Episode 419: 🧩 Revolutionizing Work through User Experience with Business Central 🧩

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad are joined by Teddy Herryanto. Listen to this insightful conversation exploring the intersection of work-life balance, global Business Central implementations, and the importance of user experience in ERP software. They discuss the critical role of intuitive user experiences in ERP systems like Business Central, emphasizing personalization, efficiency, and consistency to drive user adoption. The conversation also covers the hurdles of transitioning from legacy systems, the importance of effective communication, and the value of user feedback through user acceptance testing (UAT). This episode is packed with practical insights and forward-thinking ideas and underscores the power of diverse perspectives, knowledge sharing, and education in shaping the future of work and technology.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics
Corner.
How do you implement BusinessCentral?
Besides English?
I'm your co-host.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Chris, and this is Brad.
This episode was recorded onApril 16th 2025.
Chris, Chris, Chris, day aftertax day here in the United
States.
I hope you filed your taxesLast minute, I hope you filed
your taxes?
How do you implement BusinessCentral in a different language
and what considerations do youmake for the user experience?

(00:32):
Those are good questions andwith us today we had the
opportunity to talk about thatwith Terry Haryanto.
Good morning, how are you doing?

(00:56):
Hello, good morning, hieverybody.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I always feel odd saying good morning.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Good day, how about?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
good day.
When it's evening.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Greetings, greetings.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Greetings.
Everyone who listens to thismust hate it when we always say,
like you're coming to us fromthe future, but I'm always
impressed.
I understand time differences.
But, our time difference is solarge.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
It's like the other side of the world, right it
literally is the other side ofthe world, right?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
it literally is the other side, it is it's when I I
wish that we would just go toone time zone.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
I wish period or maybe I wish that there is no
daylight saving.
Okay, I will start with that.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
I would be happy with that.
The daylight savings time is awhole other challenge, and in
2025, I don't understand thepurpose of it and deleted.
Let's solve that first.
Then we can get on to one timezone, because if it's 6 in the
morning, 0600, no matter whereyou live, you just adapt Exactly

(02:05):
.
So 0600's breakfast, 0600'sbedtime, 0600, no matter where
you live, you just adapt.
So 0600's breakfast, 0600'sbedtime, 0600's lunch, depends
on where you live.
And then we don't have toquestion are you available
February 25th at 0600.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
I think when we scheduled this call, I thought
it was going to be 9th, and thenDaylight Saving hits and then,
oh, it's 8.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
So yeah, yes, yes, you're required to do math, and
just so much work.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, you're required to do more math, because some
places do not follow DaylightSavings time.
Places do not follow daylightsavings time.
So when I do scheduling, whenwe're around this time of year,
when we're talking about monthsin the future past daylight
savings time, I have to doublecheck to see if it's five hours
ahead of me or four hours aheadof me, because not all regions

(03:00):
honor daylight savings time,which is a whole other reason
why we need to get rid of it,exactly, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
So that's where we are.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
I don't think we can.
Well, we'll save that foranother day.
I'm sure I'll be long gonebefore they solve that battle.
I think the world has many moreissues besides that.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
We should have longer weekends, brian, I think that's
you know certain places in theworld they have longer weekends,
do?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
they, we need to have longer weekends.
Yeah Well, I think, thefour-day work week would be
wonderful.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Four-day work week.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
They found people are more productive.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Absolutely, it's proven.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
When you have the ability to rest your mind.
It's not necessarily sayingyou're not working, you're going
to be lazy, but from knowledge,work point of view, and I'm
sure even physical labor, youget to rest.
And I also noticed when I usedto do a lot of hiking, a lot of
my creativity would come to meor problems would be solved when
I'm hiking the mountain.

(03:56):
Right, because I wasn'tthinking about work, I wasn't
staring at it, I was hiking amountain.
So, chris, I like that too.
Let's start a petition for afour-hour week.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yes, I'll send it for you.
Absolutely, absolutely,absolutely.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with us
this morning, an hour earlierthan we had planned.
We appreciate you taking yourtime.
Before we get into theconversation, would you mind
telling a little bit aboutyourself?

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Oh, sure, sure.
Well, thank you for having me.
So my name is Teddy Haryanto.
I'm working in New Zealandright now working for TITA as a
lead consultant.
So I've been working with well,nav or VC since 2006,.
So it's almost 20 years.

(04:41):
I've been well.
I started as a technicalconsultant and then I move
around right so I've become afunctional and become an end
user.
So I do have a background onwhat around places I've also
implemented across the country,such as Indonesia, japan,
australia and New Zealand aswell.
I'm passionate about teachingand mentoring.

(05:02):
I love learning, I loveteaching.
I'm passionate about teachingand mentoring, I love learning,
I love teaching and I also lovethe user experience UX side of
VC.
That's what I'm passionateabout basically delivering an
ERP solution that people canenjoy.
So that's pretty much it.
Oh, I also have a blog calledDeadNavGuy where I blog and I

(05:25):
share my knowledge.
So yeah, that's pretty muchabout me.
I guess that's great New.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Zealand.
How did you end up in NewZealand?

Speaker 3 (05:35):
It's a long story, but to make it short, so I was
in Japan, right, working inJapan, and then I was talking
with my wife and we, well, japanis a good place, right, if you
want to visit, if you want towork.
However, we don't feel thatit's a good place to settle

(05:58):
because it's a fast pace.
You know, everybody's busy,everybody's just working,
working.
So we kind of want to settledown, have a more balanced
work-life balance.
I don't know if there's abalance.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
You don't have the four days, right?

Speaker 3 (06:14):
No, yeah, but praise God that I managed to find a
company that actually kind oflike respect that.
So it was okay for me to, youknow, let my weekends be
weekends, you see.
So I didn't need to work latehours, I didn't need to work on
weekends, but even then there'sa lot of pressures, right.

(06:36):
So we talked about it and thenwe decided that maybe it's
better to find another placewhere we can have a better
work-life balance and, you know,especially when we want to
start a family and so on and soon.
So, um, because my wife um grewup in new zealand, we just
thought like maybe new zealandis a good place to live.

(06:57):
So and here we are no, it'sinteresting.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
At least you have it, that work-life balance or what
you could call that work-lifebalance.
I think that's defineddifferently by many different
people.
And I've seen some say thatthere isn't a work-life balance
or you can't define thework-life balance, it just has
to become in your habit.
But it is important.
I realized it more as I gotolder and also from they

(07:24):
understand the importance of it,because when I was younger I
was eager to work, work, work,work and do all of this.
But then, as personally, as Igot older, I realized the
importance of time and then also, just as we started talking
about before, the importance oftaking a break, because that
break is important and working16 hours doesn't mean you're

(07:47):
more productive than someonewho's working eight hours or
even someone who's working fourhours.
It's what you can accomplish inthe amount of time that you're
working, versus just working atall that time.
And then I know we all knowwhen we're sleepy, our thought
process is sometimes a littleaskew.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
There is a lot of variables in that, though, too,
because that's a generationalthing, you know.
They just work, work, work.
And then it could be a culturalthing too, where you work, work
, work, and then, as you getolder, you're like, yeah, it
wasn't that as important, youknow, like, yeah, you're
hustling right.
When you're early in yourcareer, you want to maybe not

(08:26):
prove to yourself, but proveothers that you can.
Hey, I can work as hard asanybody.
And then you realize, you knowwhat, I was much more productive
if I just took the time formyself and, at the same time,
just have different focuses aswell.
So that changes too.
I know there's a lot ofteachings or sessions out there

(08:47):
about that work-life balance,but we also have to consider
about the cultural backgroundtoo, because I realized that
growing up that you know, in myculture, you just have to work
as hard as anybody.
And then, as I get older, whenI have kids, I'm like'm like,
yeah, I'd rather spend my timeover there, right?

Speaker 2 (09:06):
so yeah, exactly exactly, yeah, no, it is
important to balance that.
So how long have you been innew zealand?

Speaker 3 (09:15):
um, so maybe about seven.
Now, seven years around that,yeah, six or seven take it a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, was it all that you had thought it would be?

Speaker 3 (09:26):
um, slightly different.
Here and there I I'm enjoyingit.
Um, like, for example, like interms of work, right you, you
kind of have a feeling like, oh,in new zealand I can dress more
, which is true, but it alsomeans, because you work let's
say, eight to five you gottaneed to make sure that you
finish your work on time soyou're more productive.

(09:48):
That means you work more in ashort period of time yes, so
you're not exactly like relaxingover, so you actually do work
more because you're moreefficient and the, you know,
decision making is quite fast,while if you work longer hours,
people tend to stretch it.
You know, like oh, let's waituntil tomorrow, like later, and

(10:09):
so on and so on.
So I think there's a little bitof different in terms of
productivity.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
It is, it's the output.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
The output is the important thing.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's what people need to measure.
That's what we were talking.
It's how do you measuresomeone's productivity?
You don't measure it by theamount of time it took them.
I mean, granted, the amount oftime it took them has to be
relative to the task, but it'swhat they produce in the time
that they work on it.
It's almost like thattoothpaste, the tooth, the
toothpaste.
You know the toothpaste.
You can work with toothpaste.
It's a big toothpaste.

(10:39):
You squeeze it comes out, yousqueeze it comes out, you
squeeze, comes out.
And then, when it gets to thatvery end of it, it's almost like
that very end that you'retrying to push out and you're
pushing in it lasts longer thanlike the first 90% of the tube.
So it's just a matter of whatyou can do with what you have.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
And you know it's interesting.
On that too, brad, in thetoothpaste.
You don't need a whole lot whenyou squeeze that toothpaste I
don't know if you're aware ofthat you just need a small
amount and that's good enough.
That's a misconception when youwatch an advertisement of like
they have this big old piece oftoothpaste on top of the
toothbrush.
That's too much.
They said it's supposed to belike a quarter of that.

(11:20):
That's all you need.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's not even commercial because it has those
you know.
They want you to consume it,right, they want you to use it.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
You don't need that to go back to moving to new
zealand did.
Did you get an opportunity totake a look at the, the scenery
where they filmed?
Uh, lord of the rings I did.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
I did so I went to like hobby turns and stuff like
that, so that was awesome.
I think that's one of thecoolest thing about new zealand
is the this, the scenery.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
It's just gorgeous yeah, you're living in the lord
of the rings, so you know, Iknow it's definitely a time
check.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
And how about the animals?

Speaker 3 (12:00):
um, the good thing is there's no dangerous animal in
here.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
There's no snakes or anything, so I can go hiking and
not be worried about anythinglike bears and stuff maybe new
zealand's the next, maybe newzealand's next on my list,
because I can't even walk outthe door without seeing a snake,
so forget that.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, it's crazy so there's no worry about like
spiders.
Well, there's spider, but it'snot dangerous, like it's not
like poisonous or anything.
Um, so, yeah, it's really safecountry, um, it's it's nice to
go venture and out, you don't.
You don't feel like someone'sgonna kill you or anything like
animals and stuff I mean interms of like animals are in the
hiking.
So, uh, it's really nice no,that's good.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
That's that's good, but it's not for everybody like.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
so if you, if you enjoy, like nature, new Zealand
is really the best place.
But if you don't I love nature.
Well, there's not many thingsto do in here.
You don't go shopping?
Well, there is some shoppingmall, but you don't.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
You probably get bored pretty soon, and what's
the weather like?

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (13:00):
pretty temperate year-round.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
It's quite nice.
The weather is changing all thetime.
Sometimes it's suddenly raining, Sometimes it's a bit windy,
and sometimes it's sunny.
Right now there's a cyclonegoing on outside, so it's very
windy and rainy, but year-roundit's rather temperate.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
You don't have extreme heat or extreme cold, no
, it's not that extreme.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
I think I didn't use all my winter clothes fully.
So it's just wow, just a nicechecker, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
All these places I have to check out, including the
places in the United States.
Well, one of the things thatyou had mentioned is you're
sensitive to user experience andmaking sure that somebody has a
good experience with ERP.
In your opinion, what defines anice user experience?

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Well, it's different from user to users, right?
I think if you look at the userperspective, what they want to
do is just to do their work.
I would say to finish theirwork faster so they can go home,
for example, if they're allowedto.
So not having time to thinkabout errors and stuff like that

(14:16):
.
I think that can consider agood user experience.
When they see the screen, theyknow exactly what they need to
do.
Oh, I need to do this, I needto do that.
There's no need to think.
There's a lot of preventionbeing put in place to prevent
them from making mistakes.
For example, if error happensand error does happen, the error

(14:37):
will tell you exactly hey, thisis what you're supposed to do,
so I'll guide you through theprocess.
So that is part of the userexperience.
There's a lot more.
So when people talk about userexperience, people like to focus
on the interface only, which ispart of it, but it's more than

(14:57):
that.
It's basically the wholejourney when you start opening
your browser, I would sayputting in business centrals and
how they navigate things, andpersonalizing and so on and so
on.
It's all encapsulated into thatand I can call it the user
experience.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, I like that you call out that the user
experience is not just theinterface they're interacting,
but the full gamut of what theydo day to day.
You're calling out that whenthey're interacting with the
application, that they shouldknow what to expect in terms of
results and, of course, how toproperly get over any blockers

(15:36):
quickly without having to figureout what does it even mean,
because that kills the userexperience, they get frustrated
and so forth, and then they golook at Google stuff and then
can create chaos after that.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, it stops you from being productive as well,
right, so it stops your workflow, and then you spend a lot of
time searching, and then it'sgood if you found a solution,
but if not, then you know it'sfrustrating, right?
Yes, you know it's frustratingright yes.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
And what are some things from the Business Central
point of view?
You've been working with itquite a period of time and we'll
talk about your journey.
I'm interested to hear a littlebit more about your journey as
well, as we started to talkabout previously when we were
planning this call.
But what are some things thatyou feel within Business Central

(16:26):
help enhance the userexperience, whether it's from
the user interface point of viewor from a coding point of view
or a process point of view?
Some of the things that youfound made the journey for a
user to be more pleasurable.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
You mean, in terms of standard, what Business Central
offers, right.
So there are certain thingsthat is quite good, like the
personalization, right, so youcan personalize it, you can
change your profile and so on.
So I think that is pretty good,like having a role center,
having a dashboard.
So I think that's a pretty gooduser experience.
It's more modern now and it'sbecause it's browser-based, you

(17:06):
can easily copy and paste.
So I think that's a stepimprovement from previous Nav.
And then I think it's moreintuitive right now compared to
before.
I think back then, when theyreleased BC, it was a bit clunky
and I didn't like it, but afterseveral versions I started to

(17:30):
like it.
I was like I think this isbetter and I don't want to go
back to the Nav version anymore.
So there are improvements interms of that.
I think it's nicer right now,so you have a click and then you
have a shortcut and so on andso on.
So those are the things thatprobably simple things, but
improve.

(17:51):
I think there's also one thingthat they recently added.
Like they say on the sales line, normally the quantity shift.
You cannot click on it, so youjust, but now you can click and
then it pops up.
So there's a simple, nice like.
But now you can click and itpops up.
So there's a simple, niceenhancement, but it makes the
experience a little bit betterbecause you can now go through a

(18:11):
lot of different places in justa few clicks.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the personalization and one
of the things that I still seequite a bit is that there's a
lot of development on some ofthose personalizations where I
see requests for hide this field, move this field.
Can you do all of this?
And I always say there's adifference between customization

(18:38):
and personalization, becausethe personalization will stay
with you, whereas thecustomization becomes, in my
opinion, technical debt, becausenow it's code that's hiding the
fields and moving the fieldsaround, which requires some sort
of development versus aconfiguration within the
application.
From what I've seen,personalization is underutilized

(19:01):
in that sense, but I'm notcertain outside that way.
Has that been your experienceas well?

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yes, but I do wish there's a bit of more layer into
it.
So, for example, a variant, forexample, some companies use
variants, some people doesn't.
Right, if there's only a togglethat says I'm using variant and
it pops up on allvariant-related pages, because
if they use variant, they'reprobably going to use it on all
variant-related pages, becauseif they use variant they're
probably going to use it on allpages, there's no reason they

(19:27):
need to personalize it.
Right, we need to personalizeit one by one.
But if there's a way we canjust say, oh, you know, this
company is variant, I'm togglingit, maybe using application
area or whatever, and thensuddenly all variant pops up on
every single pages, I would behappy with that.
So there's another layer on topof that personalization.
Even like lot, serial, if youuse lot, then it shows up lot.

(19:49):
If you use serial, it shows upserial.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
That would be awesome .
I would think I do like that.
That little subtle experience,as you had mentioned, is
valuable.
As you had mentioned, insteadof having to go to every page
and make the variant visible,you can do a global setting to
say I'm using variants, make itvisible.
That would be an interestingmodification.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
It's not like oh I want this page to have a variant
, but not the other page.
You will definitely need tohave it on both pages.
I think it makes sense to haveit as a global.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
I like it.
I like those little featureslike that.
They should put that almost asa feature within feature
management.
Yeah, they could turn it offand on that.
The lot numbers are a featureor even, as you'd mentioned, I
know serial numbers and lotnumbers may be slightly
different based upon trackingcode of the item.
But, as you had mentioned, inessence, if you're going to use

(20:43):
it, you would use it throughoutthe system, hopefully.
Yeah, it's a little difficult.
I've seen challenges where somedidn't track serial numbers, a
lot of numbers.
Throughout the entire processthey allowed it to be entered or
not entered.
That's one of those things.
If you use them, in my opinion,should just be mandatory.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah exactly.
And if you use them, forexample, right example, if a new
user comes in and they don'tknow about it so they don't put
the variant code and it staresout and then it frustrates them.
But if you show them in thepage from the beginning, they
probably notice something Ratherthan oh, I need to personalize
first to show the variant.
I think it's better to justshow it there from the very

(21:25):
beginning.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
No I like that, do you find it?
So?
You've implemented Nav andyou've implemented Business
Central.
You know there's somesimilarities of the UI itself,
but one thing that Nav I enjoyedwas the buttons, the big
buttons, the colorful buttons.
Business Central not so much.
Did you?
Do you find that people um thatare new to either nav or

(21:50):
business central in yourexperience um, there's a quicker
adoption?
in business central versus nav,uh, or or even even to a point
where someone moving from nav tobusiness central their adoption
is it a lot quicker now or it'sa little bit more difficult in
terms of finding things?

Speaker 3 (22:09):
I think it's.
There are certain things thatNav is actually better and there
are certain things that PCactually I think there's.
I would think that PC is fasterbecause it's more modern, but
maybe for older people theymight find that nav is more
preferable because it matchedwith their previous old system,

(22:30):
for example.
So there's not much difference,right.
But if they're new, theyhaven't used ERP or they use
this quite similar modern ERP,then they probably find it's
quite easy to adopt.
So I guess it's different fromperson to person.
Yeah, that makes sense.

(22:51):
Yeah, and with user adoptions,it's always going to be a
challenge to use a new system,right, especially an ERP system.
So I think our job as aconsultant is to make it easier
for them.
I normally told them that youknow what new system is going to
be a challenge.
You'll spend like I don't know,a month or two or three to get

(23:11):
used to it, uh, but after thatit get better.
That's something that I promiseyou.
If you, if you cannot, if it'snot getting better, talk to me
and then we'll sort things out.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Um yeah, that's very good and that's one of the
things that I see in manyimplementations is they start to
use the system day one and theythink and you had mentioned
this could be with any newsystem.
It's not necessarily justbusiness central.
The first day they start usingit they think it's cumbersome,

(23:41):
they think it's slow.
It takes them a long timebecause they're still using the
system, getting used to it orgetting comfortable with it.
And to me I see so manyrequests for changes at that
point, before they even had achance to settle in, that
sometimes, I'll deny it, Ipurposely will hold off on some

(24:01):
of those because you know thatthey won't need them or they'll
forget about them theenhancements because once they
get fluid in the system, in theprocess of the system, some of
those things that they thoughtwere difficult before, because
they're now comfortable, are nolonger an issue.
It's not because they acceptedit and they accepted the time,
it's just they thought it wasinefficient at first, but it

(24:22):
really is more efficient.
They just didn't realize theywere pausing to remember every
single thing they needed to dobefore doing it.
So that's where a lot of thetime has come into play.
But that's a very good right,and unlearning things takes time
, um, and then yeah oh, yes, I,I remember going from a
conversion and somebody wasmigrating from an old as400

(24:45):
system into, uh, nav, businesscentral, whatever you'd like to
call it, and this this one womanthat's all she would ever say
is oh, in the old system wecould do this, in the old system
we could do this.
Oh, in the old system it wasthis.
And in reality it was a systemthat somebody had built for them
internally, so there weren't alot of business rules.

(25:07):
But she was making that claimperiodically, over and over and
over again, and basically justsaying she wanted to go back,
she wanted to go back, shewanted to go back.
I think anybody who's workedwith an implementation has
experienced someone in anorganization that was like that.
Then, fast forward a period oftime and they were making an
acquisition and they had to usethe other company's system to

(25:31):
help, you know, through thetransition.
And it was funny that samewoman that was complaining about
moving to Business Central wasnow saying well, in Business
Central we can do this.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
I can't do this.
I can't do this.
She did.
She became the biggest advocate.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
after she started using it and seeing the benefits
of the interface and theexperience with it that I just
sat back and I laughed becauseshe was one of the more
challenging users to bringforward, but then also, now that
she was using it, was thebiggest advocate for it.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
So they can someone in those situations.
Those are superpowers, man.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Just be an advocate for whatever she was using.
That's a good superpower.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah.
So I'm curious how do youhandle users like that?
Right, like you can clearlyknow what Business Central can
do for you and it works andthere's a lot of opportunities
for growth, of opportunities forgrowth.
But when you're dealing withend users like that, or users of

(26:34):
Business Central it doesn'thave to be an end user how do
you overcome that?
Like, how do you get them overthat hump?
Yeah, how do you get over thehump?
I mean like for you know, likeyou know, everyone may
understand the process, you know, and they're learning along the
way.
It's a little bit difficult,but then you have that one
person that can, you know,create chaos with everybody that

(27:00):
understands it and they justcannot grasp.
Do you just continue to moveforward?
Or is that when you startpersonalizing?
Personalizing, um, you know therole.
How do you go about that oneteddy?

Speaker 3 (27:19):
um, I think it's uh, it's case by case, right?
So, um, and and I think withany implementation, like you,
you cannot make everybody happy,unfortunately um, so you, you
try your best to explain thingsand then you try to reason like,
oh, this is what it is, andthen you try to help.

(27:39):
Right, let me personalize itfor you, or let me hear.
So I think one of the firststeps that you do is basically
to hear their side of the story,because I've been an end user
as well, I've been frustratedwith my system as well, so I
know how they feel, or more orless.
So, talk to them first and thensee, or maybe they actually

(28:02):
have a good point, right?
Oh, this is how you do itbefore.
Oh, okay, so then maybe let'stry to do it this way first for
a few couple of days, and then,if you think that it's still not
, let's try to do it this wayfirst for a few couple of days,
and then, if you think that it'sstill not, let's talk again.
And there will be a time whenthere's nothing else you can do,
right?
So that's that's when you starttalking with, like, like the,

(28:23):
the other project managers, forexample, to see if there's any
way you can actually do it.
So you, you, you bring otherpeople in and then you try to
solve, you know on how to tacklethis issue, and then sometimes
maybe you just need to keepmoving forward, unfortunately.
But I think initially I wouldtry to persuade that person and

(28:45):
then try to explain, and thensometimes we do go to the
customization part if it doesmake sense.
Right, if that person say that,oh, this is this and this is
the reason why I'm doing this,and then they say, okay, that
does make sense, let me bringthat first, let me talk to that
for our team.
We have a team and then wediscuss it, and then it turns

(29:06):
out that that person does make agood point.
So let's go to thecustomization part.
But that's probably towards theend, because ideally you don't
want to do customization, butthere are times when you do and
you need to acknowledge thatthat person is right.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, I think that's a great call out because I think
that people should have thatconversation.
Whether it's a tough one fromyou're dealing with a user that
is very adamant and you know youhit a good point about just
listening to them andunderstanding.
Okay, what is the reason whyyou're apprehensive?

(29:45):
And a lot of times in myexperience where they're so used
to the old system, they're notrealizing that it was also
customized to do a specificprocess and so from their
experience they think like whycan't Business Central do this?
It did it over here.
Then once you unravel and yourealize actually it was
automated for you and that's whyit seems to do it that way and

(30:07):
so it is okay to do that.
It's okay to have theconversation Whether we invest
in that automation right at theget-go or could we do that after
.
Because a lot of times theyalso have to understand how to
do things manually.
Again, this is my experience.
They have to learn how to dothings manually if the
automation doesn't work.
There's been countless timeswhere the automation or the job

(30:31):
queue stopped working and thennobody knows how to create the
sales order because sales ordersjust come in.
It just does it, you know, doesit for me, and then it stops
working and they're like I don'tknow how to create a sales
order.
So it's really important foryou know users to it's not only
you can still automate things,but also understand if it
doesn't work.
You should learn how to fly aplane right If autopilot doesn't

(30:59):
work.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
You should still at least be able to land the plane
Exactly.
I'm hopeful that the pilotknows how to land a plane.
The communication is importantbecause, as you had mentioned,
someone may have a system thatmay not have as stringent rules
or they may not understandsomething as part of the process

(31:19):
.
But I also have found sometimesthey need to make sure that
they understand what they'redoing and why, because one if
you talk with them and they feellike you understand them and
you listen to them, that helpsgive them some reassurance, but
also sometimes saying you haveto enter this field here because
it impacts the picking processin the distribution center, for

(31:41):
example.
So if they have anunderstanding of the importance
of what they're doing or whythey're doing it, sometimes it's
also a little less challenging.
I have found, yeah, yeah, On topof the points that you had both
made about listening to whatthey're looking for and, chris,
your point is it's understandingthe process, how to do the
process, but also it's just toput on top of that why they're

(32:02):
doing the process sometimes canbring that user adoption level
up a little bit higher, becausenow they realize they may be
helping someone else, because Ihave been through
implementations where they wantto make a small change on the
sales order.
But that change they make onthe sales order created several
different steps for somebodyelse in the cycle or the life
cycle of the order or thefulfillment of the order, and it

(32:23):
made one person's job easierbut it made a whole warehouse a
little bit less efficient.
So those are some things tokeep in mind as they go through
that so it's a lot.
It's a lot, I think, to do theimplementations is.
It can sometimes be challengingand you had mentioned you were

(32:44):
a customer before a user, beforea system, before you made the
transition over to doingconsulting.
How do you feel that has helpedyou in your consulting career?

Speaker 3 (32:56):
It helps me a lot.
So I started as a technicalconsultant right Fresh out of
uni.
I went into partners.
I had no knowledge aboutbusiness process, right, so they
just handed me a pdf manual.
It's like learn this about nav,like 4.0.

(33:16):
So that's the official manual,um, and then I, as much as I
tried to learn from that, Ididn't know much about I.
I think back then, when I, whenI designed, when I um developed
something, it's always feelsthat this is the best way.
This is the one that I came upis the best way.

(33:38):
You use it.
So, and then, yeah, that was abit arrogant from my part, um,
but when I switched to use thesite, I start to understand how
they feel, how they think, howsometimes they don't like their
partner, but, yeah, so you, youget to, you get to see their
business process, their thoughtprocess, like this is what I do

(33:58):
and I think, at the end of theday, they just want to do their
work efficiently and as much aspossible.
So that shifts my perspective.
So now, whenever I implementsomething, I start to think, oh,
how are they going to use this?
Are they going to?
So that's why it's in.
On information, I think it's agood idea for your consultant I

(34:20):
mean mostly a dev to actuallyget to know the user, if
possible, so you know visitingthem.
And then even, like, whenyou're designing a warehouse
solution, you need to know howtheir warehouse works right.
You need to know, like, whetherthey do this, whether there's a
lot of like bins or whetherthey're wearing gloves, for
example, and then how do they?
Are they a super user or arethey just user who just want to

(34:45):
click a button, and so on and soon.
So that changed my perspective.
And then now, whenever I got atask for example, so, teddy, can
you make this?
I'll start asking questionslike oh, why do you need to do
this?
Like, what happens if I don'tdo this?
What happens if we don't docustomization?

(35:06):
It's like, why are we goingthis path?
So I keep asking questions toget to know why we need to
discuss, why we need a solution,and it puts me in a better way
on when I design it.
It fits them better.
That's how I feel.
And then I start also askingfeedback because I think, as an

(35:29):
end user, you just want to.
I mean, partner comes, asks youwhat's your requirement, and
then they leave and then theyjust give you during the UAT,
for example, without asking youanything, right, and this is the
solution that we designed.
And then the end user will lookat it and it's like that's not
what we asked.
So giving a feedback, likeasking for confirmations

(35:54):
throughout the implementation, Ithink, is also a good way of
doing it, because I think, as anend user, that means that you
will feel that you're beinglistened and your opinion is
valuable.
And then sometimes, when doingthe requirement gatherings, you
miss something.
As an end user, you say, oh, Ineed this, I need this.
But then throughout theimplementation, you realize that

(36:16):
, oh, there's actually somethingmore that I haven't actually
talked to you.
So it's always good to actuallygo back to the customers.
It's just clarifying so, do wehave building this?
This is what you want, and soon, so you don't go too far
ahead, and yeah, that is a goodpoint on the perspective and
from listening to what to say,is something.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Chris, it's what we've been saying now for I
can't tell you how long.
The most important part ofimplementations now is the
relationship.
It's the relationship that youbuild with the customer.
It's not we're going to tellyou how to manage the system,
tell you how to do the system.
In this space I always mentionit's called partner for a reason
.
You're partnering with someoneto help them with the

(36:55):
implementation.
You're not doing it for them,You're not owning it.
They have to own it, and partof that is through the
communication and theconversation.
So, whether if you're a partneror a customer, you should be
engaged through the designprocess, through the UAT process
with each other so that there'san understanding of why we're

(37:16):
doing things, how we're doingthings and working together to
make sure it's what's right forthe individuals using it within
an organization.
So them feeling like they'realso participating in the
implementation also gives themsome ownership in it and they
want it to be successful.
They want it to work.
Versus if someone like you saidyou go through, send me your

(37:38):
requirements, Okay, this is howwe're doing it, we're setting it
up this way, Then they're morelikely to be well.
I don't like the way this works.
It doesn't work properly, theygive you a little bit more
resistance on it and also, whenyou're a partner, you're helping
someone implement it, so fromthe user's perspective, they're
the ones that have to use itevery day.
Exactly when we set up a systemas a partner for someone, we're

(38:01):
doing it one or two times,training them, show them how to
use it, but it's not the day inand day out.
So that feedback loop isextremely important during those
processes and I know one of thechallenges that I have seen and
I'm just curious your thoughtson the amount of time that
someone has to use and test theapplication.

(38:24):
I see a lot of implementationswhere I feel that there's not a
lot of testing time because theyhave their regular job to do.
I guess you could say and notall organizations can afford to
hire new people to do temporaryjobs for a period of time and
they may be able to offset it.
But what are your thoughts orapproaches on how to have an

(38:49):
effective UAT or testing plan orprocess?

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Well, we definitely need more tests, right?
I think testing is always goodto make sure.
And then they need to test it,not the developer, not the
consultant, because theconsultant can only test as much
as they know, right?
But the one who's going to useit is the user.
So it's always good to ask themto perform the test, so you can

(39:15):
assign what you call it like asuper user or a champion to test
it.
And then, yeah, I mean, they doreally need to invest on it.
There's no going out of it.
It's not like, I mean, if theydon't test it, they'll pay it
later on.
So I think that's somethingthat we need to make sure that
we need a dedicated team fromyour side to test, like, if you

(39:39):
don't test it, you'll pay.
I mean, we try our best to makesure that the solution works,
you know, as intended, and therewill be no issue, and so on,
but there will always be a gap.
And then it's always better foryour site to test it, because
if you don't test it after weimplement it, then you'll have a

(40:03):
lot of issue.
And then, because you have alot of issue, you have a bad
user experience and thatfrustrates users, and because
you have more frustration, itwill lead to more resistance.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
So invest early, I would say that is an interesting
thing, brad, you're calling itout of.
They have their day-to-day joband then they're expected to
test.
One thing that I don't seeoften is adding that as part of
the budget towards your project,you have to budget the time of

(40:36):
people have to take away tospend time on the project for
UAT because it is an investment.
So if you invest on useradoption, that means you're
going to get your quicker ROI onBusiness Central because now
your people will be, you know,quickly utilizing it as best as
possible right away, versus notspending time of UAT and a lot

(40:59):
of times you have to step awayfrom that and then allow them to
spend time of testing.
So people that is one thing I'mnot.
I don't see often.
You know when you're budgetingfor project, not only budgeting
for the implementation and theapplication costs but they don't
ever budget the time internaltime.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
That's a great point.
That is a great point.
It's because estimates often gowith what would it take from
the partner point of view tohelp with the implementation
Exactly, even if someone doesn'tknow the number, to see a line
item on that to say yourinternal testing, just so that
they have in their mind thatthey need to allocate for that

(41:40):
internal testing.
I like that idea.
I have not seen that.
I've had the conversations,chris, but you're right.
I think putting something likethat on that proposal, just so
that they're aware of it andthey know that they also have to
participate in this, may behelpful as well yeah, and you
see that.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
You see that on a statement of work, maybe you
know 40 hours of uat, but that's40 hours of maybe me sitting
down with them, of testing, oror 40 hours just my side, but it
doesn.
But it doesn't calculate ontheir side as well that they
also have to do that 40 hoursright, it's not just me, they're

(42:18):
paying, but it's 40 hours istaking quote-unquote
productivity of people gettingtheir job done.
They tend to forget that aswell.
So if you look at it from ananalytical perspective, if
you're really into those numbers, I think it's important for end
users or clients of BusinessCentral to maybe consider that.

(42:40):
So then you can see the truecost of your Business Central
implementation, not just partner.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
And that testing I'm not talking we could talk about
if it's relevant.
It's not automated testing orany programmatic testing.
This is the user acceptancetest.
That's when they go through theprocess, but that's also a
training experience.
So, chris, to your point, the40 hours and that's the point I
was trying to make when I wastalking about it's on the cost
that they'll get from a partneror an estimate.

(43:11):
It's the partner's time, but Iwould say, even if the partner
is 40 hours, the customer shouldbe spending more than 40 hours.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Maybe not one person, but collectively across the
different departments or thedifferent groups, depending upon
the size of the organization.
I would say it's much more thanthat, because what Teddy's
proud of is the user experience.
Getting them in to test and useit makes them more comfortable
with it as well.
So day one when they go to useit, they can get some

(43:41):
productivity back as well,because now they have a sense of
what they're doing and theydon't have to wait for someone
to show them how to do it.
So to keep up with the shipping, to keep up with the
collections, to keep up with theorders having that time up
front also saves you time duringthe implementation.
These are a lot of things thatI think go hidden.
And a lot of times people sayChris gave me an estimate it's

(44:03):
going to be a week of UAT.
I'm done, yeah, with noownership.
And Teddy, you brought up a bigpoint and I like the word you
use resistance.
Even if it's not intentional,they will automatically start to
resist because they're runninginto challenges, they're out of
their comfort zone, so they'regoing to want to resist going to

(44:24):
something new because they'regoing to want to withdraw and go
back to what they'recomfortable with and they start
not liking the system.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
So they start giving excuses like oh, that's because
they start finding fault on thesystem, right?
So it triggers a chain ofreaction of resisting the system
.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, and you made a point too, teddy, about creating
the feedback loop, becausepeople tend to forget that when
the user experience doesn't endonce you go live, right, your
partner goes away and maybethey're there to support from
time to time, but it's aconsistent, you know,
improvement in getting thefeedback Is it still working?

(45:02):
Is it still working?
And then sometimes partner willgive you like, oh, we'll be
around for 30 days to make surethere's no support needed.
But it shouldn't be that.
In that case, it should be along-term partnership, as Brad
noted earlier.
That's why we don't use theword VAR anymore, right, because
it's value-added reseller.
We're just not a reseller, we'rea partner, so it needs to be a

(45:25):
long-term plan and one of thethings that an end user or a
business can do is, you know,have a consistent, maybe monthly
, follow up or feedback, ormaybe work with your partner to
do additional training as a, youknow, just to validate the
process is still working.
It may work at that time, butthen in the next 30 days or next

(45:48):
I don't know six months, therecould be changes.
That requires you to makeadjustments as well, and you
know, I see that too often.
They just kind of move on.
And then the user experiencethey get frustrated and what
happens and I've used this termbefore is rogue processes, where
someone gets frustrated.
They Google stuff and then theyread a document somewhere and

(46:11):
they're like I'm going to dothis here too, and then it
doesn't fit their business,right, they start populating
records where they shouldn't,and now, now you have technical
debt, right, but to your point,yeah, you have to do this as a
full gamut of, you know, userexperience, not just from that
moment on and that's it.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Yeah, that's a good point, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Teddy, what are the biggest resistance, the most
common resistance you get interms of the user interface or
user experience when they'regetting on there.
Is it typically the navigationcomponent?
What are the most common onesthat you've encountered?

Speaker 3 (46:56):
Well, like Brad says, normally people compare with
the old system.
You know, like, oh, in my oldsystem I can do this, in my old
system I can do this.
So it's always like that, thebiggest part of it.
And also there are some partswhere they don't understand why
they need to fill in certainthings, right, well, and also
there are some parts where theydon't understand why they need
to fill in certain things.
Right, I've never filled inposting group before.
Why do I need to fill in theposting group now?
And so on and so on.

(47:18):
And then sometimes even likewith personalizations, right, if
I don't need it, why don't youjust hide it from me from the
very beginning, for example,even though we teach them that
you can actually personalize.
So those are some of theresistance.
And then sometimes, because thenature of the way is the
central work, maybe like forauditing, so you need to do a

(47:41):
certain way, you actually havemore steps compared to the
previous system, right?
Oh, in the previous system wecan just edit, for example, our
lecture entry.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah, so there's a reasonbehind it.
So trying to, I mean trying tomake them understand, I think
that's sometimes.
This is quite a challenge, um,and then sometimes, yeah, you

(48:03):
kind of need to say this is theway the system works, this is,
there's a reason behind it, it'sfor auditing purpose and so on.
You're not supposed to edit.
If you make a change, you needto do a credit and then you need
to do invoice and so on and soon.
So I think that's that'sprobably the yeah, quite common
resistance.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah, that's.
That's funny.
You're calling out like beingable to edit, like that's common
too.
Coming from another erp systemto business central.
We're like why do I have tocreate an order in an invoice?
Can I just create an invoice,you know?

Speaker 3 (48:30):
what if I just credit .

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Can I just reverse an invoice?
No, you got to create maybe asales return order, right, and
then I'll create a credit memo,like there's still all of those
things that you do have to takethe time to educate and slow
down, right, um, and not just soquickly, you know.
Uh, uh, be brash about it andthen, like they get frustrated,

(48:52):
exactly.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yeah, I think of everything you're saying.
I just it's.
It's when you start to getolder, you start to reminisce a
lot, and I think this week Idon't know, maybe I hit a point.
I'm starting to reminisce abouta lot of things.
Chris is involved in some ofthe chats I'm in about
reminiscing about things frombefore, but I was just thinking
of so many implementations thatI have gone through and some of

(49:15):
the conversations I've had andgoing through it.
Then I started thinking I spentmy life doing ERP software.
You wouldn't even think thatpeople would go through that
whole process of implementingERP software systems as well.
So it's, it's's safe.
Now I'm gonna you know, there'sa I had a conversation.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
We just came back from a conference so I had a
conversation, somebody about, um, you know, making erp or have
an erp class at universities, ohhave you guys heard about that.
There's been a push, or at leastan idea out there, that they

(49:56):
should make it as a curriculumat universities of how to
utilize ERP.
It doesn't have to be businesscentral, it could be just
whatever ERP, because nobodyrealizes that a lot of business
requires ERP, not just a financesoftware, and so I thought
that's pretty interesting.
A great idea for future talentyou know, utilizing Business

(50:21):
Central or some form of ERP isto have an ERP curriculum.
You guys heard about that.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
I haven't heard anything about that.
I'm trying to think I haven'theard anything about that.
I'm trying to think.
I understand understanding corefinancials if you're a finance
major or even a business major,but I agree now that, thinking
as part of a business major,would they also cover inventory
and proper processing?
I think some of the othermajors maybe as an elective

(50:50):
would be beneficial.
I could see it in thecurriculum of the majors.
Maybe as an elective would bebeneficial.
I could see it in thecurriculum.
But to be honest with you, Ithink the whole educational
system will change soon becausenow we have tools online to help
us learn things, versus thestudies which give us the
discipline of showing up, Iguess you could say in learning
things.
But that is interesting.
I would like to see that insome business classes to make

(51:13):
sure you have the full suite ofhow to properly operate a
business utilizing the softwareyeah yeah, I think that's an
interesting because it'severywhere, right, erp is
everywhere.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
I mean, if you go, if you go work somewhere, they're
using some kind of erp software.
So, um, getting to know that,uh, in in in a school in uni,
that would be a great, you know,um, it helps you get into that
company as well, because youalready have the basic knowledge
.
Right, because when I, when I,when I joined as a partner, I
have zero.

(51:44):
So it's like what is customerledger?

Speaker 1 (51:47):
well, even even as a career, right, like you know.
You know getting into the forme, I just stumbled upon it.
You know it's like oh, this isactually awesome, this is fun,
and you build a career and youbuild a good livelihood.
And for many that don't realizethat until later in life, but if

(52:08):
this was an opportunity forthem, for them to understand,
like even just learning how toimplement erp, you can build a
career out of that.
You know why?
Why isn't that not part of youknow an option?
Uh, in in schools, I think itwould be amazing.
Then, when we're looking fortalent, it's like, oh yeah, we
can, we can focus on people thattook ERP curriculums and

(52:32):
classes.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
I think that would be great.
It's something targeting afunctional consultant, for them
to understand business processesin the sense of the
applications that you use,versus the theory of it, similar
to the reskill program wherethey go through how to use
Business Central.
I agree with you, teddy, someof the terms now to me are like
standard terms.
And some people don't know.
Like, try to explain tosomebody what a posting group is

(52:56):
.
You mentioned posting groupsearlier.
I'd love to hear everybody'sdefinition of a posting group.
I would ask either one of you,just to not put you on the spot,
but maybe one of the futureguests, chris will have to put
on the spot to see if they werelistening and they rehearsed,
because what is a posting group?

Speaker 1 (53:16):
but but you know, I'm saying like it's, it's.
I think it's important toeducate earlier, because now
they have ai um curriculums inschool, like why not erp?
I don't know, I, I don't knowman, like it's, uh, I think it'd
be amazing if we could get that.
Then we could be to teddy brad,you could be to Teddy Brad, you
could be professors.
Man, that could be a shift fora career for some of us.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I would take a position in a university
teaching ERP software,absolutely, but just the
processes behind ERP software.
We can pick differentapplications to show how they do
it differently andunderstanding the concepts of
PICS consolidations that wouldbe amazing good retirement plan

(54:03):
right if they make it availableonce I retire?

Speaker 1 (54:07):
maybe I just want to become a professor.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Chris, I think you should start a university, ku
Chris University ah, there yougo, you can start start doing an
8 weekweek course or somethingand then eventually you can
break it up into havingsemesters.
I'm sure there'd be plenty ofindividuals that would help
teach the basic core conceptsand again, it's just the core

(54:32):
concepts of running ERP softwareand going through an
implementation.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Let's see all these interesting things.
Whoever's listening to this isprobably gonna go ahead and,
like I'm gonna, that's my nextmove.
I'm out of here.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
I'm just gonna teach yeah, training or teaching
whatever you'd like to use, isbecoming more and more popular.
I we do have tools online, suchas Copilot a lot of individuals
share Teddy will talk about yourblog in a few moments as well
share a lot of information.

(55:09):
But, chris, you mentioned theconference that we just came
back from and I know you and Idiscussed one of the things I
left from the conference, whichwas amazing.
The conference was amazing Ileft with seeing where there is
a need for we have all thesefeatures.
We have all this documentationthat tells us what it is, what
it does, but I don't see a lotof how do I apply it?

(55:32):
All right, so we have thesefeatures and functionality where
it's now.
We have a group of individualsimplementing ERP, whether it's
on the customer side or thepartner side or even somewhere
else, I guess, if that evenexists, let's just think how do
we implement, how do we apply,how do we have our critical
thinking so that, to go through,to solve somebody's problem,

(55:54):
how do we know which feature,which function to use, how do we
know which feature, whichfunction to use?
And I'll say it I sat in one ofJen Claridge's sessions.
I gave her a plug again for this.
Don't tell her I don't want totell her that I enjoyed it, but
she did the projects versusproduction orders, which is
great, because she started offsaying, okay, projects were

(56:16):
added, well, renamed or whatever, and this is what it does.
Production orders, this is whatit does.
But she actually took that andmade an exercise in her session
of okay, this is what thecustomer's requirement is, which
would you use?
And then she went into the why.
So it fostered the thought of wehave all these features and
functionality within the ERPsoftware, but how do we know

(56:39):
when to apply what?
And to me, that's where I'mstarting to realize there is a
big gap.
I guess you may say in sort ofthe implementation process or
the training process is thecritical thinking piece of okay,
these are the scenarios of whenyou may want to do that, and
then you could have somesimilarities and extract from

(56:59):
there.
Or just shows you thatsometimes you have to take a
step back and think is this thebest process or is the other
process the better process?

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah.
And so I guess that leads to myquestion for you, teddy.
You know, being in New Zealand,do you normally work around?
I think you had mentioned youhave clients in Japan, indonesia
and so forth.
Is there any knowledgerequirement in terms of like
localizations and and countryspecific when you're

(57:33):
implementing Business Central?

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Are there any?

Speaker 1 (57:36):
challenges there.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Oh, yes, absolutely Like when I first came to Japan,
I obviously had to know aboutthe Japanese requirement.
So that's when I need to relyon my colleague to explain to me
.
You know, how do they do things, is there any specific
requirements?
So that's something that youjust kind of need to learn.
And obviously, um, with thiskind of limitations, you, you

(58:03):
can be upfront to your client aswell.
Um, I think that's always my umapproach is like you, you bring
honesty and integrity into yourimplementations.
So let's say, oh, I want toimplement a us, for example,
I'll tell them I don't know muchabout us, but I'll try it, I'll
try to gather some knowledgeand, um, I need your help as
well to get that right.
So, like in the financial sideas well, I can try as much as I

(58:25):
can from my side, but I alsoneed your cooperation in order
for us to implement thissuccessfully.
So, yes, there are certainthings, like in Indonesia or in
Japan, that requires you tolearn, and especially like in
Japan, for example, they do havetheir own language right, so

(58:45):
they use kanji, for example, andBC, I think last time I checked
, didn't have support for thatlanguage.
So normally, partners implementtheir own language for Japanese
.
So if you're supporting acustomer that has a different
partner, you'll see that there'sa different term that's being
used, like for sales order theyuse this one, but for the other

(59:10):
partner they use that one.
Sometimes it feels like hmm,and sometimes they just use
English.
So they use katakana torepresent the English characters
.
So sometimes some partnersactually use that.
So this is to support them.
It's easier to read yeah, see,it's older.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
So, those are a challenge as well right.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
So when you actually take over other partners' work,
for example, and then you lookat it, it's like, oh, they, they
used two different terms.
That's just a language issue,right.
Oh, they use a different termfor it.
So I need to make sure thatthey they are.
This is that.
That's not the terms that weuse in in this partner.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Yeah, you know I'm always curious about that
because you know it sounds likeyou're working with a lot of
businesses within thosesurrounding countries and for me
, you know, most of my clientsif not all of my clients have
worked with is just always beenusing, you know, english and so
you know I've never beeninvolved in an implementation

(01:00:13):
where it's, you know it's anentirely different language, you
know.
So I'm always curious from yourperspective, like the
difficulty in the translationand you have to work with a
partner that translates thelanguage you know.
In Indonesia, for example, dothey use English or do they have
language extension?
Oh, they use English, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
But they do have language extensions.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
I don't know that they have an Indonesian language
.
I haven't implemented inIndonesia for a while, so maybe
they have, maybe they they,maybe they just rely on partners
.
But I'm pretty sure becausemost Indonesians are quite
comfortable using English aslike, as a system right.
So they they are quitecomfortable using English system
, so we normally can keep it asit is and they quite quick to

(01:00:59):
learn, while in Japan it's verydifferent.
They are used to Japanesesystems and they even have their
own Japanese ERPs, like KanjouBugyou.
So in order for them to reallyutilize the system properly,
they actually need to have aJapanese language installed and

(01:01:20):
that's why most partners areactually offering a Japanese
extension language.
But then when you do a customsolution, you need to start
thinking how do I translate this?
So you start digging like,let's say, if you build a new
table and then you refer tosales order number, you need to

(01:01:41):
find out that sales order whichterms that we used to talk about
sales order.
I was like, oh, two month order.
That means I need to put thetwo month order as part of my
translation.
So you got to need to go allaround the places to make sure
that you have a consistent termswhen you're building a solution
Right, because otherwise ifyour terms is different?
it's not yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
You know I feel blessed that.
You know we just deal withdifficult end users sometimes
and we speak English, right, andI can't imagine having to deal
with a difficult user and adifferent language at the same
time.
And then there's culturaldifferences as well and how they
do business.
That that's fascinating.

(01:02:23):
I'd love to sit in one of thoseimplementation one day.
I'm like just to just to feelhumble, yeah, yeah, like hey,
man, we're lucky that we'redealing with some of these uh
implementation.
I'll take that in a day.
Um, again, we're isolated, likeat least for me, isolated is
just doing English-speakingimplementation and it's just

(01:02:44):
like how do they do it?
How do they take BusinessCentral on all the different
languages?
How does that translate inbusiness?
That's fascinating to me.
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
It is and it has its own challenge Even implementing
it, especially if you don'tspeak the language right.
So then you start having aproblem of here and there, and I
think when I first came toJapan I had zero knowledge of
Japanese, so well, maybe alittle bit like ordering food.
So I tend to ask someone elseto translate it for me.

(01:03:15):
Once I'm finished, I ask afunctional consultant or a deaf
who actually can speak Japaneseto translate it for me.
Once I'm finished, I ask afunctional consultant or a deaf
who actually can speak Japaneseto translate it for me.
So I'm copying and pasting itwithout realizing what's the
whole meaning about it.
I just hope that I copy andpaste the right thing and it's
true.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Translations are tough, because sometimes context
is important, because the sameword can be translated a few
different ways to English andfrom English.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
It's something to take in.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
And sometimes the word doesn't show up properly
because you know like we have adouble byte characters and so on
.
So sometimes, even though youtype everything, sometimes when
you compile it and show it onthe pages, it doesn't show up.
So you kind of need to checkthe whole things and make sure
that everything and every wordactually shows up properly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Yeah, that's true, and it kind of leads me to my
next question about the marketin New Zealand or even in that
Asia area.
You know, microsoft recentlyannounced that they have 45,000
business central customers, ormore than 45,000 business
central customers, but theydon't actually break it down
right.
So from your perspective, Imean, is there a lot of clients

(01:04:38):
using business central in NewZealand or maybe within the Asia
area?

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
I think there's quite a lot.
I'm pretty sure it keeps onincreasing.
We've got more and morecustomers.
So I think it's a trend nowthat we have more and more
business central customers andwe have more partners right?
So obviously it's not, probablyit's not as big as US or Europe
, but we do have an increase ofpeople.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Okay, so there is an opportunity.
You know, I know that there isa huge user base in terms of
even GP, for example, likeDynamics GP, in terms of even GP
, for example, like Dynamics GP.
So you know, I had anopportunity a year ago to build
a community or Dynamicscommunity out in the Philippines

(01:05:28):
, for example.
And in Philippines, you know,being part of the Asia area, you
know they use a lot of Dynamicsproducts and they, you know, I
see the trend of using BusinessCentral as an ERP as well.
So I was just curious,countries outside of that, it

(01:05:49):
sounds like from your answer,there is definitely growth, a
steady growth, of utilizingBusiness Central.
So my dreams of moving to thephilippines may still be, you
know, possible, do it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
do it while you can do it.
When I mean by can is whileyou're physically able, because
exactly and then build auniversity there.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
You can build the philippines.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
You can build ku in the philippines.
But we talk with manyindividuals and maybe it seems a
little more dramatic to us inthe United States, because the
United States is large and wehave states and some individuals
will move from one state toanother fairly regularly, but
when you start talking withindividuals such as yourselves

(01:06:36):
and we meet other individualsthat we've spoken with both on
the podcast and in person atevents they pick up and move to
a totally different country.
It just sounds like a differentexperience and I think I think
it's something to do.
Chris, I think you should moveto the philippines and we'd be
on a bigger time difference.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
But that's okay, we could figure out it's like 18
hour, I think, difference it'salmost the same, as I think it's
the same as new zealand's, likethey're ahead yeah, yeah you'd
be in the future, the thingslike that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
I think everyone should have the experience of
moving to a different place tosee a different culture, or at
least immerse themselves into adifferent culture for a period
of time, because I think it'sinteresting to see how other
people live, in a sense of whatthey they do from their day to

(01:07:28):
day.
As you had mentioned, adifferent culture you started we
started the conversation with.
In japan, they may be a littlemore busy, work a little bit
more, whereas new zealand, tosay they may not be as busy
doesn't mean they're not asproductive.
I'm always careful to say that,because just because you're not
as busy all the time doesn'tmean you're not productive.
So I think it's nice to see.

(01:07:48):
And then also the differentweather, and then, chris, I'd
have some place to go visit yeah, yeah, it's a it is a tropical
island.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
There's like 7 000 islands, and then you can choose
whatever you want.
So, yeah, okay, and that's howyou can.

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
You can yeah yeah, sorry I mean, especially if you,
if you pick a country where youdon't speak the language,
that's even more awesome,because now you start to need to
learn the language.
Yeah, and the?
I think the language shapes theway you think as well.
I think I've found a lot offoreigners, for example, like US

(01:08:24):
, when they go to Japan, theystart speaking more slowly and
try to let other people tounderstand as well, so they try
to articulate it better, forexample, instead of just
speaking fast, because for theJapanese people, it's hard for
them to catch up if you'respeaking too fast.
So the way you speak alsostarted to change, so your

(01:08:48):
English language started tochange as well, the way you
speak, and so on.
So it helps you better, I feel,in terms of articulating and
communicating, because you wantto make sure that the other
party actually understands you.
And then the way their languagealso works differently, like a
Japanese language, for example,there's a lot of times where

(01:09:09):
they actually don't have thesubject, because the subject is
considered like it's a commonknowledge for you to know.
It's an action or somethinglike that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
No, so it's more towards like it's a common
knowledge.
You know it's an action orsomething like that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
No, so it's more towards like we don't.
It's more like passive, likethe work is done or information
will be doing so, because it isunderstand between the world
party that who's going to do it,so there's no need to actually
use the subject, so most of thetime it's used as a passive.
Like this works needs to bedone by this, so the so you, you

(01:09:47):
kind of need to learn how tolike captures the intention,
like yeah yeah, it's really hard.
And then I think, when I firstum, learn it, I think so.
I had a discussion with acolleague of mine and then we
start talking about all this,this, this, this, this, and then
by the end it's like, oh, weagree.
And then at the end of theconversation I was like, so

(01:10:09):
who's going to do it, you or me?
Yeah, it's implied, right?
So there are implications.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
It's implied Like they.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
They don't have to tell you, it doesn't have to be
part of the languagecommunication.
It is implied that you're goingto do it.
So you start to read people's.
You gain that ability to kindof read people, because when you
study Japanese that's how theydo.
So I think it's a good learningopportunity.
When you move to a country thatyou don't know the language,
you don't have to be good to goextreme, like to go to China or

(01:10:43):
to go to Japan where they don'tuse the same characters.
But yeah, I mean it's a verygood learning experience.
If you start to learn thecultures and the way the
language works, then you canstart understanding them better.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Yeah, I think that's important, important, I think a
lot of times, everyone has aviewpoint of what something may
be like until they go through itand live it and experience it,
and it may change yourperspective if I could plug
something really quick, brad, II think it's very important to
have your team to be asdifferent backgrounds I know
Brad and I have worked withdifferent individuals with

(01:11:26):
different backgrounds, but itdoes help in terms of
communicating because we, youknow, we've worked with.
We work with people that arefrom Japan and have no clue, but
we, you know, we happen to workwith somebody that can speak
the language and so that alittle bit of you know the
ability to speak differentlanguages.
It's like chef's kiss, becausethen you know you have a better

(01:11:49):
way to communicate, especiallywhen you're trying to help a
business implement BusinessCentral.
So I just want to put that outreally quick.
So thanks, brad.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
No, thank you.
I think it is important andthat you'd get different
perspectives with the differentbackgrounds.
So it helps you have a betterimplementation or a better
experience.
A few months ago, when wetalked, you mentioned about your
blog.
What types of information doyou share in your blog?

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
I share everything about Nav and Business Central,
basically functional side,technical side.
I guess it started because Iwant to share the knowledge.
It's also because I also wantto remember how to do certain
things.
So I put it there as well forme so I can always go back to it

(01:12:35):
and read it and then do it.
But yeah, so I think in thebeginning I just want to share.
So that's why I started my blog, so I started sharing things
like small things like oh, thisis how you do this, this is how
you do this.
And then it's kind of grow fromthere and then right now I'm

(01:12:57):
just sharing tips.
So every Friday I try to sharetips like this is how you do
certain things in BusinessCentral.
This is how you do this, thisis how you do this.
Now sometimes people will say,oh, that's a common knowledge.
But I believe that commonknowledge is not that quite
common, and then, especially fornew users, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
You hit it right, you hit that nail right on the head
and that's what I say, andthat's one of the things, even
when we talk about sessionplanning at conferences and such
common knowledge to who,because somebody is always at a
different point in their journey.
Some organizations, someindividuals that may be working
with partners are just at thevery beginning of their journey

(01:13:39):
of business central.
So how to enter a customer?
or what is a posting group isnew to them, whereas someone
who's been working with it forsome time they already
understand it and they know it.
And that goes with perspective,and sometimes you have to take
a step back and say theperspective of I know this, but
somebody else may be new.
And as to your point, it's notso common because somebody's

(01:14:02):
starting out their journey.
We all have to learn somewhere,exactly or at some point you're
not just born with the knowledgeof what a customer posting
group is, what a vendor postinggroup is, what an inventory
posting group is we're going tokeep going uh-huh.
What a general businessprocessing group is, what a
general product I can't evenspeak right now.
General product posting group.

(01:14:23):
Do you know other postinggroups?
There's all these differenttypes of posting groups bank
account yeah and it also helpsme as well, right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
So because when I, when I write, that means I need
to think, because you you cannotexplain what you don't
understand.
So by writing it down, you youstart to think, oh, how do I
explain it?
And it helps me also in thefuture when I try to explain it
to someone, because I alreadyknow how to explain it.
So it does help.
When you started helping people, you actually help yourself to

(01:14:52):
be better.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
So that's why I actually do blogging as well and
sharing the knowledge we doappreciate that, sharing that
knowledge, because there aretimes where you, you research,
you know, look, look it up onthe internet and then your, your
blog shows up.
You know, I just had somebody acouple of weeks ago.
It's like, oh, I was stuck inthis and I found your blog.
I appreciate that.
Or even for me, like I, Iforgot about something.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
I looked it up and it's like, oh, yeah, I wrote
that, that's I was just about tosay that that's what happened
to me is I was searching forsomething one time and I found
something I had.
I said, I wrote that yeah soit's, uh, it's helpful.
Well, teddy, thank you fortaking the time to speak with us
oh, I think this morning yeahthis evening, this afternoon,
depending upon where the threeof us are located.

(01:15:38):
We do appreciate your time.
I always say and I mean it timeis the currency of life.
Once you spend it, you can't goback.
So anytime anyone spends withus, we greatly appreciate,
because it's a part of your life, that you could be doing
something else, but you'resharing it with us and sharing
it with the members of thecommunity or anyone that listens
with this.
If anyone would like to get incontact with you to learn a
little bit more about you orsome of the things that you do,

(01:15:59):
or talk about business, centralimplementations, what's the best
way for them to get in contact?

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
They can reach me through LinkedIn.
I think that's the best waybecause I normally look at
LinkedIn.
I can respond better.
Yeah, so LinkedIn is one way.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
And we'll have a link with how to reach you on
LinkedIn with the episode.
And we again, we thank you foryour time and we look forward to
speaking with you again soon.
All right, thank you, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
Ciao, ciao.
Thank you for having me.
Bye, thank you, bye.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
Thank you, chris, for your time for another episode
of In the Dynamics Corner Chair,and thank you to our guests for
participating.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
Thank you, brad, for your time.
It is a wonderful episode ofDynamics Corner Chair.
I would also like to thank ourguests for joining us.
Thank you for all of ourlisteners tuning in as well.
You can find Brad atdeveloperlifecom, that is
D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E dot com, andyou can interact with them via

(01:16:57):
Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E.
You can also find me atmatalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-o dot
I-O, and my Twitter handle ismatalino16.
And you can see those linksdown below in the show notes.
Again, thank you everyone.

(01:17:18):
Thank you and take care.