March 24, 2025 • 37 mins
Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM
FULL SHOW NOTES
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/668
Microsoft's digital technology specialist from Singapore shares insights on enterprise-scale Power Platform implementations and how AI is transforming business processes across industries. We explore the psychology behind enterprise architects' resistance to low-code platforms and examine real-world success stories from major banks and global organizations.
TAKEAWAYS
• The psychological barriers enterprise architects face when considering low-code platforms
• Parallels between historical resistance to .NET and today's hesitation about Power Platform
• Case study of a major bank that improved performance 12-fold by migrating from legacy ERP
• How a UK bank used Power Automate to fix a critical integration in hours instead of weeks
• The impact of agentic AI on eliminating "performance leaks" in organizational workflows
• Transforming contact centers with intelligent routing and AI-powered agent assistance
• Why smaller organizations without legacy data "baggage" are well-positioned for AI adoption
• How the Power Platform enables consolidation of business processes similar to data lakes
This year we're adding a new show to our line up - The AI Advantage. We'll discuss the skills you need to thrive in an AI-enabled world.
DynamicsMinds is a world-class event in Slovenia that brings together Microsoft product managers, industry leaders, and dedicated users to explore the latest in Microsoft Dynamics 365, the Power Platform, and Copilot.
Early bird tickets are on sale now and listeners of the Microsoft Innovation Podcast get 10% off with the code MIPVIP144bff
https://www.dynamicsminds.com/register/?voucher=MIPVIP144bff
Accelerate your Microsoft career with the 90 Day Mentoring Challenge
We’ve helped 1,300+ people across 70+ countries establish successful careers in the Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365 ecosystem.
Benefit from expert guidance, a supportive community, and a clear career roadmap. A lot can change in 90 days, get started today!
If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.
Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Smith (00:01):
Welcome to the Co-Pilot Show where I interview
Microsoft staff innovating withAI.
I hope you will find thispodcast educational and inspire
you to do more with this greattechnology.
Now let's get on with the show.
In this episode we're focusingon large enterprise
implementations of the PowerPlatform.
We might touch on a bit ofcontact center dynamics the
(00:25):
actual whole gamut we'llprobably cover today.
Our guest is from Singapore.
He works at Microsoft as adigital technology specialist.
He's been working in this spacefor many years.
You can find links to his bioand socials in the show notes
for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Mayank.
Mayank Bhardwaj (00:42):
Thank you for having me, mark, really glad to
be here.
Mark Smith (00:45):
Good to have you on the show.
I Thank you for having me, mark, really glad to be here.
Mayank Bhardwaj (00:49):
Good to have you on the show, I always like
to start with food, family andfun.
What do they mean to you?
Food is a way of connectionthough it's a little bit
complicated relationship with mebecause I follow a little weird
ways of having food.
I go on elongated fasts, like amonth-long fast, 15 days fast,
right, and I do a lot ofintermittent fasting.
So there's a lot of time I haveto say no to food, to family
(01:11):
and friends, and that reallyhurts.
But you gotta do what you gottado for yourself, and family, of
course, comes first, becausethat's what grounds you, that's
what gives you, you know, thevision of where you come from
and where you're going at right.
So a lot of things that webuild up as our personality
actually comes from ourforefathers, people that we know
(01:32):
of within our families, right.
So it's very critical to holdon to that and really be
grounded to who you are and whoyou have been within that gene
tree that you're coming from.
Mark Smith (01:45):
Yeah, so true, yeah, so true, so true.
And what do you do for?
Mayank Bhardwaj (01:46):
fun.
So for fun, I like to travelaround, so I'm in singapore
right now, so there's a lot ofstuff to explore here.
That's what I've been doing for, you know, past three months
right now.
Apart from that, I like tolearn a little bit, help people
I mentor a lot of people as wellwithin the industry and helping
(02:07):
them you know sort of copethrough their where they are in
life, with their careers, whatthey need to learn, as well as
you know how they can basicallyset things up for themselves to
see that growth that they'relooking at.
Some of them don't even knowwhere they want to get at, so
helping them figure that out aswell.
So those are some of the waysthat I use my free time to
(02:30):
really give back to thecommunity.
Mark Smith (02:33):
Nice, nice.
Now you said, you do fasting.
Mayank Bhardwaj (02:36):
Yeah.
Mark Smith (02:37):
I fast a lot.
Yeah, you do, I fast every dayoh nice yes.
I start eating at 12 o'clock, Ifinish by 8 pm and then I don't
eat till the next day.
Mayank Bhardwaj (02:46):
Okay, so that's eight hour window yeah, and
then I also do.
Mark Smith (02:50):
I've done two full 21 day water only fasts, wow how
was that for you?
Amazing?
Yeah, incredible, right.
But what happened in, I don'tknow, maybe November, october,
november last year and I've beendoing intermittent fasting for
all of last year and I've doneit for years before as well but
I decided I hadn't done along-term fast again, so I
(03:12):
decided to do a seven-day fast.
It's the easiest seven-day fast, and when I say fast, that's
water only.
No coffee, no, nothing justwater only for the entire thing
and I couldn't believe how easyit was, and I think it was
because I've been intermittentfasting.
Now, for so long.
Yeah, you know, when I'd donethe long fasts in the past I'd
(03:34):
never been intermittent fastingRight and I just found it so
easy to merge into a fullyfasted state Right and not feel
like it was a drudgery.
The worst issue I had throughthe process was, I think,
potassium withdrawal Right,exactly Like the pain in my
lower back was like a potassium.
Mayank Bhardwaj (03:55):
Yeah, I feel so dizziness.
Any pains, heart palpitations,that's salts going down in your
bloodstream.
Mark Smith (04:03):
So you have to have those fasting salts potassium,
sodium salts, magnesium saltsyeah, so that's the way to go
about it there's just so muchresearch in showing how it gets
rid of the bad stuff oraccumulation that you've had in
your body when you do exactly afull fast, and I just think it
(04:23):
should be standard lifestylechoice for everybody, not a
special thing.
Mayank Bhardwaj (04:26):
It should just be exactly it's not easy to
start, even for me.
I've been doing this for likenow for 10 years now, but still
the first three days aredifficult because of the hunger
pangs.
Because I come from backgroundof whole foodies, right so I
recently got my dean tested andI actually got a formation on
(04:47):
one of the theories that I hadabout my family.
So, in my family, the storiesthat goes around, you know,
about the indian weddings, rightso my uncles, my you know,
maternal uncles, paternal uncles, the stories that they would
tell us they would eat a bucketfull of sweets at marriages,
right, get the ladies at thehouse to cook the food again
(05:09):
after they finished everythingthat was previously cooked.
I used to think that, you know,probably my gene pool already
has some way of processing allthat sugar.
And I recently got my DNA testand it actually showed that my
ability to process sugar andcarbohydrate is much higher than
the normal population, right?
So I know, with food it's avery strong relation in the way
(05:33):
that I grew up.
The first time I tried fastingwas probably when I was in sixth
standard and the whole fasting.
Basically I got into it.
My grandmother was doing it forreligious reasons and I started
doing it and within four hoursmark I had to eat something.
I just couldn't do it right.
I was like the shortest fast Icould do four hours, right.
(05:56):
But then, you know, when I wasin my 30s I got to a point where
I was 110 kgs right, and youand you bend down.
You can't stand up.
And that's where you know beingin the software industry you
have to work long hours andimplementations take your nights
as well, so you can't spend toomuch time in the gym.
(06:18):
So that's where I startedresearching on what is the easy
way, you know, to get healthyand that's where I came across
fasting and that's when I slowlygot into it, right, so move
your breakfast from 8 am to 9 10, then skip the breakfast
altogether.
Move your lunch to the evenings, then skip that.
And then the first fast that Iever did was actually in one of
(06:40):
the most complex implementationsthat I was doing for one of the
automobile industries in India,one of the largest complex
implementations that I was doingfor one of the automobile
industries in India, one of thelargest automobile industries in
India.
I was so intense.
The team was all flabbergastedbecause of the challenges.
We were shot down, you know top, right and center, and your
whole mind was in it.
So that's where I thought whynot skip a couple of meals and
(07:02):
see right?
And that's where I did my firstfour days fast and it was such
a good experience, right?
So the cleansing you could feeland the clarity of thoughts
that came through after that wasreally amazing, and that's
where you know.
After that I just continued,increased the fast from four
days to 15 days, and then I'vedone a couple of one-month fasts
(07:23):
as well.
So last year I did one monthfast.
I just completed my three daysfast yesterday itself.
I thought my family's going tobe here, I'm going to be out
eating, so I not do a quickcleanse before that.
So, yeah, yeah.
Mark Smith (07:36):
I can't recommend it enough and right.
You know what I've noticed?
There's quite a differencebetween male and female fasting
yeah, you shouldn't you know?
I say to my wife don't followwhat I do exactly.
Go and get educated on how youshould apply it for you, correct
?
Women have more hormones, to myunderstanding, than guys, and
so it's different.
Mayank Bhardwaj (07:55):
Yeah, so the whole emotions are driven by
hormones, so it's important totake those into concentration.
Mark Smith (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, what I did notice is that my most
recent seven-day fast I was themost emotionally level than what
I have been, because the lasttime I did it was years ago, a
seven-day, and I was angry LikeI was high angry, you know.
Mayank Bhardwaj (08:20):
You know everything frustrated me.
Yeah, you turn into a diva,totally.
I mean, you turn into a totaldiva.
You're like, oh my God, what'sgoing on?
And then you realize probablyyour salts are dropping, so true
.
Mark Smith (08:33):
So true.
Tell me about large-scaleimplementations on either
Dynamics 365 or the PowerPlatform and how this comes
about.
I noticed that enterprisecustomers, some very large
customers, were not treating thepower platform as an enterprise
play right.
They considered sap, is thatpegger?
(08:55):
Is that service now, is thatoracle xyz?
Is that they weren't taking thepower platform seriously?
And because I had bought up withdynamics you you know from the
early days of I started with 1.2, so 21 years ago, we had always
taken the product and built bigapplications that are still
used today, correct.
(09:15):
And we used to ask Microsoftsay, microsoft, please just
forget the CRM piece, just giveus, you know, what we now call
model-driven app development.
Give us that we will what wenow call model-driven app
development.
Give us that we will buildapplications on it, leave it to
us.
We got that, but with it we gota story of low code.
And what happened is enterprisearchitects heard this word, low
(09:37):
code, and it's probably noteven the low code piece, because
Dynamics was always low code,right.
What they heard was anybody canbuild apps on this Exactly and
they go.
Well, hang on a second.
It's not just about buildingapps.
It's around the robustness ofthat app.
It's around regression testing.
(09:57):
It's around applicationlifecycle management.
It's about making sure thatwhen we're in a mission-critical
scenario, the app that's builtby Susie and accounting is not
going to break.
Right, and we're going to be.
You know, any business is aboutrisk mitigation.
So when they hear that anybodycan build apps, their risk radar
goes off and they go.
(10:18):
This will not be the enterpriseplatform of choice for us, and
I'm wanting to do a series thatI try and show that Actually,
people are building large.
You know the fact that it'sbuilt on Azure, which a lot of
these people that make thesecalls don't realize.
It's an enterpriseinfrastructure.
Yeah, when I used to competeagainst IBM and Place, they used
(10:39):
to run down Microsoft.
You know it wasn't enterprise.
Well, I think the proof is inthe pudding right.
Exactly want to hear yourstories about some of the big
enterprise projects that you'vebeen involved in and why the
power platform was chosen overxyz product.
You know could have been out inthe market.
Yeah, so do you mind?
Mayank Bhardwaj (10:59):
if I take a stab at the psychology of why
people think and why thearchitects think that it's not
going to be a choice for theenterprise, right?
So let's take a step back andthink in the of the era when
people used to code in binaryand the level of optimization
that had to go in that binarycoding.
Now, when Microsoft releasedsomething like NET, a 12th
(11:22):
grader could use NET to buildhis applications.
We saw absolute similarpushback from those people back
then as well.
Right, what do you mean?
I mean, I write that binarycode.
I have to think about 2,000things, 20,000 things, to make
it optimally run on my platform,my hardware.
And now suddenly some12-gatherer can come and write
(11:44):
some if-then-else statements andit's going to work on my
hardware.
It's not going to want to workon my hardware, right?
Going to work on my hardware?
It's not going to want to workon my hardware, right?
So, similarly, architects oftoday right, given their history
, when they look at this now,when you had to build an
application and deploy it to theenvironment, you had to look at
the protocols, you had to lookat optimization of databases,
you had to look at so manythings, and now you're saying
(12:06):
that none of that is requiredand something will automatically
take care of that without mehaving to do anything about it.
I mean, how can I even trust allof these aspects, right?
I don't know what you've done.
Yes, I don't know whether itreally works or not, right?
And that is where we need somesocial proof to showcase, and
there are these.
Then I know pioneeringorganizations that take the
(12:28):
first step to actually onboardthemselves on these new
platforms.
Right, it's the same thing thatwe had with ai as well.
What is ai?
I mean, how can somethingthat's not me be more
intelligent than me, right?
So why should I even trust?
That's a lack of trust,basically.
That comes in.
But then I've gone into callswith cioss, ctos and questions
(12:51):
like show me where's the code ofyour software.
I'm like there's no code, right, how does that work?
I mean, you have to compile,you have to sort of debug.
How do I debug?
It's all built into theplatform.
No, I don't understand that,right?
So there are those mindsets aswell in the industry today who
actually want to go deep intocode development and do things
(13:14):
on their own and like theflexibility that they've got.
But then there are those whounderstand really that within a
manufacturing organization,within a business organization,
the IT is just an enabler andfor them to get into that kind
of product development might notdo justice to all the
investment that the organizationis doing.
(13:36):
So why not use something thathas the scale of economy and has
been built by all the bestexperts that have conglomerated
together into an organizationlike Microsoft, taking care of
all the different aspects ofdatabase management,
(13:58):
optimization, code management,code optimization, right.
And then I sort of use that andsee how that fares out and then
reach out and give feedback andget in return more optimized
versions of the same platform,right, an evergreen platform
that you can give feedback toand get back those.
It might take a little bit oftime of time, but will obviously
take less time than what youcould have built at that level
of scale, right.
That's where the psychologybasically plays, and people you
(14:19):
know who've come from thatbackground of co-development
basically don't really get whythey should trust somebody else.
When I'm as good I've had ahistory of building good
applications, why should I trustthat you're better than me?
And that is where I think a lotof organizations, so a lot of
(14:40):
discussions that I've been infor Power Platform.
The first thing is oh, isn'tPower Platform a platform for
smaller apps?
You can build those small apps,but I don't think you can build
.
I was doing this for one of thebeverages leads in sri lanka,
right, and he asked me.
The cto there asked me thisquestion, don't you think you
(15:00):
know this would break, becauseI've been working on m365 power
platform and that is one breakeras well.
You can't compare m365 PowerPlatform with the premium power
platform, because M365 PowerPlatform is built to automate
your M365 ecosystem.
It does not have theinfrastructure behind the scenes
to support businessapplications.
It does not have the necessarycapabilities to support database
(15:25):
management either.
Dataverse is your databasemanagement on steroids, on AI
optimization behind the scenes.
If you want to look at businessscenarios, you have to look at
the business application part ofthe power platform, the premium
power platform.
That's where the turbo chargeis in, so you can have a small
(15:48):
car.
So you can have a small car andyou can say that it takes me
places, similar places, but itwon't take you there in the same
time that a large race car or aturbocharged car will.
So if that's your choice andcompletely you know, depending
on what you want to prioritizein life in your vision.
If you just want to get there,probably a smaller car is for
you.
If you just want to get there,probably a smaller car is for
(16:10):
you.
But if you want to get therefast and you want to be there on
time every time, then probablya turbocharged car or a power
platform premium is what youwant to go ahead with.
I like it From implementationperspective.
Really large multinationalconglomerates, world-leading car
manufacturers we're seeing allof these stories in the, you
(16:33):
know, publicly available as wellbanks, right, the most complex
implementations mark in theworld are for the banks because
of the level of validations thatthey have to build into, the
level of calculations that theyhave to do, the level of checks
that they have to build into.
No small application in a bankis any less than an
(16:53):
enterprise-grade applicationwithin any other industry.
Right, and HDFC Bank, india'sone of the largest banks,
catering to tens of millions ofcustomers, have decided that
Power Platform is going to betheir platform of innovation and
if you want to use any othertechnology, you would come back
(17:15):
with a reason of why you can'tbuild it on Power Platform.
People are doing that already.
There are a lot of financialorganizations who utilize this,
turn this into their choice ofplatform of innovation and using
it seamlessly to build,integrate with their government
partners, with the externalpartners, internal processes,
(17:38):
all in the bid to do what peoplehave been doing with data lakes
for data.
Consolidating the data is whatPower Platform is doing for
business processes consolidatingall the business processes into
a single layer so that everyuser, from a maintenance
perspective, makes it easybecause you can have role-based
applications.
And for user perspective, itmakes it easy because, behind
(18:00):
the scenes, the platform iscapable of connecting to maybe
10 or 20 different applicationsthat you've got in your
ecosystem right, and which is anormal thing right 10 years ago,
when we embarked on the digitaltransformation, what we started
doing was we started collectingthese siloed applications to
automate these specific businessprocesses because we were all
(18:21):
getting started right.
So we wanted to you know sortof streamline sales we got the
sales application.
We want to streamline servicegot a service application.
We want to streamlineoperations we got operations,
you know application.
But then soon we realized thatthrough these applications, well
, we were not really helpingpeople collaborate together and
(18:43):
the data was all scattered.
Obviously we were collecting alot of data, but were we
connecting them together?
We were not right, and that'swhere the whole concept of let's
look at the data and bring inthe data lakes and warehouses in
and let's see if we can build.
You know, those are.
Those were the phases of theindustry.
So data lake there, warehouses,insights.
(19:05):
Right now we're looking at morecomprehensive ecosystem of
applications that sits on asingle data layer and obviously,
as an organization, you mighthave invested in other
applications as well.
That's where Microsoft allowsyou to utilize connectors to
actually connect all of thosenot just data, but experiences
as well.
Right, because the user shouldnot have to jump around
(19:28):
application to application to dohis job.
Right, he should be able to dothe job where he's sitting,
within the application, becausewe all know the focus is very
scarce today.
Right, if I have to click onthat minimize button, there are
chances within 10 seconds I'llforget what I was doing, because
there was a pop-up down there.
There was some shiny app therethat I thought, okay, let's
(19:50):
quickly check on that, and thenI have lost the whole trail of
you know what I was doing.
That's where power platformbasically comes in.
It lets you do all of thespecific activities that you
need to do from your processwhether you are in sales,
whether you're in service,whether you're in operations,
whether you're in finance from asingle play of view, right.
(20:10):
That's the beauty of theplatform.
That's where Microsoft hasinvested in building it into
something that can help peoplefocus and do what they would
really like to do, want to do,and with AI, we're trying to
remove the drudgery as well.
Mark Smith (20:25):
Can you give me some examples of industries that
you've seen, largeimplementations that are maybe,
know, maybe four or five years,ten years on that are still
running what was either dynamics365, then the power platform,
from really 2018, 2019 onwards?
Right because, when I look backat my crowd, there's multiple
(20:46):
applications.
They're still fully in inproduction because of that
scalability and that Microsoftran the platform Correct.
Give us your stories.
Mayank Bhardwaj (20:56):
Yeah, so, as I spoke, one of the banks that was
implementing fall right Again.
This was in 2019, mid 2019swhen we started doing the
transformation for them right,and IBM was involved as well in
that implementation.
The first thing that we starteddoing was they already had an
(21:18):
in-house ERP and we wereimplementing the CRM for them,
right.
Subsequently, we realized that,you know, during the UAT phase,
the integrations wereconstantly breaking because the
in-house ERP was not able totake the load that the platform
was sending through.
And that is where, immediately,the chief architect came in and
(21:44):
said that is there an easy wayto get these specific
calculations?
We'll keep the ERP behind thescenes, but can you bring all of
these specific calculationsinto your platform?
We said no, we'll take a look.
I'm not sure because financefor CRM guys is not our core
sort of strengths, but we'lldefinitely take a look.
(22:04):
And after three or four days ofanalysis we figured out that it
was pretty simple and we couldbring those in right.
That was the start of actuallybringing in the ERP on the
Dynamics platform.
So we brought those specificcalculations in.
We saw the performance increaseby 12 folds, right, and because
(22:27):
the ERP was on-prem, obviouslythere were challenges with the
network and the cloudconnectivity.
We had hyper connectors backthen, so the on-prem connector
was not out.
Then we had in Azure the hybridconnectors that are similar
concept as the on-prem connector, right, and we realized that.
But then subsequently werealized that.
But then subsequently werealized that we had to sort of
(22:49):
migrate the whole ERP onto theplatform and that is where we
bought in BC for theirfinancials right, and their LOS
was then built as a separatemodel driven app onto on the
power platform as well.
So power platform was justcoming in during that time not
very streamlined because it wasthe start of the in during that
time.
Not very streamlined because itwas the start of the platform
(23:09):
at that time.
But we were still able to pulloff.
The only challenges that we hadwere back then on the UX,
because the UX was a little DaveDays like right.
So those console-like UX wasn'tvery fancy Because of the
performance.
It made sense for them as well.
The users were cringy.
I absolutely.
I would say you know they werelike what is this shit?
(23:30):
I have to work with this forall my life.
I don't want to do that.
But then, from when theyactually saw the level of
transactions that they couldpull off with this whole setup,
they decided to go ahead withthis right.
And then subsequently throughthe years, as the my platform
sort of upgraded and newcapabilities came in, the users
were happy as well.
(23:50):
Subsequently, right, and today Italk, I'll talk to one of them
and they're like now it'scompletely different what you
guys implemented and what it istoday.
When I look back, oh my god, Imean what's four years now.
Four, not four.
Yeah, four, five years now.
And they say, I know, yeah,four, five years now.
And they say, I know, it lookslike a completely different
(24:11):
platform.
Right, that's one story that Icould tell off.
Another story from another bank,a UK-based bank their
integration with their coresystem broke in between a large
campaign that they were runningright and this required them to
send the end users before theyclosed the opportunity they had
(24:34):
to send these Adobe forms to getthe signatures right, and there
was an integration with thebackend system to bring that in
and only after the signatureswere done they could close the
deal.
Right, that integration broke.
Imagine what could we have done, I mean, if, for that
integration to get back on, Ithink it was tls 2.0.
(24:55):
The reason was tls 2.0 orsomething right.
So, to bring that on, theestimate that we got from the
core team was two weeks and thecampaign was right midway, right
, wow, we scratched our head fora bit and then a cto from my
(25:15):
organization.
He came up with an amazing idealet's use power automate.
Within four hours mark wow, theintegration was back on track.
So that's the power of the tool.
It's not what you'veimplemented.
It's what you can do with thosetools.
When you need them, just writea quick connector, bring that in
(25:38):
use, power Automate to buildyour floor and, boom, you're
back in business, man.
Mark Smith (25:44):
Yeah, very good.
In the last 12 months, we'veobviously been inundated with
conversations around AI and howit's going to affect business
and you know, I think, what justbefore Christmas, about a month
before, copilot had its firstbirthday, right, right, one
years old, but it seems to havetaken over our lives.
(26:04):
What are you seeing in yourinteraction with customers
around the co-pilot conversation?
Mayank Bhardwaj (26:10):
Right.
So people are really excited.
But I work in the SMC space,right?
So most of the time, thequestion that I get is the
apprehensions and pushback thatI get is AI will not work in my
environment because we hardlyhave anything right, and that is
where I say you don't have anybaggage, so this is where you
(26:33):
should get started, right?
Mark Smith (26:35):
for larger organizations.
Mayank Bhardwaj (26:37):
I mean, you already have so much of data
that you need to claim to makeit part of the AI's wisdom,
right, right, but for SMCs,because you don't have any
baggage, you can start anew,right, and you can have the AI
build that data for you on yourbehalf.
Use the AI now, and at leastfor now.
(26:57):
Back then it was more likesearching through the
information, but now the AI, theco-pilot, is able to take
actions on your behalfstreamline processes, automate
processes with reasoning, right.
Earlier we just had automation.
Now we've got automation withreasoning, with the agents
coming in.
The agents can reason on youknow these steps that they need
to take as part of theautomation.
(27:18):
So it's the best time for youguys to actually start building
those AI agents within yourecosystem so that your guys can
have some time back to think onhow they want to grow the
business, how they canstreamline the processes, pivot
wherever they are bottlenecksand really take your business to
that next level.
And for larger organizations,again, I'll say that with the
(27:41):
agentic AI, there are a lot ofdougeless work that most of the
people don't even know why theydo.
Let the ai do that for you,right?
So I was reading through thebook called hack your
bureaucracy right and you see,yeah, have you read that book?
Mark Smith (27:57):
no, no, no, I'm a book reader, so I have such a
good book.
Mayank Bhardwaj (28:01):
So it talks about how there are processes
that actually leak performanceout, and these are processes
that are basically handoversbetween one department to
another, right?
People don't really know whythey're doing it, because
they're not responsible.
They're just responsible forhanding it off, and people who
get it are frustrated but arenot ready to give that feedback
(28:23):
back to you.
Know where it came from?
Yes, and those are the majorleaks of performance.
Let the AI figure it out.
Use process binding to seewhere your time is unnecessarily
being wasted, where yourefforts are unnecessarily being
wasted.
Build an AI agent so that youcan have that understanding of
that handoff and why that'shappening, and let the agents
(28:45):
figure things out in terms ofwhat is required.
Ask those necessary questionsas it goes round.
Right, that's the beauty of it.
I'm not sure if you've seen theexample of the agentic
capabilities, the use case thatwe released right, where the AI
is able to look at the customeremail, figure out who the right
partner would be and then assignthat partner here.
(29:06):
Mckinsey, was it McKinsey?
Yeah, right, so those aspectsto have somebody manually do it,
I mean, how would you thinkthat person who's doing this job
would look at his career in thenext 10 years.
What is the extra edge that hecan bring in right?
These are some of the aspectsthat are not for humans.
That really should be, you know, sort of automated as much as
(29:28):
possible and let the AI do that.
I mean the investment that youput in a human being to stay on
that job.
It might be investment fromyour end, but from that human
being's perspective you need toreally think of.
You know how they grow theircareer and they really should be
in those really high valueactivities where they can go to
(29:48):
that next level of capabilitiesand see themselves grow as well.
So for any of those drudgerousjob where you just have to be a
coordinator, a postman, agentsare here.
Use them.
Mark Smith (29:59):
I like it, yeah I like it, I like it.
My final question, becausewe're at time, is contact center
.
Yeah Right, we've seen the DCCPplatform, you know yesterday.
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:13):
Right.
Mark Smith (30:13):
You know, Microsoft have been iterating the space
for over 20 years.
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:17):
Yeah, right.
Mark Smith (30:17):
If you go back to the customer care framework that
we worked on years and yearsago, so it's not a new thing,
but it seems that right nowcontact center has its time in
the light.
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:29):
Yes.
Mark Smith (30:30):
In that.
So you know, going away fromthis concept of rooms full of
people answering calls to.
You know, covid brought arounda massive distribution of where
people can answer contact centerbased requests from, and now
we're going into massive amountof ai support, biometrics, voice
(30:51):
prints, all those type ofthings as part of the nuance
acquisition.
Yeah, what are you seeing inthe space?
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:57):
so the hook for customers with the new contact
center capabilities.
Right, and this is what we'vealso tried to do with the
contact center is to reduce thecustomer frustration when they
land on the phone call.
And to go through that wholelist of choices press one for
(31:18):
this, press one for two for this, press three for these.
Right, that's reallyfrustrating and we've got so
many memes in the industryaround that right, I am dying.
Yes.
Or press one for this if you'redying through a thief yes,
those kind of things right.
Total loyalty, killer man, Imean your favorite brand, you
(31:39):
have to call them.
And if you have to go throughthat list, you're like shit man.
My next 10 minutes, 20 minutesare wasted, right?
So how can we remove that,right?
And then, from an agent'sperspective, him requiring to
ask questions around.
You know what was the?
Can you help me with yourproblem?
Oh, I've already spoken tothree agents before you.
(32:01):
Oh, but can you still reiteratethat for me?
You know, I have to maybe gothrough the notes, or can you
stay on hold and I'll go throughthat notes, right?
So how do we reduce that timeagain to improve the customer
experience there, right?
And then those scenarios wherethe customer lands on a queue
which is not the queue that theyintended to be in.
(32:23):
Oh, I'm sorry, you've landed ona wrong queue and I'll have to
transfer.
Okay, fine, transfer.
And then now I'll have to be in.
Oh, I'm sorry, you've landed ona wrong queue and I'll have to
transfer.
Okay, fine, transfer.
And then now I'll have to.
In the mind, we're thinking youknow, I'll have to again
reiterate the whole issue tothis new guy right now.
That's where I've seen a lot offolk with my customers.
When I have that, they reallyget excited about this.
This is where they see valueright, where the customer just
(32:44):
can call in and say what theywant and the AI is able to
figure out exactly who can helpthem so they'll never be
transferred to a wrong queue.
They won't really have to gothrough all that options as well
.
As you know, for the agents,they get a quick summary of what
the customer requires andimmediately be ready in their
(33:05):
writing time.
And immediately be ready intheir writing time because the
AI is now also able to pullinformation from the knowledge
base and pop it out in front ofthe agent, right, either.
If it is a first go scenario,then the agent can spill it out
for the customer and thecustomer is happy, and only
those challenges that are reallyintense in terms of complexity
(33:25):
get to the agent.
So agent also feels fulfilledin terms of, you know,
complexity get to the agent.
So agent also feels fulfilledin terms of solving those
problems.
Mark Smith (33:30):
Right, because as an agent.
Imagine.
Mayank Bhardwaj (33:32):
I mean, you're getting those simple faq kind of
questions all day.
You do get frustrated, right,it's your job all day and you're
like just answering thosequestions, why and you're
thinking, why can't these peoplelook at the website?
Right, they're humans, right?
Just go to the website andsearch this out.
But then when these kinds ofproblems come up, and there you
have to apply your wholeimagination and intelligence.
(33:53):
That's where you're fulfilledas an agent as well, right?
So those are the two aspectsthat we've been trying to bring
as part of the contact centerplatform, and we've seen people
really relating to those aspectsand getting excited about that.
Today.
Just now, I received I don'tremember the name of the
organization, but one of therecent wins.
(34:13):
I'll go through the.
You know details of what itentailed, but we are seeing a
lot of tractions on the contactcenter as well.
People are getting onboarded onthe platform and now starting
to realize the value of all ofthese capabilities.
And again, the beauty of it isall configuration, man, right.
So all your knowledge bases,your topics, all of that
(34:34):
basically stays as part of theconfiguration and as the
business grows, you can keepchanging them without really
needing a whole developer teamto bring that in your team.
Your own cases become afeedback loop for your knowledge
bases, right, and the way thatyou solve problems become the
whole knowledge base and the AIto build on top of, so that next
(34:56):
time when you face the sameproblem you have that reference,
whether it was you solving itor your friend solving, or
colleague from a differentdepartment solving it.
The consolidation of thatinformation using AI allows us
to stay on top of all of thosedevelopments.
Mark Smith (35:10):
So that's the beauty of it.
Mayank, it's been so goodtalking to you, very insightful.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show, thank you for having
me Really excited, thank, you.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host, mark Smith,otherwise known as the NZ365 guy
.
Is there a guest you would liketo see on the show from
Microsoft?
Please message me on LinkedInand I'll see what I can do.
(35:31):
Final question for you how willyou create with Copilot today,
ka kite?
Welcome to the Co-Pilot Show where I interview
Microsoft staff innovating withAI.
I hope you will find thispodcast educational and inspire
you to do more with this greattechnology.
Now let's get on with the show.
In this episode we're focusingon large enterprise
implementations of the PowerPlatform.
We might touch on a bit ofcontact center dynamics the
(00:25):
actual whole gamut we'llprobably cover today.
Our guest is from Singapore.
He works at Microsoft as adigital technology specialist.
He's been working in this spacefor many years.
You can find links to his bioand socials in the show notes
for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Mayank.
Mayank Bhardwaj (00:42):
Thank you for having me, mark, really glad to
be here.
Mark Smith (00:45):
Good to have you on the show.
I Thank you for having me, mark, really glad to be here.
Mayank Bhardwaj (00:49):
Good to have you on the show, I always like
to start with food, family andfun.
What do they mean to you?
Food is a way of connectionthough it's a little bit
complicated relationship with mebecause I follow a little weird
ways of having food.
I go on elongated fasts, like amonth-long fast, 15 days fast,
right, and I do a lot ofintermittent fasting.
So there's a lot of time I haveto say no to food, to family
(01:11):
and friends, and that reallyhurts.
But you gotta do what you gottado for yourself, and family, of
course, comes first, becausethat's what grounds you, that's
what gives you, you know, thevision of where you come from
and where you're going at right.
So a lot of things that webuild up as our personality
actually comes from ourforefathers, people that we know
(01:32):
of within our families, right.
So it's very critical to holdon to that and really be
grounded to who you are and whoyou have been within that gene
tree that you're coming from.
Mark Smith (01:45):
Yeah, so true, yeah, so true, so true.
And what do you do for?
Mayank Bhardwaj (01:46):
fun.
So for fun, I like to travelaround, so I'm in singapore
right now, so there's a lot ofstuff to explore here.
That's what I've been doing for, you know, past three months
right now.
Apart from that, I like tolearn a little bit, help people
I mentor a lot of people as wellwithin the industry and helping
(02:07):
them you know sort of copethrough their where they are in
life, with their careers, whatthey need to learn, as well as
you know how they can basicallyset things up for themselves to
see that growth that they'relooking at.
Some of them don't even knowwhere they want to get at, so
helping them figure that out aswell.
So those are some of the waysthat I use my free time to
(02:30):
really give back to thecommunity.
Mark Smith (02:33):
Nice, nice.
Now you said, you do fasting.
Mayank Bhardwaj (02:36):
Yeah.
Mark Smith (02:37):
I fast a lot.
Yeah, you do, I fast every dayoh nice yes.
I start eating at 12 o'clock, Ifinish by 8 pm and then I don't
eat till the next day.
Mayank Bhardwaj (02:46):
Okay, so that's eight hour window yeah, and
then I also do.
Mark Smith (02:50):
I've done two full 21 day water only fasts, wow how
was that for you?
Amazing?
Yeah, incredible, right.
But what happened in, I don'tknow, maybe November, october,
november last year and I've beendoing intermittent fasting for
all of last year and I've doneit for years before as well but
I decided I hadn't done along-term fast again, so I
(03:12):
decided to do a seven-day fast.
It's the easiest seven-day fast, and when I say fast, that's
water only.
No coffee, no, nothing justwater only for the entire thing
and I couldn't believe how easyit was, and I think it was
because I've been intermittentfasting.
Now, for so long.
Yeah, you know, when I'd donethe long fasts in the past I'd
(03:34):
never been intermittent fastingRight and I just found it so
easy to merge into a fullyfasted state Right and not feel
like it was a drudgery.
The worst issue I had throughthe process was, I think,
potassium withdrawal Right,exactly Like the pain in my
lower back was like a potassium.
Mayank Bhardwaj (03:55):
Yeah, I feel so dizziness.
Any pains, heart palpitations,that's salts going down in your
bloodstream.
Mark Smith (04:03):
So you have to have those fasting salts potassium,
sodium salts, magnesium saltsyeah, so that's the way to go
about it there's just so muchresearch in showing how it gets
rid of the bad stuff oraccumulation that you've had in
your body when you do exactly afull fast, and I just think it
(04:23):
should be standard lifestylechoice for everybody, not a
special thing.
Mayank Bhardwaj (04:26):
It should just be exactly it's not easy to
start, even for me.
I've been doing this for likenow for 10 years now, but still
the first three days aredifficult because of the hunger
pangs.
Because I come from backgroundof whole foodies, right so I
recently got my dean tested andI actually got a formation on
(04:47):
one of the theories that I hadabout my family.
So, in my family, the storiesthat goes around, you know,
about the indian weddings, rightso my uncles, my you know,
maternal uncles, paternal uncles, the stories that they would
tell us they would eat a bucketfull of sweets at marriages,
right, get the ladies at thehouse to cook the food again
(05:09):
after they finished everythingthat was previously cooked.
I used to think that, you know,probably my gene pool already
has some way of processing allthat sugar.
And I recently got my DNA testand it actually showed that my
ability to process sugar andcarbohydrate is much higher than
the normal population, right?
So I know, with food it's avery strong relation in the way
(05:33):
that I grew up.
The first time I tried fastingwas probably when I was in sixth
standard and the whole fasting.
Basically I got into it.
My grandmother was doing it forreligious reasons and I started
doing it and within four hoursmark I had to eat something.
I just couldn't do it right.
I was like the shortest fast Icould do four hours, right.
(05:56):
But then, you know, when I wasin my 30s I got to a point where
I was 110 kgs right, and youand you bend down.
You can't stand up.
And that's where you know beingin the software industry you
have to work long hours andimplementations take your nights
as well, so you can't spend toomuch time in the gym.
(06:18):
So that's where I startedresearching on what is the easy
way, you know, to get healthyand that's where I came across
fasting and that's when I slowlygot into it, right, so move
your breakfast from 8 am to 9 10, then skip the breakfast
altogether.
Move your lunch to the evenings, then skip that.
And then the first fast that Iever did was actually in one of
(06:40):
the most complex implementationsthat I was doing for one of the
automobile industries in India,one of the largest complex
implementations that I was doingfor one of the automobile
industries in India, one of thelargest automobile industries in
India.
I was so intense.
The team was all flabbergastedbecause of the challenges.
We were shot down, you know top, right and center, and your
whole mind was in it.
So that's where I thought whynot skip a couple of meals and
(07:02):
see right?
And that's where I did my firstfour days fast and it was such
a good experience, right?
So the cleansing you could feeland the clarity of thoughts
that came through after that wasreally amazing, and that's
where you know.
After that I just continued,increased the fast from four
days to 15 days, and then I'vedone a couple of one-month fasts
(07:23):
as well.
So last year I did one monthfast.
I just completed my three daysfast yesterday itself.
I thought my family's going tobe here, I'm going to be out
eating, so I not do a quickcleanse before that.
So, yeah, yeah.
Mark Smith (07:36):
I can't recommend it enough and right.
You know what I've noticed?
There's quite a differencebetween male and female fasting
yeah, you shouldn't you know?
I say to my wife don't followwhat I do exactly.
Go and get educated on how youshould apply it for you, correct
?
Women have more hormones, to myunderstanding, than guys, and
so it's different.
Mayank Bhardwaj (07:55):
Yeah, so the whole emotions are driven by
hormones, so it's important totake those into concentration.
Mark Smith (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, what I did notice is that my most
recent seven-day fast I was themost emotionally level than what
I have been, because the lasttime I did it was years ago, a
seven-day, and I was angry LikeI was high angry, you know.
Mayank Bhardwaj (08:20):
You know everything frustrated me.
Yeah, you turn into a diva,totally.
I mean, you turn into a totaldiva.
You're like, oh my God, what'sgoing on?
And then you realize probablyyour salts are dropping, so true
.
Mark Smith (08:33):
So true.
Tell me about large-scaleimplementations on either
Dynamics 365 or the PowerPlatform and how this comes
about.
I noticed that enterprisecustomers, some very large
customers, were not treating thepower platform as an enterprise
play right.
They considered sap, is thatpegger?
(08:55):
Is that service now, is thatoracle xyz?
Is that they weren't taking thepower platform seriously?
And because I had bought up withdynamics you you know from the
early days of I started with 1.2, so 21 years ago, we had always
taken the product and built bigapplications that are still
used today, correct.
(09:15):
And we used to ask Microsoftsay, microsoft, please just
forget the CRM piece, just giveus, you know, what we now call
model-driven app development.
Give us that we will what wenow call model-driven app
development.
Give us that we will buildapplications on it, leave it to
us.
We got that, but with it we gota story of low code.
And what happened is enterprisearchitects heard this word, low
(09:37):
code, and it's probably noteven the low code piece, because
Dynamics was always low code,right.
What they heard was anybody canbuild apps on this Exactly and
they go.
Well, hang on a second.
It's not just about buildingapps.
It's around the robustness ofthat app.
It's around regression testing.
(09:57):
It's around applicationlifecycle management.
It's about making sure thatwhen we're in a mission-critical
scenario, the app that's builtby Susie and accounting is not
going to break.
Right, and we're going to be.
You know, any business is aboutrisk mitigation.
So when they hear that anybodycan build apps, their risk radar
goes off and they go.
(10:18):
This will not be the enterpriseplatform of choice for us, and
I'm wanting to do a series thatI try and show that Actually,
people are building large.
You know the fact that it'sbuilt on Azure, which a lot of
these people that make thesecalls don't realize.
It's an enterpriseinfrastructure.
Yeah, when I used to competeagainst IBM and Place, they used
(10:39):
to run down Microsoft.
You know it wasn't enterprise.
Well, I think the proof is inthe pudding right.
Exactly want to hear yourstories about some of the big
enterprise projects that you'vebeen involved in and why the
power platform was chosen overxyz product.
You know could have been out inthe market.
Yeah, so do you mind?
Mayank Bhardwaj (10:59):
if I take a stab at the psychology of why
people think and why thearchitects think that it's not
going to be a choice for theenterprise, right?
So let's take a step back andthink in the of the era when
people used to code in binaryand the level of optimization
that had to go in that binarycoding.
Now, when Microsoft releasedsomething like NET, a 12th
(11:22):
grader could use NET to buildhis applications.
We saw absolute similarpushback from those people back
then as well.
Right, what do you mean?
I mean, I write that binarycode.
I have to think about 2,000things, 20,000 things, to make
it optimally run on my platform,my hardware.
And now suddenly some12-gatherer can come and write
(11:44):
some if-then-else statements andit's going to work on my
hardware.
It's not going to want to workon my hardware, right?
Going to work on my hardware?
It's not going to want to workon my hardware, right?
So, similarly, architects oftoday right, given their history
, when they look at this now,when you had to build an
application and deploy it to theenvironment, you had to look at
the protocols, you had to lookat optimization of databases,
you had to look at so manythings, and now you're saying
(12:06):
that none of that is requiredand something will automatically
take care of that without mehaving to do anything about it.
I mean, how can I even trust allof these aspects, right?
I don't know what you've done.
Yes, I don't know whether itreally works or not, right?
And that is where we need somesocial proof to showcase, and
there are these.
Then I know pioneeringorganizations that take the
(12:28):
first step to actually onboardthemselves on these new
platforms.
Right, it's the same thing thatwe had with ai as well.
What is ai?
I mean, how can somethingthat's not me be more
intelligent than me, right?
So why should I even trust?
That's a lack of trust,basically.
That comes in.
But then I've gone into callswith cioss, ctos and questions
(12:51):
like show me where's the code ofyour software.
I'm like there's no code, right, how does that work?
I mean, you have to compile,you have to sort of debug.
How do I debug?
It's all built into theplatform.
No, I don't understand that,right?
So there are those mindsets aswell in the industry today who
actually want to go deep intocode development and do things
(13:14):
on their own and like theflexibility that they've got.
But then there are those whounderstand really that within a
manufacturing organization,within a business organization,
the IT is just an enabler andfor them to get into that kind
of product development might notdo justice to all the
investment that the organizationis doing.
(13:36):
So why not use something thathas the scale of economy and has
been built by all the bestexperts that have conglomerated
together into an organizationlike Microsoft, taking care of
all the different aspects ofdatabase management,
(13:58):
optimization, code management,code optimization, right.
And then I sort of use that andsee how that fares out and then
reach out and give feedback andget in return more optimized
versions of the same platform,right, an evergreen platform
that you can give feedback toand get back those.
It might take a little bit oftime of time, but will obviously
take less time than what youcould have built at that level
of scale, right.
That's where the psychologybasically plays, and people you
(14:19):
know who've come from thatbackground of co-development
basically don't really get whythey should trust somebody else.
When I'm as good I've had ahistory of building good
applications, why should I trustthat you're better than me?
And that is where I think a lotof organizations, so a lot of
(14:40):
discussions that I've been infor Power Platform.
The first thing is oh, isn'tPower Platform a platform for
smaller apps?
You can build those small apps,but I don't think you can build
.
I was doing this for one of thebeverages leads in sri lanka,
right, and he asked me.
The cto there asked me thisquestion, don't you think you
(15:00):
know this would break, becauseI've been working on m365 power
platform and that is one breakeras well.
You can't compare m365 PowerPlatform with the premium power
platform, because M365 PowerPlatform is built to automate
your M365 ecosystem.
It does not have theinfrastructure behind the scenes
to support businessapplications.
It does not have the necessarycapabilities to support database
(15:25):
management either.
Dataverse is your databasemanagement on steroids, on AI
optimization behind the scenes.
If you want to look at businessscenarios, you have to look at
the business application part ofthe power platform, the premium
power platform.
That's where the turbo chargeis in, so you can have a small
(15:48):
car.
So you can have a small car andyou can say that it takes me
places, similar places, but itwon't take you there in the same
time that a large race car or aturbocharged car will.
So if that's your choice andcompletely you know, depending
on what you want to prioritizein life in your vision.
If you just want to get there,probably a smaller car is for
you.
If you just want to get there,probably a smaller car is for
(16:10):
you.
But if you want to get therefast and you want to be there on
time every time, then probablya turbocharged car or a power
platform premium is what youwant to go ahead with.
I like it From implementationperspective.
Really large multinationalconglomerates, world-leading car
manufacturers we're seeing allof these stories in the, you
(16:33):
know, publicly available as wellbanks, right, the most complex
implementations mark in theworld are for the banks because
of the level of validations thatthey have to build into, the
level of calculations that theyhave to do, the level of checks
that they have to build into.
No small application in a bankis any less than an
(16:53):
enterprise-grade applicationwithin any other industry.
Right, and HDFC Bank, india'sone of the largest banks,
catering to tens of millions ofcustomers, have decided that
Power Platform is going to betheir platform of innovation and
if you want to use any othertechnology, you would come back
(17:15):
with a reason of why you can'tbuild it on Power Platform.
People are doing that already.
There are a lot of financialorganizations who utilize this,
turn this into their choice ofplatform of innovation and using
it seamlessly to build,integrate with their government
partners, with the externalpartners, internal processes,
(17:38):
all in the bid to do what peoplehave been doing with data lakes
for data.
Consolidating the data is whatPower Platform is doing for
business processes consolidatingall the business processes into
a single layer so that everyuser, from a maintenance
perspective, makes it easybecause you can have role-based
applications.
And for user perspective, itmakes it easy because, behind
(18:00):
the scenes, the platform iscapable of connecting to maybe
10 or 20 different applicationsthat you've got in your
ecosystem right, and which is anormal thing right 10 years ago,
when we embarked on the digitaltransformation, what we started
doing was we started collectingthese siloed applications to
automate these specific businessprocesses because we were all
(18:21):
getting started right.
So we wanted to you know sortof streamline sales we got the
sales application.
We want to streamline servicegot a service application.
We want to streamlineoperations we got operations,
you know application.
But then soon we realized thatthrough these applications, well
, we were not really helpingpeople collaborate together and
(18:43):
the data was all scattered.
Obviously we were collecting alot of data, but were we
connecting them together?
We were not right, and that'swhere the whole concept of let's
look at the data and bring inthe data lakes and warehouses in
and let's see if we can build.
You know, those are.
Those were the phases of theindustry.
So data lake there, warehouses,insights.
(19:05):
Right now we're looking at morecomprehensive ecosystem of
applications that sits on asingle data layer and obviously,
as an organization, you mighthave invested in other
applications as well.
That's where Microsoft allowsyou to utilize connectors to
actually connect all of thosenot just data, but experiences
as well.
Right, because the user shouldnot have to jump around
(19:28):
application to application to dohis job.
Right, he should be able to dothe job where he's sitting,
within the application, becausewe all know the focus is very
scarce today.
Right, if I have to click onthat minimize button, there are
chances within 10 seconds I'llforget what I was doing, because
there was a pop-up down there.
There was some shiny app therethat I thought, okay, let's
(19:50):
quickly check on that, and thenI have lost the whole trail of
you know what I was doing.
That's where power platformbasically comes in.
It lets you do all of thespecific activities that you
need to do from your processwhether you are in sales,
whether you're in service,whether you're in operations,
whether you're in finance from asingle play of view, right.
(20:10):
That's the beauty of theplatform.
That's where Microsoft hasinvested in building it into
something that can help peoplefocus and do what they would
really like to do, want to do,and with AI, we're trying to
remove the drudgery as well.
Mark Smith (20:25):
Can you give me some examples of industries that
you've seen, largeimplementations that are maybe,
know, maybe four or five years,ten years on that are still
running what was either dynamics365, then the power platform,
from really 2018, 2019 onwards?
Right because, when I look backat my crowd, there's multiple
(20:46):
applications.
They're still fully in inproduction because of that
scalability and that Microsoftran the platform Correct.
Give us your stories.
Mayank Bhardwaj (20:56):
Yeah, so, as I spoke, one of the banks that was
implementing fall right Again.
This was in 2019, mid 2019swhen we started doing the
transformation for them right,and IBM was involved as well in
that implementation.
The first thing that we starteddoing was they already had an
(21:18):
in-house ERP and we wereimplementing the CRM for them,
right.
Subsequently, we realized that,you know, during the UAT phase,
the integrations wereconstantly breaking because the
in-house ERP was not able totake the load that the platform
was sending through.
And that is where, immediately,the chief architect came in and
(21:44):
said that is there an easy wayto get these specific
calculations?
We'll keep the ERP behind thescenes, but can you bring all of
these specific calculationsinto your platform?
We said no, we'll take a look.
I'm not sure because financefor CRM guys is not our core
sort of strengths, but we'lldefinitely take a look.
(22:04):
And after three or four days ofanalysis we figured out that it
was pretty simple and we couldbring those in right.
That was the start of actuallybringing in the ERP on the
Dynamics platform.
So we brought those specificcalculations in.
We saw the performance increaseby 12 folds, right, and because
(22:27):
the ERP was on-prem, obviouslythere were challenges with the
network and the cloudconnectivity.
We had hyper connectors backthen, so the on-prem connector
was not out.
Then we had in Azure the hybridconnectors that are similar
concept as the on-prem connector, right, and we realized that.
But then subsequently werealized that.
But then subsequently werealized that we had to sort of
(22:49):
migrate the whole ERP onto theplatform and that is where we
bought in BC for theirfinancials right, and their LOS
was then built as a separatemodel driven app onto on the
power platform as well.
So power platform was justcoming in during that time not
very streamlined because it wasthe start of the in during that
time.
Not very streamlined because itwas the start of the platform
(23:09):
at that time.
But we were still able to pulloff.
The only challenges that we hadwere back then on the UX,
because the UX was a little DaveDays like right.
So those console-like UX wasn'tvery fancy Because of the
performance.
It made sense for them as well.
The users were cringy.
I absolutely.
I would say you know they werelike what is this shit?
(23:30):
I have to work with this forall my life.
I don't want to do that.
But then, from when theyactually saw the level of
transactions that they couldpull off with this whole setup,
they decided to go ahead withthis right.
And then subsequently throughthe years, as the my platform
sort of upgraded and newcapabilities came in, the users
were happy as well.
(23:50):
Subsequently, right, and today Italk, I'll talk to one of them
and they're like now it'scompletely different what you
guys implemented and what it istoday.
When I look back, oh my god, Imean what's four years now.
Four, not four.
Yeah, four, five years now.
And they say, I know, yeah,four, five years now.
And they say, I know, it lookslike a completely different
(24:11):
platform.
Right, that's one story that Icould tell off.
Another story from another bank,a UK-based bank their
integration with their coresystem broke in between a large
campaign that they were runningright and this required them to
send the end users before theyclosed the opportunity they had
(24:34):
to send these Adobe forms to getthe signatures right, and there
was an integration with thebackend system to bring that in
and only after the signatureswere done they could close the
deal.
Right, that integration broke.
Imagine what could we have done, I mean, if, for that
integration to get back on, Ithink it was tls 2.0.
(24:55):
The reason was tls 2.0 orsomething right.
So, to bring that on, theestimate that we got from the
core team was two weeks and thecampaign was right midway, right
, wow, we scratched our head fora bit and then a cto from my
(25:15):
organization.
He came up with an amazing idealet's use power automate.
Within four hours mark wow, theintegration was back on track.
So that's the power of the tool.
It's not what you'veimplemented.
It's what you can do with thosetools.
When you need them, just writea quick connector, bring that in
(25:38):
use, power Automate to buildyour floor and, boom, you're
back in business, man.
Mark Smith (25:44):
Yeah, very good.
In the last 12 months, we'veobviously been inundated with
conversations around AI and howit's going to affect business
and you know, I think, what justbefore Christmas, about a month
before, copilot had its firstbirthday, right, right, one
years old, but it seems to havetaken over our lives.
(26:04):
What are you seeing in yourinteraction with customers
around the co-pilot conversation?
Mayank Bhardwaj (26:10):
Right.
So people are really excited.
But I work in the SMC space,right?
So most of the time, thequestion that I get is the
apprehensions and pushback thatI get is AI will not work in my
environment because we hardlyhave anything right, and that is
where I say you don't have anybaggage, so this is where you
(26:33):
should get started, right?
Mark Smith (26:35):
for larger organizations.
Mayank Bhardwaj (26:37):
I mean, you already have so much of data
that you need to claim to makeit part of the AI's wisdom,
right, right, but for SMCs,because you don't have any
baggage, you can start anew,right, and you can have the AI
build that data for you on yourbehalf.
Use the AI now, and at leastfor now.
(26:57):
Back then it was more likesearching through the
information, but now the AI, theco-pilot, is able to take
actions on your behalfstreamline processes, automate
processes with reasoning, right.
Earlier we just had automation.
Now we've got automation withreasoning, with the agents
coming in.
The agents can reason on youknow these steps that they need
to take as part of theautomation.
(27:18):
So it's the best time for youguys to actually start building
those AI agents within yourecosystem so that your guys can
have some time back to think onhow they want to grow the
business, how they canstreamline the processes, pivot
wherever they are bottlenecksand really take your business to
that next level.
And for larger organizations,again, I'll say that with the
(27:41):
agentic AI, there are a lot ofdougeless work that most of the
people don't even know why theydo.
Let the ai do that for you,right?
So I was reading through thebook called hack your
bureaucracy right and you see,yeah, have you read that book?
Mark Smith (27:57):
no, no, no, I'm a book reader, so I have such a
good book.
Mayank Bhardwaj (28:01):
So it talks about how there are processes
that actually leak performanceout, and these are processes
that are basically handoversbetween one department to
another, right?
People don't really know whythey're doing it, because
they're not responsible.
They're just responsible forhanding it off, and people who
get it are frustrated but arenot ready to give that feedback
(28:23):
back to you.
Know where it came from?
Yes, and those are the majorleaks of performance.
Let the AI figure it out.
Use process binding to seewhere your time is unnecessarily
being wasted, where yourefforts are unnecessarily being
wasted.
Build an AI agent so that youcan have that understanding of
that handoff and why that'shappening, and let the agents
(28:45):
figure things out in terms ofwhat is required.
Ask those necessary questionsas it goes round.
Right, that's the beauty of it.
I'm not sure if you've seen theexample of the agentic
capabilities, the use case thatwe released right, where the AI
is able to look at the customeremail, figure out who the right
partner would be and then assignthat partner here.
(29:06):
Mckinsey, was it McKinsey?
Yeah, right, so those aspectsto have somebody manually do it,
I mean, how would you thinkthat person who's doing this job
would look at his career in thenext 10 years.
What is the extra edge that hecan bring in right?
These are some of the aspectsthat are not for humans.
That really should be, you know, sort of automated as much as
(29:28):
possible and let the AI do that.
I mean the investment that youput in a human being to stay on
that job.
It might be investment fromyour end, but from that human
being's perspective you need toreally think of.
You know how they grow theircareer and they really should be
in those really high valueactivities where they can go to
(29:48):
that next level of capabilitiesand see themselves grow as well.
So for any of those drudgerousjob where you just have to be a
coordinator, a postman, agentsare here.
Use them.
Mark Smith (29:59):
I like it, yeah I like it, I like it.
My final question, becausewe're at time, is contact center
.
Yeah Right, we've seen the DCCPplatform, you know yesterday.
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:13):
Right.
Mark Smith (30:13):
You know, Microsoft have been iterating the space
for over 20 years.
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:17):
Yeah, right.
Mark Smith (30:17):
If you go back to the customer care framework that
we worked on years and yearsago, so it's not a new thing,
but it seems that right nowcontact center has its time in
the light.
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:29):
Yes.
Mark Smith (30:30):
In that.
So you know, going away fromthis concept of rooms full of
people answering calls to.
You know, covid brought arounda massive distribution of where
people can answer contact centerbased requests from, and now
we're going into massive amountof ai support, biometrics, voice
(30:51):
prints, all those type ofthings as part of the nuance
acquisition.
Yeah, what are you seeing inthe space?
Mayank Bhardwaj (30:57):
so the hook for customers with the new contact
center capabilities.
Right, and this is what we'vealso tried to do with the
contact center is to reduce thecustomer frustration when they
land on the phone call.
And to go through that wholelist of choices press one for
(31:18):
this, press one for two for this, press three for these.
Right, that's reallyfrustrating and we've got so
many memes in the industryaround that right, I am dying.
Yes.
Or press one for this if you'redying through a thief yes,
those kind of things right.
Total loyalty, killer man, Imean your favorite brand, you
(31:39):
have to call them.
And if you have to go throughthat list, you're like shit man.
My next 10 minutes, 20 minutesare wasted, right?
So how can we remove that,right?
And then, from an agent'sperspective, him requiring to
ask questions around.
You know what was the?
Can you help me with yourproblem?
Oh, I've already spoken tothree agents before you.
(32:01):
Oh, but can you still reiteratethat for me?
You know, I have to maybe gothrough the notes, or can you
stay on hold and I'll go throughthat notes, right?
So how do we reduce that timeagain to improve the customer
experience there, right?
And then those scenarios wherethe customer lands on a queue
which is not the queue that theyintended to be in.
(32:23):
Oh, I'm sorry, you've landed ona wrong queue and I'll have to
transfer.
Okay, fine, transfer.
And then now I'll have to be in.
Oh, I'm sorry, you've landed ona wrong queue and I'll have to
transfer.
Okay, fine, transfer.
And then now I'll have to.
In the mind, we're thinking youknow, I'll have to again
reiterate the whole issue tothis new guy right now.
That's where I've seen a lot offolk with my customers.
When I have that, they reallyget excited about this.
This is where they see valueright, where the customer just
(32:44):
can call in and say what theywant and the AI is able to
figure out exactly who can helpthem so they'll never be
transferred to a wrong queue.
They won't really have to gothrough all that options as well
.
As you know, for the agents,they get a quick summary of what
the customer requires andimmediately be ready in their
(33:05):
writing time.
And immediately be ready intheir writing time because the
AI is now also able to pullinformation from the knowledge
base and pop it out in front ofthe agent, right, either.
If it is a first go scenario,then the agent can spill it out
for the customer and thecustomer is happy, and only
those challenges that are reallyintense in terms of complexity
(33:25):
get to the agent.
So agent also feels fulfilledin terms of, you know,
complexity get to the agent.
So agent also feels fulfilledin terms of solving those
problems.
Mark Smith (33:30):
Right, because as an agent.
Imagine.
Mayank Bhardwaj (33:32):
I mean, you're getting those simple faq kind of
questions all day.
You do get frustrated, right,it's your job all day and you're
like just answering thosequestions, why and you're
thinking, why can't these peoplelook at the website?
Right, they're humans, right?
Just go to the website andsearch this out.
But then when these kinds ofproblems come up, and there you
have to apply your wholeimagination and intelligence.
(33:53):
That's where you're fulfilledas an agent as well, right?
So those are the two aspectsthat we've been trying to bring
as part of the contact centerplatform, and we've seen people
really relating to those aspectsand getting excited about that.
Today.
Just now, I received I don'tremember the name of the
organization, but one of therecent wins.
(34:13):
I'll go through the.
You know details of what itentailed, but we are seeing a
lot of tractions on the contactcenter as well.
People are getting onboarded onthe platform and now starting
to realize the value of all ofthese capabilities.
And again, the beauty of it isall configuration, man, right.
So all your knowledge bases,your topics, all of that
(34:34):
basically stays as part of theconfiguration and as the
business grows, you can keepchanging them without really
needing a whole developer teamto bring that in your team.
Your own cases become afeedback loop for your knowledge
bases, right, and the way thatyou solve problems become the
whole knowledge base and the AIto build on top of, so that next
(34:56):
time when you face the sameproblem you have that reference,
whether it was you solving itor your friend solving, or
colleague from a differentdepartment solving it.
The consolidation of thatinformation using AI allows us
to stay on top of all of thosedevelopments.
Mark Smith (35:10):
So that's the beauty of it.
Mayank, it's been so goodtalking to you, very insightful.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show, thank you for having
me Really excited, thank, you.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host, mark Smith,otherwise known as the NZ365 guy
.
Is there a guest you would liketo see on the show from
Microsoft?
Please message me on LinkedInand I'll see what I can do.
(35:31):
Final question for you how willyou create with Copilot today,
ka kite?
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com