort of
stuff, but I I did somethingwhich was called media
technology.
It was a.
It was a new education, a newstudy that doesn't exist anymore
.
So the thing that I did is itwas actually part of the electro
(05:33):
engineering, so I'm an actualengineer.
But that was actually prettynice.
So it had a little bit ofeverything.
It had game technology,simulation, but also like
literally built bikes withsimulators.
That was part of the education.
So that was pretty nice.
And after my graduation Istarted getting into building
(05:56):
websites.
That was the thing I mean.
I was already doing that as ahobby and I rolled into PHP,
open source programming.
The Linux world did everythingon PHP and I know it's now when
you talk to all of the Microsoftguys it's like it's a curse
word.
Right?
Php is not a, it's a hobbylanguage, which I don't agree
with.
But back then it was kind of afight back and forth but that
(06:24):
was pretty great.
And I rolled into marketingautomation based on PHP.
So we built asset management.
I was doing some of the firstmarketing automation with actual
snail mail.
So back then that was magic,right.
We did for a large bank in theNetherlands.
We had programs that could seehow much money you got into your
(06:48):
account and then if you touchthe mortgage calculator we could
actually send you a letter withan image of a villa or a
shackled home, which now itsounds like childish and stupid.
But back then it was magic andwe sent tens of thousands of
letters a day by mail.
And obviously later I did thatfor a few years and then
(07:12):
suddenly the company wentbankrupt, which is really
strange because it was not ourcompany.
Our company was doing reallywell, but the mother company,
the holding company, wasactually a big printing
corporation and that was well.
Suddenly we went out ofbusiness.
So we bought the company out ofbankruptcy.
(07:32):
We did that for a bunch moreyears and then I was kind of
done.
It was so many years that I didthe same thing in the PHP.
I was the go-to guy foreverything right, which at some
point that should make youwonder like is this challenging
enough for me again?
Do I need to do something else?
(07:54):
So I sold my shares and Iswitched to Microsoft, which was
really strange, and I think itwas one of the most
uncomfortable moments in my lifewhere I needed like six months
to basically convince myself ohGod, did I make the right choice
(08:16):
?
Because I went from the go-toguy that was me for many, many
years to the guy who knowsabsolutely nothing right, and it
was a C-sharp.
It was a software companyC-sharp.
We did a lot of SharePoint,because Power Platform didn't
even exist back then, customdevelopment on SharePoint, and
(08:36):
then Dynamics came up and PowerPlatform came later.
But that took me quite some timeto get my grip again and to
quickly become that go-to guyagain.
Because in the end, if you lookback, it's just another dialect
and the principles are all thesame and the way of thinking is
the same.
But before I ended up in thatspace, it took some time and I
(09:03):
did that for another seven years.
It was well.
It took some time and I didthat for another seven years.
And now I switched to Capgeminitwo and a half years ago, where
it's a little bit bigger.
It's a little bit moreenterprise.
It's a little bit.
It's a different world.
There's a lot of red tape,obviously, because it's much
more enterprise than what I didbefore.
So it has its pros and cons.
But yeah, now I'm here and, asyou said, I was already doing a
(09:26):
lot of public speaking.
I was a trainer for many, manyyears at a previous company as
well, so Microsoft CertifiedTrainer, which I really like.
I really like to share myknowledge, et cetera.
And being an MVP was kind ofalways on my wish list but never
(09:49):
had the time, or well.
I think it's about making timeand prioritizing it, but it was
never on my agenda to actuallypush myself out there, so to
speak.
Right.
So I was doing all of thosethings but never put it in like,
oh, it's something special.
It was something that I wouldlike to do and that I already
did.
I like to be the publicspeaking, to do the user groups
(10:10):
and to share the knowledge anddo the training, et cetera.
But now, yeah, also, that is alittle bit bigger and Capgemini
is well big enough to sponsor afew trips here and there, so
that comes in handy as well,right.
Mark Smith (10:24):
Nice, Nice, yeah With Capgem.
Are you Capgem Netherlands oris Netherlands part of Europe?
Capgem Europe?
How do you segment up insideCapgem?
Peter Ruiter (10:37):
Yeah, so it's per country, but we obviously have a
European framework as well, sowe have a European COE, that
well, I'm talking about theMicrosoft side, right?
Well, I'm talking about theMicrosoft side, right.
So if we look at the Microsoftside, it can geminize around
350,000 people.
So it's a large, large company,and within the Netherlands, we
(11:01):
got around 10,000, with SoCityincluded as well Wow, that's
massive.
Yeah, that's pretty massivestill, and then within that, we
have around 300 people that arein the digital customer
experience cluster that I'm in,and within that, we have 80
people that are fully onDynamics and Power Platform.
(11:24):
So I'm one of those 80.
So I'm the Power Platform leadfor Capgemini, the Netherlands,
and my daily job consists mostlyof doing dynamics projects and
more complex projects.
I really like the contactcenter space that we're in now.
I mean, microsoft is doingmassive steps there, but I come
(11:48):
from that custom developmentside with all of the integration
, all the Azure and all of thecustom development, so that
still is close to my heart,right?
So, yeah, within that, 80people, I think, yeah, I'm one
of the principals there, so that, yeah.
Mark Smith (12:08):
Very good.
Tell me about contact centerhow big you touched on it there?
How big is that becoming?
In particular, you know we'veseen Microsoft go through
iterations.
I think it'd been about 20years in the space back when I
was selling it.
It was way back.
We had what was called theCustomer Care Framework as in
(12:29):
like.
There was a lot of standardsand guidance around how we
created a single pane of glass.
It was unified service desk andaround 2015.
Peter Ruiter (12:39):
Oh, no, yeah yeah, yeah, I did all of that.
Usd was horrible.
Now, looking back to it, it washorrible, right.
No, no, we did amazing thingsback then, yeah.
So, as you said, I graduallylived through that as well,
right?
So when I started out with thecompany, we did Link and we did
Skype and we did all of thosethings that are now basically
(13:06):
the bottom layer of the wholestack.
And then Teams came up, we hadDynamics.
So what you see is thatMicrosoft had all of those
little pieces, those bits andpieces that are now becoming
this gigantic product.
They had that for a long timewith Azure and the Azure
Communication Service and therecording and transcription and
translation, all of thecognitive services that they
(13:29):
used to get the sentiment, andso it was really awesome to see
all of those pieces cometogether into one product, and I
can see the bits and piecesthat we have for so many years
now actually being tied togetherin a great way.
So obviously there's lots ofthings to do, but if you look at
(13:51):
the space of contact centers,where you see Puzzle or Genesis
or Avaya, like the old-fashionedphone company, it's different,
right.
It's more of a platformecosystem thing than it is
actually a phone system.
That is the other major figures.
They already have Dynamics andnow it ties into that and what
(14:14):
you see is that they are rapidlydeveloping this stuff, right.
So it's a more than completeplatform already.
You have barging functionality,you have voicemail, you have
incoming calls, you haveoutgoing calls, you have
recording, sentiment analysis,transcription, translation all
of that stuff in a realmulti-channel way, so you can
(14:35):
also do the chat and you canalso elevate chats to screen
sharing and co-browsing and thatsort of stuff.
But now it's being upgraded toalso be part of that Teams
ecosystem that they already haveand really tying in that VoIP
network where not every agent isactually part of Dynamics but
(14:57):
most of the users in companieslive on Teams, right?
So getting those experts inthat are on the back office that
are not part of your Dynamicsthat is also being made into
reality now.
Outgoing robocalling is on theroadmap, right?
So getting people, givingpeople a callback when it's
(15:21):
their time in the queue insteadof having them wait for 40
minutes, right?
All that sort of stuff that weas a customer, that I as a
customer, love, are now part ofthat product, and we see that
there's not many other productsout there right.
So we have a few.
Google does its thing.
We got Amazon Connect, but it'snot all as feature-complete as
(15:46):
Microsoft is.
So they're really a step aheadas Microsoft is.
So they're really a step ahead.
Plus, what I really like and Ithink that is a really great
move is that they made all ofthat contact center
functionality also available forthird-party CRMs, so I can
literally have my call centerfunctionality from Microsoft
(16:07):
with Copilot and my recordingand transcription, and I can put
it in my Salesforce right.
So the people that we have wehave lots of clients.
It's as Capgemini.
We service ServiceNow and Pegaand Salesforce and SAP all of
this stuff as well.
So we got lots of clients whoare on Salesforce and not per se
(16:27):
hate Microsoft, and now we canhave the best of both worlds,
which is amazing.
Yeah, that's really cool.
I love doing the thing thatfits the customer most right,
and this is it in most of thetime.
Mark Smith (16:42):
Two to three years ago there was the scenario and
that was the last time I wasinvolved in this area where you
had Microsoftrosoft had a, aphone system product that ran
inside teams and then you hadthe contact centerpiece right
and the two were kind of likedifferent teams from microsoft
(17:03):
would be selling this.
One, of course, would come fromthe teams based m365 part of
the org, the other would comefrom more the biz app side of
the org.
Um, has that been unified as in?
Because you know, the last Iwas like on a government project
, the last one, and they've justgone through a whole cycle of
moving to all their voice layerbeing done in microsoft teams.
(17:24):
So therefore, uh, I don't know,do we still use the term soft
phone, because it's one of theseteams, right, I still use it?
Peter Ruiter (17:32):
yeah, no, but if so, we got the ACS, which is
obviously the part where that istied into Dynamics, so you can
actually have the first partycalling from Microsoft, where
you purchase numbers fromMicrosoft and tie that into your
Dynamics and then they have,like, a managed Azure
communication service.
Or you can do that yourself inAzure and that into your
Dynamics and then they have amanaged Azure communication
service, or you can do thatyourself in Azure and then tying
(17:55):
your direct routing, which isreally cool you can bring your
own carrier, which has a lot ofadvantages.
I would always suggest doingthat, to be honest.
Mark Smith (18:04):
As in, there's a lot of advantages with going with
your direct carrier.
Peter Ruiter (18:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if you take a look atpricing, I mean for the ease of
setup, definitely go fullMicrosoft, right.
If you're in a greenfield,that's absolutely perfect.
But if you take a look atlicensing and of course most of
our clients are not in agreenfield they have already
(18:28):
carriers, they have contracts,cetera.
Incoming calls are really cheap,but outgoing calls are really
expensive.
So if you do outgoing calls inthe Netherlands, it's 35 cents a
minute, while incoming calls isone cent a minute.
So it's insane, right.
So if you have a lot ofoutgoing calls, the pricing
needs some readjustment here andthere, need some readjustment
(18:52):
here and there.
Plus, there's some small things, like if I want to do outgoing
calls, I need to have thosephone numbers tied into my ACS.
If I do the full Microsoftsetup, which is not usually the
case Many companies have onemain number that they want to
have on the display when they doan outbound call, right, and
(19:13):
you can't do that if you're inan all Microsoft setup.
So there's a few gotchas hereand there.
But back to your question.
If you see the pieces, so ACS isthe thing that ties it down in
Azure with Dynamics and on theother hand, we have all of the
Teams infrastructure, which wehave for a long time.
(19:35):
That also now has the queue appand, like, the reception desk,
is now in Teams, which is anawesome app, by the way.
That's really cool.
What we're going to see, whatis on the roadmap and it's
coming out real soon, is thatyou can actually choose to
bypass your ICS and just tie itright into Teams and then you
(19:59):
have that real merge, so tospeak, of those infrastructures,
and we saw that.
So Microsoft is calling itinternally the VNex platform.
We can now do around 5,000calls simultaneously per org,
which is really more than enoughfor every company that we have,
(20:20):
at least as a client.
So you can see that Microsoftis really busy scaling things up
, making things more resilientand tying that into the team's
infrastructure.
So it's a really great team.
To be honest, also on theMicrosoft side, they're really
receptive to feedback.
They're really doing rapidinnovation.
So, yeah, I'm really excited.
Mark Smith (20:41):
Nice, what's the compete like with Genesys?
Peter Ruiter (20:45):
Well, we do have a lot of clients that are still
on Genesys and they also useGenesys with Dynamics or in
combination with Dynamics, right.
So that's all fine.
But you can see that where theyuse Genesis, they mostly use
the CTI integration intoDynamics.
So you get that little sidepane on the channel integration
(21:07):
framework which works okay, butthen you're missing out on all
of the awesome stuff like thetranscription and the sentiment
and the recording and that sortof stuff.
And sure, genesis is offeringthe same right.
So they say, no, we can dorecording and we can do
transcription, but then it'soutside of the platform.
(21:27):
So what you see is thatsuddenly Copilot doesn't work,
right, suddenly Copilot doesn'twork and you can't.
I mean, if you use theMicrosoft way through ACS, you
can now have Dynamics offerwhile you're on the phone.
Hey, this is the most factualknowledge base article for you,
(21:48):
right?
So the empowerment of the agentyou're missing if you're doing
it through a CTI.
Mark Smith (21:55):
Yeah, so is a together play.
Is there an option for Genesysto coexist with Microsoft?
Peter Ruiter (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, of course that looks good.
If it looks good, I don't know.
You can see them struggling abit to find a proper way of
working together.
But Microsoft I think Microsoftis doing that really well.
They basically say we have afull way of integrating.
(22:22):
So this is our channelintegration framework.
You can do that.
We have direct line.
You can tie into that, you cantie into the chat, we have all
sorts of APIs that you can callupon and then you can literally
make use of our platform.
If you're the other end of thecoin, but you're not seeing that
they're picking that up and Iget that because they have
(22:44):
instead of tying it intoDynamics or tying it into the
Microsoft ecosystem, you can seethat they've rather built their
own suite.
You can see that they've ratherbuilt their own suite.
So instead you can see thatthey're building a CRM instead
of focusing on which, of course,it's never going to be on par
with a 20-year-old.
Exactly no, no, no.
They're never going to get thatmarket share like Salesforce or
(23:08):
Dynamics CRM which is also fine, right, there's a space for
everyone but it's for adifferent kind of customer than
the customers that we're dealingwith.
Mark Smith (23:18):
To be honest, Peter, this has been super interesting
.
Great talking to you.
Hopefully we'll get to see youshortly.
Are you going to Dynamics Mines?
Peter Ruiter (23:30):
No, I'm going to well, that is also a thing.
I would love to go to DynamicsMines.
No, I'm going to well, that isalso a thing.
I would love to go to DynamicsMines.
But at the same time there isthe BizApps Summit in Germany,
in Dusseldorf, and Capgemini.
Yeah, it's not on purpose, butit's very unfortunate that it's
exactly the same dates andCapgemini is also a sponsor on
(23:54):
the BizApps one.
So I mean not that I'm forcedto go there by Capgemini, but I
feel like I should show someloyalty of being there.
So I'm going to be speaking onthat one.
But yeah, dynamics Minds isgoing to be awesome as well.
I'm going to do the MVP Summit,so hopefully we'll see you
(24:14):
there yeah, perfect.
Mark Smith (24:15):
Be good.
Thank you, sir.
Peter Ruiter (24:17):
Have a great evening, Mark.
Mark Smith (24:24):
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host businessapplication MVP Mark Smith,
otherwise known as the NZ365 guy.
If you like the show and wantto be a supporter, check out
buymeacoffeecom.
Forward slash NZ365guy.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.
Thank you.
Welcome to the MVP show.
My intention is that you listento the stories of these MVP
guests and are inspired tobecome an MVP and bring value to
the world through your skills.
If you have not checked it outalready, I do a YouTube series
called how to Become an MVP.
The link is in the show notes.
With that, let's get on withthe show.
(00:31):
Today's guest is from theNetherlands.
He works at Capgemini as aprincipal solution architect and
cloud domain lead.
He was first awarded as MVP in2024.
In his free time you can findhim tinkering with new
technologies or spending timewith his family.
You can find links to his bioand socials in the show notes
(00:51):
for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Peter.
Peter Ruiter (00:54):
Thanks.
It's great to be here, Mark,thanks.
Mark Smith (00:57):
Good to have you on and good to hear your story, and
I always like to start withfood family and fun.
Peter Ruiter (01:09):
What do they mean to you?
Obviously, family is a key partof it, based on the
introduction, but tell me more.
Yeah, yeah, my family.
I got two kids.
I got two boys, 14 and 10.
I got a wife that is fromArgentine origin.
Well, she grew up in America.
We met, actually, at aMicrosoft conference at the
previous Ignite in Orlando whileshe was just living there.
(01:32):
We met up in Disney Springs.
She's not a tech nerd, as I am,but yeah, that's how life goes.
And now we're in theNetherlands.
She made the big jump to hereand is constantly complaining
about the horrible gray weather.
So in the end, we plan onliving in Florida, where it's a
(01:53):
little bit warmer than here, butfor now, the kids are still.
Mark Smith (01:56):
Where are you?
Peter Ruiter (01:56):
going to live to Florida.
She has.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's.
The weather is much, muchbetter than here.
Mark Smith (02:05):
Quite different.
It's a 10-year plan.
Peter Ruiter (02:07):
It's not next year , but it's a 10-year plan.
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Smith (02:11):
I like it, I like it , I like it.
And so then, what do you do forfood Like what's the best food
in the Netherlands?
Peter Ruiter (02:19):
Oh, the Dutch cuisine is horrible, to be
honest.
We have all of the crockets andthe bitterbollen, but it's
basically the stump of themashed potatoes and with carrots
, but basically it's notsomething that I would recommend
anyone.
So, no, no, but to be honest,we like a bit of everything.
So you can find Italian kitchen, some Chinese, basically
(02:43):
everything.
The French cuisine cuisine, um,yeah, that's good everywhere.
I, I personally, really likethe meats, right.
So so the steaks, uh, etc.
And it's.
It's really sad if you go toargentina, where we got married,
uh, it's a whole different ballgame than it's here, but uh, no
, no, the steak is great.
(03:04):
I like the meat still.
Mark Smith (03:07):
I couldn't go to the Netherlands without having
bitterbollen and croquettes,though.
Peter Ruiter (03:12):
I know, well, we do good sweets.
I would say the stroopwafelsand that sort of stuff.
That's pretty good, we'll takethem for….
Waffles are great.
Yeah, take them for the familyand the friends abroad.
So yeah, that's, that's prettygood, we'll take him for.
Uh, waffles are great.
Yeah, take them for the familyand the friends abroad.
Mark Smith (03:26):
So yeah, that's good and, and I find you can get
some special chocolates andgummies and all sorts there and
and the netherlands that arequite unique.
Peter Ruiter (03:34):
You don't get everywhere else in the world no,
no, that is absolutely true,and I I think that the chocolate
in in well, basically in europe, is much, much better than it's
in America.
The American chocolate is awful, it's an acquired taste, but if
you come from Europe and youmove over there, then it's not
that great.
Mark Smith (03:52):
Yeah, so true, so true.
At the end of the day, yourcountry founded our country.
Well, New Zealand is namedafter the Netherlands, right?
Peter Ruiter (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, and a bunch of places in in the states
as well, I mean in new york.
You see all of the, the, thenames of the cities that are
still resembling a lot of uh, umcities here, like brooklyn is
brooklyn and new york wasobviously new amsterdam before.
So there's much, much heritagehere and there that you come
(04:24):
across.
Yeah.
Mark Smith (04:27):
I went to a wedding in Canada, in Vancouver, and the
family name getting married wasStroop, and so Stroop waffles
were part of what was given outto everybody and, yeah, it was
really good.
Oh, that's cool.
Tell me about your journey intotech.
(04:48):
Why did you take this career?
Peter Ruiter (04:51):
Well, my journey was a little bit curvy, to be
honest, when I well, I graduatedin 2006 and back then there was
not that much choice in in uheducation as there is now.
There's not so many, so manydigital careers and so many
(05:12):
different programming careers.
It wasn't the thing back then.
Obviously, you had javaprogramming and that sort of
stuff, but I I did somethingwhich was called media
technology.
It was a.
It was a new education, a newstudy that doesn't exist anymore
.
So the thing that I did is itwas actually part of the electro
(05:33):
engineering, so I'm an actualengineer.
But that was actually prettynice.
So it had a little bit ofeverything.
It had game technology,simulation, but also like
literally built bikes withsimulators.
That was part of the education.
So that was pretty nice.
And after my graduation Istarted getting into building
(05:56):
websites.
That was the thing I mean.
I was already doing that as ahobby and I rolled into PHP,
open source programming.
The Linux world did everythingon PHP and I know it's now when
you talk to all of the Microsoftguys it's like it's a curse
word.
Right?
Php is not a, it's a hobbylanguage, which I don't agree
with.
But back then it was kind of afight back and forth but that
(06:24):
was pretty great.
And I rolled into marketingautomation based on PHP.
So we built asset management.
I was doing some of the firstmarketing automation with actual
snail mail.
So back then that was magic,right.
We did for a large bank in theNetherlands.
We had programs that could seehow much money you got into your
(06:48):
account and then if you touchthe mortgage calculator we could
actually send you a letter withan image of a villa or a
shackled home, which now itsounds like childish and stupid.
But back then it was magic andwe sent tens of thousands of
letters a day by mail.
And obviously later I did thatfor a few years and then
(07:12):
suddenly the company wentbankrupt, which is really
strange because it was not ourcompany.
Our company was doing reallywell, but the mother company,
the holding company, wasactually a big printing
corporation and that was well.
Suddenly we went out ofbusiness.
So we bought the company out ofbankruptcy.
(07:32):
We did that for a bunch moreyears and then I was kind of
done.
It was so many years that I didthe same thing in the PHP.
I was the go-to guy foreverything right, which at some
point that should make youwonder like is this challenging
enough for me again?
Do I need to do something else?
(07:54):
So I sold my shares and Iswitched to Microsoft, which was
really strange, and I think itwas one of the most
uncomfortable moments in my lifewhere I needed like six months
to basically convince myself ohGod, did I make the right choice
(08:16):
?
Because I went from the go-toguy that was me for many, many
years to the guy who knowsabsolutely nothing right, and it
was a C-sharp.
It was a software companyC-sharp.
We did a lot of SharePoint,because Power Platform didn't
even exist back then, customdevelopment on SharePoint, and
(08:36):
then Dynamics came up and PowerPlatform came later.
But that took me quite some timeto get my grip again and to
quickly become that go-to guyagain.
Because in the end, if you lookback, it's just another dialect
and the principles are all thesame and the way of thinking is
the same.
But before I ended up in thatspace, it took some time and I
(09:03):
did that for another seven years.
It was well.
It took some time and I didthat for another seven years.
And now I switched to Capgeminitwo and a half years ago, where
it's a little bit bigger.
It's a little bit moreenterprise.
It's a little bit.
It's a different world.
There's a lot of red tape,obviously, because it's much
more enterprise than what I didbefore.
So it has its pros and cons.
But yeah, now I'm here and, asyou said, I was already doing a
(09:26):
lot of public speaking.
I was a trainer for many, manyyears at a previous company as
well, so Microsoft CertifiedTrainer, which I really like.
I really like to share myknowledge, et cetera.
And being an MVP was kind ofalways on my wish list but never
(09:49):
had the time, or well.
I think it's about making timeand prioritizing it, but it was
never on my agenda to actuallypush myself out there, so to
speak.
Right.
So I was doing all of thosethings but never put it in like,
oh, it's something special.
It was something that I wouldlike to do and that I already
did.
I like to be the publicspeaking, to do the user groups
(10:10):
and to share the knowledge anddo the training, et cetera.
But now, yeah, also, that is alittle bit bigger and Capgemini
is well big enough to sponsor afew trips here and there, so
that comes in handy as well,right.
Mark Smith (10:24):
Nice, Nice, yeah With Capgem.
Are you Capgem Netherlands oris Netherlands part of Europe?
Capgem Europe?
How do you segment up insideCapgem?
Peter Ruiter (10:37):
Yeah, so it's per country, but we obviously have a
European framework as well, sowe have a European COE, that
well, I'm talking about theMicrosoft side, right?
Well, I'm talking about theMicrosoft side, right.
So if we look at the Microsoftside, it can geminize around
350,000 people.
So it's a large, large company,and within the Netherlands, we
(11:01):
got around 10,000, with SoCityincluded as well Wow, that's
massive.
Yeah, that's pretty massivestill, and then within that, we
have around 300 people that arein the digital customer
experience cluster that I'm in,and within that, we have 80
people that are fully onDynamics and Power Platform.
(11:24):
So I'm one of those 80.
So I'm the Power Platform leadfor Capgemini, the Netherlands,
and my daily job consists mostlyof doing dynamics projects and
more complex projects.
I really like the contactcenter space that we're in now.
I mean, microsoft is doingmassive steps there, but I come
(11:48):
from that custom developmentside with all of the integration
, all the Azure and all of thecustom development, so that
still is close to my heart,right?
So, yeah, within that, 80people, I think, yeah, I'm one
of the principals there, so that, yeah.
Mark Smith (12:08):
Very good.
Tell me about contact centerhow big you touched on it there?
How big is that becoming?
In particular, you know we'veseen Microsoft go through
iterations.
I think it'd been about 20years in the space back when I
was selling it.
It was way back.
We had what was called theCustomer Care Framework as in
(12:29):
like.
There was a lot of standardsand guidance around how we
created a single pane of glass.
It was unified service desk andaround 2015.
Peter Ruiter (12:39):
Oh, no, yeah yeah, yeah, I did all of that.
Usd was horrible.
Now, looking back to it, it washorrible, right.
No, no, we did amazing thingsback then, yeah.
So, as you said, I graduallylived through that as well,
right?
So when I started out with thecompany, we did Link and we did
Skype and we did all of thosethings that are now basically
(13:06):
the bottom layer of the wholestack.
And then Teams came up, we hadDynamics.
So what you see is thatMicrosoft had all of those
little pieces, those bits andpieces that are now becoming
this gigantic product.
They had that for a long timewith Azure and the Azure
Communication Service and therecording and transcription and
translation, all of thecognitive services that they
(13:29):
used to get the sentiment, andso it was really awesome to see
all of those pieces cometogether into one product, and I
can see the bits and piecesthat we have for so many years
now actually being tied togetherin a great way.
So obviously there's lots ofthings to do, but if you look at
(13:51):
the space of contact centers,where you see Puzzle or Genesis
or Avaya, like the old-fashionedphone company, it's different,
right.
It's more of a platformecosystem thing than it is
actually a phone system.
That is the other major figures.
They already have Dynamics andnow it ties into that and what
(14:14):
you see is that they are rapidlydeveloping this stuff, right.
So it's a more than completeplatform already.
You have barging functionality,you have voicemail, you have
incoming calls, you haveoutgoing calls, you have
recording, sentiment analysis,transcription, translation all
of that stuff in a realmulti-channel way, so you can
(14:35):
also do the chat and you canalso elevate chats to screen
sharing and co-browsing and thatsort of stuff.
But now it's being upgraded toalso be part of that Teams
ecosystem that they already haveand really tying in that VoIP
network where not every agent isactually part of Dynamics but
(14:57):
most of the users in companieslive on Teams, right?
So getting those experts inthat are on the back office that
are not part of your Dynamicsthat is also being made into
reality now.
Outgoing robocalling is on theroadmap, right?
So getting people, givingpeople a callback when it's
(15:21):
their time in the queue insteadof having them wait for 40
minutes, right?
All that sort of stuff that weas a customer, that I as a
customer, love, are now part ofthat product, and we see that
there's not many other productsout there right.
So we have a few.
Google does its thing.
We got Amazon Connect, but it'snot all as feature-complete as
(15:46):
Microsoft is.
So they're really a step aheadas Microsoft is.
So they're really a step ahead.
Plus, what I really like and Ithink that is a really great
move is that they made all ofthat contact center
functionality also available forthird-party CRMs, so I can
literally have my call centerfunctionality from Microsoft
(16:07):
with Copilot and my recordingand transcription, and I can put
it in my Salesforce right.
So the people that we have wehave lots of clients.
It's as Capgemini.
We service ServiceNow and Pegaand Salesforce and SAP all of
this stuff as well.
So we got lots of clients whoare on Salesforce and not per se
(16:27):
hate Microsoft, and now we canhave the best of both worlds,
which is amazing.
Yeah, that's really cool.
I love doing the thing thatfits the customer most right,
and this is it in most of thetime.
Mark Smith (16:42):
Two to three years ago there was the scenario and
that was the last time I wasinvolved in this area where you
had Microsoftrosoft had a, aphone system product that ran
inside teams and then you hadthe contact centerpiece right
and the two were kind of likedifferent teams from microsoft
(17:03):
would be selling this.
One, of course, would come fromthe teams based m365 part of
the org, the other would comefrom more the biz app side of
the org.
Um, has that been unified as in?
Because you know, the last Iwas like on a government project
, the last one, and they've justgone through a whole cycle of
moving to all their voice layerbeing done in microsoft teams.
(17:24):
So therefore, uh, I don't know,do we still use the term soft
phone, because it's one of theseteams, right, I still use it?
Peter Ruiter (17:32):
yeah, no, but if so, we got the ACS, which is
obviously the part where that istied into Dynamics, so you can
actually have the first partycalling from Microsoft, where
you purchase numbers fromMicrosoft and tie that into your
Dynamics and then they have,like, a managed Azure
communication service.
Or you can do that yourself inAzure and that into your
Dynamics and then they have amanaged Azure communication
service, or you can do thatyourself in Azure and then tying
(17:55):
your direct routing, which isreally cool you can bring your
own carrier, which has a lot ofadvantages.
I would always suggest doingthat, to be honest.
Mark Smith (18:04):
As in, there's a lot of advantages with going with
your direct carrier.
Peter Ruiter (18:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if you take a look atpricing, I mean for the ease of
setup, definitely go fullMicrosoft, right.
If you're in a greenfield,that's absolutely perfect.
But if you take a look atlicensing and of course most of
our clients are not in agreenfield they have already
(18:28):
carriers, they have contracts,cetera.
Incoming calls are really cheap,but outgoing calls are really
expensive.
So if you do outgoing calls inthe Netherlands, it's 35 cents a
minute, while incoming calls isone cent a minute.
So it's insane, right.
So if you have a lot ofoutgoing calls, the pricing
needs some readjustment here andthere, need some readjustment
(18:52):
here and there.
Plus, there's some small things, like if I want to do outgoing
calls, I need to have thosephone numbers tied into my ACS.
If I do the full Microsoftsetup, which is not usually the
case Many companies have onemain number that they want to
have on the display when they doan outbound call, right, and
(19:13):
you can't do that if you're inan all Microsoft setup.
So there's a few gotchas hereand there.
But back to your question.
If you see the pieces, so ACS isthe thing that ties it down in
Azure with Dynamics and on theother hand, we have all of the
Teams infrastructure, which wehave for a long time.
(19:35):
That also now has the queue appand, like, the reception desk,
is now in Teams, which is anawesome app, by the way.
That's really cool.
What we're going to see, whatis on the roadmap and it's
coming out real soon, is thatyou can actually choose to
bypass your ICS and just tie itright into Teams and then you
(19:59):
have that real merge, so tospeak, of those infrastructures,
and we saw that.
So Microsoft is calling itinternally the VNex platform.
We can now do around 5,000calls simultaneously per org,
which is really more than enoughfor every company that we have,
(20:20):
at least as a client.
So you can see that Microsoftis really busy scaling things up
, making things more resilientand tying that into the team's
infrastructure.
So it's a really great team.
To be honest, also on theMicrosoft side, they're really
receptive to feedback.
They're really doing rapidinnovation.
So, yeah, I'm really excited.
Mark Smith (20:41):
Nice, what's the compete like with Genesys?
Peter Ruiter (20:45):
Well, we do have a lot of clients that are still
on Genesys and they also useGenesys with Dynamics or in
combination with Dynamics, right.
So that's all fine.
But you can see that where theyuse Genesis, they mostly use
the CTI integration intoDynamics.
So you get that little sidepane on the channel integration
(21:07):
framework which works okay, butthen you're missing out on all
of the awesome stuff like thetranscription and the sentiment
and the recording and that sortof stuff.
And sure, genesis is offeringthe same right.
So they say, no, we can dorecording and we can do
transcription, but then it'soutside of the platform.
(21:27):
So what you see is thatsuddenly Copilot doesn't work,
right, suddenly Copilot doesn'twork and you can't.
I mean, if you use theMicrosoft way through ACS, you
can now have Dynamics offerwhile you're on the phone.
Hey, this is the most factualknowledge base article for you,
(21:48):
right?
So the empowerment of the agentyou're missing if you're doing
it through a CTI.
Mark Smith (21:55):
Yeah, so is a together play.
Is there an option for Genesysto coexist with Microsoft?
Peter Ruiter (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, of course that looks good.
If it looks good, I don't know.
You can see them struggling abit to find a proper way of
working together.
But Microsoft I think Microsoftis doing that really well.
They basically say we have afull way of integrating.
(22:22):
So this is our channelintegration framework.
You can do that.
We have direct line.
You can tie into that, you cantie into the chat, we have all
sorts of APIs that you can callupon and then you can literally
make use of our platform.
If you're the other end of thecoin, but you're not seeing that
they're picking that up and Iget that because they have
(22:44):
instead of tying it intoDynamics or tying it into the
Microsoft ecosystem, you can seethat they've rather built their
own suite.
You can see that they've ratherbuilt their own suite.
So instead you can see thatthey're building a CRM instead
of focusing on which, of course,it's never going to be on par
with a 20-year-old.
Exactly no, no, no.
They're never going to get thatmarket share like Salesforce or
(23:08):
Dynamics CRM which is also fine, right, there's a space for
everyone but it's for adifferent kind of customer than
the customers that we're dealingwith.
Mark Smith (23:18):
To be honest, Peter, this has been super interesting
.
Great talking to you.
Hopefully we'll get to see youshortly.
Are you going to Dynamics Mines?
Peter Ruiter (23:30):
No, I'm going to well, that is also a thing.
I would love to go to DynamicsMines.
No, I'm going to well, that isalso a thing.
I would love to go to DynamicsMines.
But at the same time there isthe BizApps Summit in Germany,
in Dusseldorf, and Capgemini.
Yeah, it's not on purpose, butit's very unfortunate that it's
exactly the same dates andCapgemini is also a sponsor on
(23:54):
the BizApps one.
So I mean not that I'm forcedto go there by Capgemini, but I
feel like I should show someloyalty of being there.
So I'm going to be speaking onthat one.
But yeah, dynamics Minds isgoing to be awesome as well.
I'm going to do the MVP Summit,so hopefully we'll see you
(24:14):
there yeah, perfect.
Mark Smith (24:15):
Be good.
Thank you, sir.
Peter Ruiter (24:17):
Have a great evening, Mark.
Mark Smith (24:24):
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host businessapplication MVP Mark Smith,
otherwise known as the NZ365 guy.
If you like the show and wantto be a supporter, check out
buymeacoffeecom.
Forward slash NZ365guy.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.
Thank you.
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