Episode 420: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central CPQ Game-Changer

Buckle up for a wild ride on this Episode of Dynamics Corner with Kirs and Brad as they chat with Miranda Powell, the partnership powerhouse from ExperLogix! This episode combines personal stories, book nerd moments, and hardcore business talk. Miranda drops some profound knowledge about revolutionizing sales with CPQ solutions, weaving AI into the mix, and why Microsoft Dynamics users are begging for better quoting tools. From tackling "Frankensheets" in manufacturing to the art of discovery in sales, they dig into how ExperLogix's bidirectional integration and user-friendly licensing are shaking things up. Plus, there's a hot take on why partnerships are the secret sauce for customer success and how "technology blindness" holds back the sales revolution. With laughs, insights, and a sprinkle of career journey realness, this episode is your ticket to rethinking how complex sales get done!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics,
corner Brad.
What is CPQ?
What does the Q stand for?
I'm your co-host, chris.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And this is Brad.
This episode was recorded onApril 18th 2025.
Chris, chris, chris, what is aCPQ?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
No clue.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Do you know how to spell it?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, cpq, but I don't know what that means.
Let's talk about it, though.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, many may not know what it means, but today we
had the opportunity to learnall about CPQ and a great
solution to help customers withtheir configuration, pricing and
quoting With us.
Today we had the opportunity tospeak with Marin Powell from
Expert Logics.

(00:56):
Good afternoon, how are youdoing, Hello?

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Good morning.
How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It's morning for you, like I said to you the other
day.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm going to throw you through a loop on this one.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Good evening.
No, it's morning.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
But Brad likes to joke around about how I'm always
in a different location everytime we talk and I'm calling in
from southern mexico.
You're in mexico that's awesome, see.
Wow, so do we want to do thisepisode in spanish no, no, that
would be actually reallyembarrassing for me every time I
well I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I really don't know where you're from, but that's
okay, we don't have to talkabout that I.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I'm from Florida.
I'm a true Floridian, like afourth-generation Floridian,
unlike Brad on the call.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
You're the true Floridian person.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Most of my friends are from the New York or New
Jersey area and their family hadrelocated to Florida.
But yeah, been in Tampa prettymuch all my life, I think.
When I got into being in myearly 20s I was offered a job up
in Boston.
I kind of had the realizationI'm like if I don't get out of
here now, I could see myselfstaying in Florida for the rest

(02:16):
of my life, and I'm so happy.
I took the job in Boston tooand like got to experience the
seasons.
Everybody had told me they'relike being a Florida girl,
you're going to hate Bostonwinters, which Boston winter is
fine, because in theory that'sjust three months, it's spring.
That really hurts becausethat's just winter that
overstays.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
No, you summed that up perfectly, but at least you
have the opportunity to stay inthe North End, which is an
adventure in its own because ofthe food and the historic
architecture.
It was great to see you lastweek.
Was is an adventure in its ownbecause of the food and the
historic architecture.
It was great to see you lastweek.
Was it last week?

Speaker 1 (02:50):
You know it's funny, I never put the name to the face
because we played pong, tablepong or beer pong the whole rest
of the evening and I'm like Iactually did not put the name to
the face either.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
That is crazy, brad.
We had a very intense game ofbeer pong during the the party.
It was really water prong.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Nobody was drinking the beer cups or anything like
that.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
But uh, rob from your team was playing too.
It got very intense.
We started wagering leads um.
We started throwing flags onthe play with little white, two
games.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I think you played two games.
You were so good and I just Iremember just sitting with gwen
and um and I was like we'll justum ref it, that's it.
That's what I'm gonna do.
So you guys had all this fun wedid.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
It was so funny I was in bed every night by 930.
It was sad.
Even the last night I was inbed by.
I think I stayed up a littlebit late.
I think I stayed up until 10.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Which, yeah, I mean I slept for like 16 hours the day
after I got back because I wasexhausted.
I feel like, with all of usworking from home now being on
your feet for eight hours andthen taking people out to dinner
, it's especially drainingBecause I'm used to my normal
migration path being from mychair to the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
You use your leg muscles for the first time in a
long time.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
If I have to, go somewhere by 2 o'clock.
Chris, I'm not using militarytime, I'm practicing 2 pm.
Yes, 1, it.
I'll just go back to it.
I'll.
If I'm not, if I go somewhereby 1400, I'm ready for bed.
I'm like how can people sit inan office all day and work all
day?
Because you you summed it upperfectly.

(04:38):
I think everyone has come to acertain pattern of activity and
a certain pattern of normality,I guess you could say, or a
habit.
And what are you reading now?

Speaker 3 (04:52):
I'm actually still reading why we Sleep as my
nonfiction book, and then I'mreading Deep in the Garden of
Deep Time, which is kind of likea modern rendition of the
secret garden interesting um, soI think we were talking about
this in vegas too.
I like to do like an audio bookfor non-fiction at the same time
that I'm reading like a fictionbook.

(05:12):
Um, and usually I'll do likethe audio book for, you know,
car rides, walks, even sometimeswhen I'm like working out, and
then you know, when I'm at homeand trying to unplug and not,
you know know, have any, youknow, audio or visual
interference, I'm just usuallyreading a book to go to bed.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I think I told you read Slow Predictivity
afterwards.
That's a great book as well byCal Newport.
He's the one that wrote DeepWork.
I'm reading Range now.
I don't have the ability, likeyou and many others, to read two
books simultaneously, so I canonly read one book at a time.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
So I can only read one book at a time, so I
alternate between fiction andnonfiction.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I read Quit recently and I had to quit it.
The book told me to quitreading it because so you quit,
I did quit.
It proved its point, it reallydid.
And I wonder if the author didthat purposefully to see if
people will really quit.
Because everything in the booktalks about quitting and when

(06:08):
you should quit and why youshould quit.
And as I was reading the book,I'm like this book is
repetitious.
It's at the point where it'swasting my time.
I need to quit and I did quit.
And now I'm reading Range.
Range is another one of thosebooks.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm on chapter seven and I understand repetition with
books for, uh, reinforcing apoint or reinforcing, but
there's a point where it getsthat's why I don't mind doing it
on audio for the non-fictionbooks, because they tend to be
so repetitive that it's like ifI'm doing something else and I
miss them saying at one time, Iknow I'm they're going to

(06:44):
regurgitate that same point atthe end of the chapter a little
bit later on, whereas, likereading the book, I feel like it
can get a little bit redundantbecause you're so locked in.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
It's the one thing you're doing.
I'm the opposite for thatbecause, like I, when I'm
reading a nonfiction book I liketo reference.
So I usually, you know, youknow, highlight a few things to
reference later.
The high, you know.
Uh, you know, highlight a fewthings to reference later.
But fictional books I wouldrather do audible, because then
I can just sit there and listenand imagine, you know what
they're saying, and such.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
So I'm the opposite of that but what if they like
say a name wrong or somethinglike I did one time.
I jumped into an audiobook atlike the second or third book in
a series and when I was hearingthem say like the character's
name or even the accent, thatsomebody was like talking, I was
like it's not how I imaginedthe book to be and that's not
how I was pronouncing the nameand it was kind of tearing it

(07:35):
all down for me.
But I think if you start afiction book from scratch, then
yeah, I like the kindle for thehighlighting.
And my next what's on deck forme is red rising, so that's your
recommendation, so I will letyou know how that next, I think
you and my boyfriend havesimilar tastes in books based on

(07:56):
like the three to body problemand silo and kind of the
dystopian, you know sci-fi typeof genre, and he really he
chewed through those bookspretty quickly he's on the
Mistborn series right now.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
I have to put all these on the list of my fiction
books and see yeah.
I have a few other, like I hadmentioned to you, I, if it's a
series like Silo, I read thethree books, then I went back to
non-fiction.
When I get to Red Rising, ifthe first book is really good,
I'll finish those books and thenI'll go back to, uh,
non-fiction.
So we'll see where we are I'mboring, I'm reading.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
I'm reading psych right now from paul bloom.
It's like basic psychology umit's a great book so far.
I guess is one of the famous uhpsychiatrists harvard or
something like that you're goingto stop playing psych mind
games no, I think it helps mekind of take a pause for a

(08:51):
second because you knoweverybody has a different way,
everybody has the ways,different ways of approaching
things and in their response canalso be driven by emotions and
such.
So I try to take it personallyfor those that are maybe upset.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
It's a good reminder, great advice.
Perspective is everything, andwhere something comes from is
important, but we did not cometoday to meet today or talk
today, I don't know.
See, chris, fridays.
We have to stop the Fridays.
I keep saying that.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Hey, nobody knows it's Friday, it's not Friday,
it's Saturday.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
But my body knows it's Friday, so I always get
into this tongue tied bad jokeday.
Before we jump into talking alittle bit about what we want to
speak about, can you tell us alittle bit about yourself?

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, absolutely so, miranda Powell.
I work for a company calledExpert Logics and I'm currently
the director of strategicpartnerships.
I've actually been at thecompany for about three years,
while I'm new in the role andkind of new to the channel.
I've been running our marketingprogram and before that I was
actually working for ExpertLogics as an agency partner, so
they were using my marketingagency and it was at that point

(10:04):
they flew me down to their saleskickoff meeting in 2021.
I presented to the whole teamand it went really good in terms
of what channels were notexecuting on the message for the
market, the best fit, kind oflike audiences, so on and so
forth.
And I was approached by the CEOafterwards and he's like, hey,
that was really great.
Is there a chance that youwould come and do that, like you

(10:25):
know, at ExpertLogix, or likework at, you know, within the
inside of the company?
And at the time I wasn't reallyin a position where I was
wanting to leave the agency, butwe kind of kept the door open
and talked for, you know, about11 months or so, and then at the
end of that year I ended upswitching over and kind of
coming on to Expert Logicsfull-time, because that was
really my first, you know,internal only marketing role.

(10:50):
I'd always sold marketingsoftware and marketing services,
so I'd always had, you know,customer interactions, partner
interactions, so on and so forth.
So while I loved the work thatI did in marketing at Expert
Logics, I did miss connectingwith people.
I love presenting, if you guyscan tell, I love talking.
So that part was hard.

(11:10):
And so I went to our VP ofsales, who's always kind of been
in my ear, saying like Miranda,you're a salesperson, like what
are you doing in marketing?
But our solution set issomewhat complex and I was like,
look, I'm not trying to have aseven or eight month ramp up to
be productive at a company thatI've been at you know, for three
plus years at this point.
And so we started talking aboutthe opportunity to partnerships

(11:31):
and I was a little intimidatedbecause I don't come from you
know the channel and I thoughtthat was kind of going to be my,
you know, biggest weakness.
Now that I've been in the rolefor about four and a half months
or so, I actually feel likeit's one of my better strengths,
like I don't know how thingshave been done historically.
I feel like I'm looking atstuff with a fresh set of eyes
and one of the biggest thingsthat's been, you know, like an

(11:53):
eye-opener to me is like why arewe not doing more for our
partners?
Right, like I think that saleshas historically owned our
partner relationships and theycome in very one-track minded.
Right, it's like what do you,what do you guys have for me?
Not like how, how can wegenerate leads together?
How can we go after you know acertain segment or you know, on
the other end, expert logics isunique in the ISV space and the

(12:14):
fact that we've been, you know,in the channel for over 20 years
.
So we have a lot of customersthat are on nav or AX or great
planes.
Eventually they're going toneed to migrate and that's
probably the you know leads oropportunities that our partners
are most interested in.
So how do we do a better job ofkind of recycling our on-prem
customers, our leads that comeinto us, without a partner from

(12:35):
a direct perspective?
Like historically in marketing,we were disqualifying you know
a lead that would recognize theyneed CPQ but they don't yet
have an ERP or CRM and I waslike, okay, bye, instead of you
know, hey, here's VC partner,it's a great ERP for you guys to
get started on as amanufacturer that's trying to
grow your tech stack.
So I'm trying to bridge the gapa little bit more between our

(12:58):
partner channel, our directchannel, and then some of our
existing you know, legacycustomers, so that it's more of
a symbiotic relationship.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
You hit on a key point there and I like that
You're talking about therelationship because the I'll
use it for the reference to theconversation the old way of
doing things seems to not beworking and I was thankful and I
picked up on it a lot last weekwhen we were at the conference.
A lot of people are realizingthat businesses need the

(13:28):
partnerships and have thatrelationship to work with each
other to bring each other alongthrough the journey.
As you had mentioned, you mayhave a product with ExpertLogic,
which I'd love to hear moreabout and then, if you're
working with a partner forBusiness Central, you may have
you know, like customers, thatyou can work together to help

(13:49):
the customer become successful,because at the end, that's
what's the most important is forthis customer to be successful
with whatever they use andwhether it be Business Central,
whether it be Expert Logics orany other product.
And if the customer issuccessful, then everyone's
successful and other customerswill be happy to use the product
as well.
So I like that approach.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Exactly, and I feel, like a lot of these
conversations too, like I amreally trying to make it more
about the partner andunderstanding their niche and
where they add the most value,because then you know, at the
end of the day, this is allabout getting the customer in
contact with somebody who hasthe most experience in their
industry and their challenges.
You know, manufacturing isbroad, but I've been talking to
some partners who are like youknow, if it's a metals

(14:30):
manufacturer that's looking togo on BC, like that is our space
, or like furnituremanufacturing, and so trying to
define or carve out these littleniche segments for each partner
.
So you know there's no overlap,essentially, and then again,
it's in the customer's bestinterest, because I'm like, hey,
I'm gonna introduce you to thispartner.
They're highly experienced inmetals manufacturing and helped

(14:51):
a lot of customers like you takethe first step in their digital
transformation journey.
I like that.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
There was a session last year and they did the same
thing this year as well.
About what can ISVs do for VARsand VARs price versus last year
was in the panel.
And that was a perfectconversation where we have to
help each other right, like ifthey're making it so easy for
clients of Business Central tolook up a product and app source

(15:15):
and just sign up and may notinvolve their partner, and so it
can create a I don't know likea distrust in some way where now
you're implementing somethingthat a partner's not aware.
So I love your approach where,hey, let's connect you to it
with a partner to make sure thatthis is a right fit for your

(15:37):
industry, and that's perfect,and I think we all need to
support each other in that sense.
So I appreciate you callingthat out, because that is the
relationship right.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
We need that built right at the get-go In 2025,
that's the one thing that youcannot forget.
So you've been with ExpertLogics.
Can you tell us a little?
What is Expert Logic?

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah, so again, we've been in this space for over 20
years and our backbone and ourroots are really in CPQ.
So the joke at the company is,you know we've been doing CPQ
since before it was a threeletter acronym.
The company was establishedback in 1995.
I think our first integrationwent live with CRM 4.0 back in

(16:21):
2004.
With CRM 4.0 back in 2004.
And so helping people, you know, configure highly complex
products right, like in the 21stcentury, that's been an
increasing need from you know,especially manufacturers is
being able to offer custom builtsolutions for their clients.
But the downside of that hasalways been, you know the work

(16:42):
that's involved or the risk thatit takes, like how do you know
if you make this customizationor you swap out you know a
transmission that it's going towork with the engine that you
have for a certain truck thatyou're building, so expert
logics really safeguards andfoolproofs.
You know the configuration andthe sales process so that sales
isn't selling something thatmanufacturing, at the end of the
day, can't produce.
And while you know I think wegot our you know start in

(17:05):
manufacturing, we have so manyother use cases too.
So we work with a lot ofprofessional services companies,
field services companiesanybody really where the product
or service catalog is prettycomplex.
You know we can add a lot morestructure to that.
It helps, you know, new salesreps get ramped up or become
proficient at selling just asmuch as their most seasoned or

(17:27):
tenured sales reps.
There's even stuff where I'mgoing to go back to the example
of the truck If you add on asleeper cabin, it's going to
have a pop-up within theconfigurator.
Say, hey, they bought thesleeper cabin.
Why don't you ask them ifthey're interested in a mini
fridge and a mattress to goalong with it?
So there's upsell prompts.
There's rules that will fire,you know, if there's certain

(17:48):
components of the configurationthat don't work together.
There's automated like discountand engineering requests that
you're able to put in throughthe solution.
And then you know that's kind oftalking more about the quote
generation.
We also push the quote to order.
It generates the bill ofmaterials.
It generates all the routings.
You we also push the quote toorder.

(18:21):
It generates the bill ofmaterials.
It generates all the routings.
You could even go and do thecustomer is very cost sensitive,
like how do we get them inthere?
Because I know that they needthis and our sales rep had asked
the partner it's like, hey, howmuch money are they losing due
to manufacturing errors at theend of their process based on
something that was sold thatcouldn't really be configured?

(18:41):
And the partner wasn't sure.
He's like, let me go and, youknow, ask the customer that Came
back and he said they're losing$500,000 a year.
And so it's just like animmediate business case in some
of those instances, on top of,you know, accelerating sales
processes, increasing theaverage order value of those
deals and, again, reducing andeliminating any of the errors

(19:02):
that might come with building ahighly complex or configurable
product.
So that's our backbone and until2019, we were really
exclusively CPQ.
Then we started growing througha series of acquisitions, first
one being document automation,which in some cases is kind of
the Q in CPQ, so it can takethat quote or the different line
items, cpq, so it can take thatquote or the different line

(19:27):
items, and it uses, you know,dynamic imagery and dynamic text
based on what the customer haspurchased to pull in the terms
and conditions.
Or if they bought that sleepercabin, it'll show a picture of
the sleeper cabin and kind ofgive it a little bit of
description in terms of you knowthe layout, what's included, so
on and so forth.
But document automation also hasa lot of use cases where it can
stand on its own.
So think of anything that'shighly regulated or very

(19:47):
document heavy, like we'reworking with the whole US court
system.
We signed Wells Fargo towardsthe end of last year as well, so
banking, insurance, governmentare all good document automation
fits that don't necessarilyneed a configurator.
And then the last acquisitionthat we made was a company based
over in Ireland that was in thee-commerce space.
So now we have the ability tohave B2B e-commerce dealer

(20:09):
portals, customer portals.
And what's going to be reallyexciting and is on the roadmap
either at the end of this yearor early next year, is when CPQ
and digital commerce areactually integrated and you're
able to give the customer theability to build a highly
configurable product fromscratch without any risk of you
know it, it not being somethingthat could be manufactured right

(20:31):
, that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
So cpq, let's go back to it's a lot.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
So tie a nice tie a nice bow around that too.
Expert logics makes it easierfor your customers to buy from
you.
So, whether that that's CPQ,document automation or digital
commerce, streamlining the salesand quoting process and enable
self-service purchasing channels.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
I love that.
Finish, chris, did you hearthat Makes customers easier to
buy from you, and that's theultimate Make it easy.
So that CPQ what does CPQ standfor?
Configure price quote.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
So there's the product configuration, component
pricing, so highly complex ordynamic pricing, or even if
dealers have special discountpricing, that can all be
warehoused within CPQ and thenquote, which is the ability to
produce a very impressive againpulling in dynamic imagery,
having these longer forms oftext where it's really
describing what the customer ispurchasing, these like longer

(21:25):
forms of text where it's reallydescribing what the customer is
purchasing.
And I love to talk about, youknow, the queue within CPQ and
like how that differentiates ina sales process too, because we
all know that the person that'sgoing through the sales process
isn't always your decision maker, right?
They're a champion and now theyhave to go and sell internally.
So if they have two proposalsor two quotes that are
essentially just you know,tables that have been exported
from Business Central, and thenthey have another quote on the

(21:46):
table that has, you know, allthis information, description,
pictures, da da da.
Who's going to be, you know, inthe best case, to win that deal
, who's enabling their championthe best in order to win Right.
So it's all about enabling yourchampion, giving them that
information and and we're yeah,I won't go too far into the
nitty gritty.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
No, I can tell I'm excited about it as well.
So, with ExpertLogix and CPQjust to take back all the great
information that you hadmentioned it allows you to quote
and sell to a customer safely.
So if you have lots of productsor you have a large product
catalog, it makes it easier forwhomever is going to be putting

(22:25):
together or working with acustomer to ensure that what
they have together works welltogether and you can put it
together safely but also mayintroduce other benefits that
they can get from other productsbased upon what they're buying,
and then it can come up withthe pricing for that as well I
like the example.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah, like it definitely increases the of CRM
and ERP.
All of that information willwrite back over to either CE,
business Central or F&O so thatthey have better forecasting
from a sales perspective.
You can pull Power BI reportsthat aren't just specific to the
opportunity, but it's like hey,what was the product that's
most often quoted within thistime period?

(23:06):
So it allows you to get alittle bit more granular in
terms of the specific componentsthat are sold more frequently,
allows for better inventoryplanning, allows for better
sales forecasting.
So, yeah, it benefits the othertechnologies that it integrates
with, and we're never astandalone solution either.
So all three of our productsrequire a CRM or ERP, which is

(23:29):
again why the partner channel isso important for us.
We're not making any saleswithout you know that technology
in place.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
So with the CPQ form for ExpertLogic CPQ, with
Business Central, you can workwith a customer, create an order
for a customer, create an orderfor a customer, create a quote
for a customer based upon theconfiguration that they want for
a particular product, and itwill send the production order
and the order back over tobusiness central so that you

(23:57):
have that same information thatyou then can process and create
the order and send back out tothe customer through Business
Central.
Okay, excellent, with BusinessCentral, with Expert Logics,
which versions of BusinessCentral, ce and F&O do you work
with?
Do you go back to Dynamics Nav?
Do you work with BusinessCentral Online, business Central

(24:18):
On-Premises?

Speaker 3 (24:19):
So today we're just doing the on-cloud solution.
So today it's just BusinessCentral Online, f&o Online, ce
Online.
But again, we do have a lot oflegacy customers today that are
still on-premise CRM or on-appor on AX or on Great Plains.
So it's integrations that wehave supported in the past, but

(24:39):
in order for them to really takeadvantage of XperLogic's newest
features and rollout so on andso forth, they need to be on a
cloud ERP or CRM.
Which is why those on-premisecustomers could be interesting,
not only for us getting astronger relationship with
partners, but we're in the midstof rolling out our AI-enabled
CPQ solution and none of ouron-premise customers are going

(25:03):
to be able to take advantage ofthat or really, you know,
benefit kind of from the, thestickiness of it.
So, working with partners tomigrate them over, not not so
just their, you know, tech stackis a little bit more
future-proofed, but also so thatthey can take advantage of, you
know, the newest rollouts soyou know so, even though, even
though they're in bc on-prem,they won't be able to take
advantage of that.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
They have to be bc online so you're rolling out a
new.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
I heard the ai feature.
I understand that and I'm goingto assume then that expert
logics is also a cloud-basedapplication.
Okay you're going to roll out,or you're rolling out, an ai
feature with cpq.
Can you tell us a little bitabout that?

Speaker 3 (25:40):
yeah.
So right now, a little bit moreof the the cumbersome part of
cpq is going to be the modelingand setting up of the rules or
the product, so on and so forth.
So the first integration isgoing to include GPTs within the
actual modeler admin systemwhere it's like, hey, could you
write me a rule, you know, thatwould prevent somebody from
selling X with Y, and they willgenerate that for you.

(26:02):
And that's usually done inExcel syntax.
It's not coded or anything.
We are a low-code, no-codesolution, so that's a
differentiator for us versus alot of the other CPQ solutions
that are in the space.
And it was funny because whenwe were out at directions, you
know, first day keynote,microsoft is up there talking
and they're like let us roll out, we're going to show you guys

(26:22):
our sales order agent that we'vecreated.
And so it was funny because Ihad two partners sitting on
either side of me during thispresentation.
They both nudged me and they'relike Miranda, is this going to
get rid of CPQ?
And the answer is no, or atleast, like you know, not today
or not in the way that peoplewould be thinking.
The sales order agent, the demothat they did, is for
pre-configured products, right.

(26:43):
So if you sell like software,you sell something off the shelf
.
Sure, you could have a GPT orCopilot create a quote for you,
you know, on some of those lineitems.
But if you think about, likebuilding a truck or building an
assembly line or a commercialstove from scratch for like a
certain you know restaurant or,yeah, like larger kitchen
environment, the amount that youwould have to type to Copilot

(27:07):
to get every single product, thespecifications, the
measurements, so on and so forthinto the configurator, into a
quote, you're going to be betteroff still with just a few
clicks within CPQ to get thesame output.
Now, that being said, the weekbefore directions we actually
had a call with Microsoft aboutintegrating our CPQ into the

(27:29):
sales order agent so that theycan leverage the rules, the
logic, so on and so forth forthose highly configurable
products.
So that's another thing that wehave underway right now is
we're really trying to lead themotion from a configurator
perspective with Microsoft andembedding our CPQ into the sales
order agent.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
I could see where AI would help with on either side.
If you're doing a self-serviceorder creation from a customer
via a portal to have an agenthelp guide you through building
your order or configuring yourorder for pricing and quoting.
Or even if you have asalesperson or a representative
from your organization that'sworking with somebody who may

(28:07):
not be fully versed in all ofyour product line, if it's that
vast to be able to havesomething to put up guardrails
to make sure that what you'regoing to put together for a
customer works together.
I could see that with a lot ofindustries with medical kits, as
you had mentioned.
If you're building customconfigurations for products for
specific industries restaurants,trucks, vehicles campers.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
I could name a lot of industries that I could see
where this becomes helpful.
Yeah, and like field service isa big one.
I'm actually going out to aconference next week in Palm
Springs and it's not a use case.
People think of as much asmanufacturing, but their quotes
are highly complex as wellbecause of the difference in
margin from, like, the hardwareor products that they're going
to be selling and then the laborand then, like you know, any
additional like maintenancecosts and being able to do that

(28:53):
in one, you know fell swoop froma quoting perspective and then
at the bottom two, you're ableto kind of track, like as a
salesperson, what are yourcommissions, what is the margin,
Making sure you're notdiscounting anything a little
bit too heavily, Swapping outany of the resources that might
be too expensive and driving thecost up past the customer's

(29:14):
budget.
So, yeah, a lot ofmanufacturing is a big one, but
there is a lot of other usecases and again it's more about
the complexity of the sale.
I always like the examples whereit is.
You know, we have a securitycompany, for example.
They need to provide hardware,camera equipment based on the
size of the building.
So that's kind of done withinCPQ.
But then they also sellsoftware subscription to do kind

(29:36):
of the virtual monitoring andthen they sell maintenance on
those services and so they'reable again to kind of build a
quota or an opportunity withdifferent types of solutions or
services that they're offeringand really be able to calculate
the margin on the overall dealand make sure that they're
staying within kind of thebusiness targets from that

(29:56):
regard, Super flexible soundslike.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I was just thinking about that.
I was thinking about thesecurity system, because what
they do when they put thattogether, like you talked?
About the cameras, the piecesof hardware, and then the
software, and then themonitoring service that goes
with it.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
See, I'm learning a lot from this and the cpq and we
actually we have quite a fewpartners that use cpq too,
because I'm sure y'all's quotingprocess for like an erp
implementation is is fairlycomplex.
You know, I I feel like assalesperson that's always the
thing that I dread the mosthaving to do.
I'm so comfortable talking toeverybody when it comes time to
like put numbers to paper.

(30:32):
Yeah, like I'm calling a fewdifferent people making sure
that everything looks right, soon and so forth.
And again, even from thediscounting perspective, like if
I were a salesperson and I putin a 20% discount and let's say
like I'm able to discount onlyup to 10%, that would
immediately flag that over to myVP of sales, say, hey, there's
a discount request on this quotebefore it can be finalized and

(30:56):
sent to the customer and thosecan push like to teams is
actually the way that we have itset up internally.
So my VP of sales gets a teammessage instantaneously saying
hey, Miranda's looking for a 20%discount on this quote.
Here's her reason that shewants this discount approved.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
So there's an approval workflow that occurs
with the whole process, but itdoesn't have to be complicated,
right?
It doesn't have to.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
It doesn't have to, but that's kind of more of our
of our wheelhouse, honestly, isis the more complex product
configurations Because, again,like you know, something that's
a little bit more simple orpre-configured you can probably
use an AI agent, you canprobably use a little bit.

(31:58):
You know, going to be a goodfit for CPQ, complicated
industries semiconductors beinga big one like that, that one's
really really nuanced andcomplicated, but that's been an
area that we're able to shineand partners will even come to
us and say, like you know, gonnawarn you, this is really
complex and they're doing thisthrough spreadsheets today and
so on and so forth.
But, yeah, that that ends upbeing more of our bread and

(32:18):
butter for the most part so.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
So your product then provides some analytics as well.
Um, when you are kind of goingthrough that, like if you lost
an opportunity or lost a salebecause of this, is that
something that's built in orsomething that you can attach,
like Power BI, into?

Speaker 3 (32:36):
So it'll always the quote will be associated with
the opportunity and typicallypeople are putting the lost
reason on the opportunity itselfand kind of logging that more
manually.
I think we would get to a pointwith co-pilots and whatnot
where, you know, based on anemail exchange, they're able to
pick up what the lost reason isand populate that into the
opportunity itself.
But again we exist more on likethe quote and order level

(32:59):
versus, like you know, thereason that we lost the deal or
the opportunity level, if thatmakes sense.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, that makes sense.
That would be the host system.
I'll call it, for lack ofbetter terms, or the primary
system being your CRM or yourERP software, which we hope is
business central, and it's nice.
The product configurator canwork with complex models, but it
doesn't have to be complicatedto use.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
See, that's the key, is I like the ease of use to
allow you to guide through it soyeah, we'll have to get you
guys into a demo sometime soonso that you can kind of see,
because we have like what'scalled a guided selling module
and, like you'll see, it'll takeyou kind of like step by step
because there's like a set oflike key discovery questions.
Right, that would kind of helpyou narrow down what you would

(33:44):
be selling to a customer.
So, going back to a truckexample, you could say, hey, I'm
based in North America, I needsomething that has like a high
degree of fuel efficiency andit's going to be traveling like
long distances.
And then it's going to narrowyour truck list down from 50
models to just six and then youcan compare the.
There's additional questionsthat you can ask to whittle that

(34:05):
list down a little bit further.
But yeah, it really.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
That's like sustainability component too.
I mean, you know there's a newmodule in Business Central for
sustainability, so that would bepretty impressive and we can
even have that conversation onthis future podcast where you
can just showcase how it allworks.
I mean, I'm down for that.
Any opportunity for me to learnyeah, absolutely I like it I.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
I think it's always of some benefit to take a look
at the products that areavailable to assist customers
with the implementations of theerp software or their crm ce
type software, which as wellgoes well too and it.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
It's an interesting time right now, especially in
the Microsoft channel for CPQ,because every other and I'm
trying to educate a lot ofpartners on this today is every
other ERP or CRM has acquiredtheir own CPQ solution.
So SAP has a CPQ Infor, epicor,salesforce, oracle, servicenow

(35:07):
even just acquired LogicIO,which is another CPQ company.
So I think maybe there's somereally small niche CRMs that
don't have CPQ, but Microsoft isreally one of the only ones
where they do not have a CPQmodule that they're selling.
And so I've been talking a lotabout with partners and really
focusing on discovery and I'mlike you know I don't expect any

(35:29):
partner to go in with, like youknow, 10 questions specific to
cpq when they're getting into asales process, but I created
this one pager that's calledcues for cpq.
It's just things to listen oras you're going through your
discovery process, because ifyou're selling against, you know
epicore, you're selling againstyou know Epicor, you're selling
against NetSuite their salesteam is going to try to sell

(35:52):
their CPQ.
You know they're more trainedon listening for those pain
points and challenges.
And my experience with a lot ofpartners is like unless somebody
is directly asking for CPQ,it's usually not included as a
part of the quote.
And then they're getting intothis reactive phase, you know, a
little bit later on when theyfind out that NetSuite has, you
know, included CPQ, and theprospect is saying, like you
know, netsuite said I need thisas a manufacturer.
Like why, why did you guys notinclude anything?

(36:12):
You know.
And so they're having to comeback and say like hey, we
actually need to find an ISV.
You know, here's a little bitof information Like can you guys
join the call, like next week?
So enabling better discovery.
One allows us to really aid youguys in the sales process as
quickly as possible.
But then, two, you know thedownside, or what we always hear
from partners in the Microsoftchannel is you know why do you

(36:35):
always have to bring in so manyISVs when you're doing like a
Microsoft ERP sale, you know,versus like an SAP or like an
Oracle, right, and the quickerthat we're brought in, we don't
have to be expert logic CPQ.
We can be Microsoft CPQsolution.
We'll let you guys guide thesales process the entire time.
But yeah, it's this interestingkind of competitive landscape
right now where every other ERPor CRM that partners are selling

(36:58):
against have their own CPQsolution and how do we bridge
that gap so that you guys knowthe things to listen for?
That would indicate that theyneed a cbq, other than them just
saying directly like this right.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Quoting this is a struggle, is that's my mind is
just going to listen to youbecause if it does go, I'll go
back to relationships.
It also goes back to thoseworking with implementation of
applications to be able tounderstand and it's been my
latest I took, took it awaymostly from the conference with
talking with individuals ofbeing able to apply the
solutions.
You can understand thefunctionality, you can

(37:31):
understand that something wasadded, but now it's in the
conversation with somebody.
How do you know to apply whichand when?
And the same thing it's morenow of it's not just business
central that you're offering.
You're offering the customersolution to solve a problem.
I's more now of it's not justBusiness Central that you're
offering.
You're offering the customersolution to solve a problem.
I think a lot of times that getslost, that it's not that you're

(37:52):
buying Business Central.
You have to use BusinessCentral and everything has to be
in Business Central.
As long as the customer can sitdown and they can do what they
need to do to sell to theircustomers easily, then I think
it works.
And I think to your point, it'sa matter of how it's presented
and which pieces are there andeven, like you said, you bring
it in as this is the solutionthat I'm providing to you.

(38:14):
These are all the pieces thatwe're putting together, and this
is what it may cost you withthat.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, none of us are here to sell products, right?
Like do we say we sellMicrosoft products?
No, we sell solutions.
Us are here to sell products,right?
Like do we say we sellmicrosoft products?
No, we sell we sell solutionsthat are tailored to the
customer's needs.
We're not order takers.
In, like you know, the digitaltransformation that's what gets
locked is.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
You're selling a service and the tool that you
use for the service or thesolution is cec, uh, fno, fnx,
fnax, whatever they can call itthis week Business Central.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
I think that's our biggest weakness right now,
because if you look at NetSuiteand how they sell products, they
don't ever call out a specificadd-on or anything.
They sell it as a full solution.
So they have a really wonderfulsales team when they do a
presentation and at the end ofit then they'll break it down.
But that's something thatpartners struggle all the time.

(39:10):
They try to do a discovery andthen maybe pull in different
meetings of different ISVs,add-ons, and I think we do need
to switch it up a little bitwhere before you do a demo and
present, you have to do a fulldiscovery and then bring on
those ISV but don't like youhave to sell it as a full

(39:31):
picture, right, right CauseNetSuite does a wonderful job on
that and and I think we'regetting better Um, at least part
, certain partners are gettingbetter, but that's always been a
struggle.
I mean being part of a salesengineer.
You know, having thatconversation, doing a demo, it's
like, oh well, we'll have toshow that to you later, because
I'm still trying to figure outwhich add-ons or ISV that I'm

(39:52):
going to bring into the nextconversation and maybe we need
to stop doing that.
We just have to get everythingprepared and then do a full demo
and then do a whole you knowkind of a gamut of you know know
the picture of the entireimplementation would look like
and then worry about the uh hey,these were the isvs that that
could accomplish that for you.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
You hit the nail on the head.
That is right there, chris, isis what needs to be done.
It's it's look at how you workwith your day.
You mentioned net suite.
It's even home products.
Somebody wants to offer me analarm system.
They want to offer me asprinkler system.
I don't care where they'regetting the pieces from.
I just want to make sure that Ican do what I need to do to
solve my problem.
Speaking of that, when it comesto the implementation of expert

(40:34):
logics, what is theimplementation process like and,
specifically, is it partner led?
Do you lead it?
Do you share it with thepartner?
What's your involvement?
What's the partner'sinvolvement?

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yeah, so historically we have done majority of the
implementations ourselves.
Again, the product is fairlycomplex.
But at the same time as I'vecome into this role I know that
the software revenue isn't superinteresting for our partners,
right, like they want to be ableto do the services revenue
because sometimes in an expertlogics implementation, like the

(41:09):
software costs and the servicescosts, it's like a one-to-one,
sometimes even a two-to-one infavor of like the services, you
know, revenue or expenses thatthey're going to be putting into
building expert logics Usuallybeen done through our team, but
I've recently rolled out asthree different levels of
service for our partners andlike different trainings,
because we do have a centralizedtraining department.
You know we're usually trainingour customers on how to be able

(41:32):
to model their own after we dothe initial implementation for
them.
So the first tier will be asales plus partner.
So just getting you guys to apoint where you're comfortable,
you know positioning expertlogics, you know qualifying a
customer and we, you know thetraining for that is really just
about two hours and at the endof it we would install expert
logics within your demoenvironment so that when you are

(41:54):
, you know, going into thoseconversations about business
central.
You know it's completely likewhite labeled, they don't have
to see it's expert logics, it'salready in there.
The next would be a projectplus partner and that typically
would require, you know, asigned customer that you guys
would kind of ride alongsidetheir training and we would be
able to give over some of theproject management hours to you

(42:14):
guys.
We start doing a couple of morein-depth training so our CPQ
fundamentals, which is about 20hours or about one week of four
hour classes, can be broken upfarther, you know, to make
whatever easier for our partnersas well.
And then there's a practice pluspartner, which is usually going
to require having a dedicatedCPQ, you know, team or assets

(42:35):
who would be responsible for anyof the modeling and whatnot and
could do full serviceimplementation.
So we are trying to createthose pathways because, you know
, historically we've done theseimplementations ourselves.
But we know that in order toreally go to the next level with
a lot of our partners and makethings more interesting for them
from a sales perspective, youknow they're wanting to do the

(42:55):
implementations ourselves.
So we are working with ahandful of partners on kind of
getting them to that practiceplus tier Right now, I think the
farthest that any partner hasmade it to today is around that
project plus, where we'resharing hours or they're
managing the product or they're,you know, doing some of the
initial or some of the followingmodeling after we've done the

(43:15):
initial implementation.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
It's a good approach because you know the product
well, the partner knows theirproduct well.
There's a lot of products outthere, a lot of solutions.
It is very difficult to know itall From the customer
perspective.
Geez, to know it all From thecustomer perspective, what is
the typical journey for acustomer?
I know you can say how long isa typical implementation, but
that's like saying how long is apiece of string, because every

(43:39):
customer vary in size andcomplexity.
But what's the typicalimplementation process?
Like that a customer would gothrough to get set up with CPQ
and Expert Logics.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah, so we would initially do like a discovery or
a solutioning phase which isgoing to run the course of about
like one to two months.
Then we'll start building outsome of the initial product sets
for them.
That will usually take aboutanother, you know, two to four
months to continue with theimplementation, or, after we've

(44:15):
kind of built out like a baseset of products, if they feel
like they have enough, to kindof run with and build out
additional products.
And then, after the productsare built, it's more of a
conversation of like you knowthe rules and what works with,
you know which components workwith each building in some of
that like cross-sell logic, soon and so forth.
So typically, from animplementation perspective,
anywhere from four months to 10months, and a lot of the time we

(44:39):
are working alongside a partnerwho's implementing ERP.
So there's also dependenciesfrom how quick the ERP
implementation is moving inorder to get CPQ up and running
as well.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
This is a parallel implementation, along with the
VC implementation.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
And a lot of times people will try to push us to
more of a phase two, but it'sreally like our best
implementations are when we'reworking alongside the partner as
they're doing the ERPimplementation or able to stand
both of these up at the sametime, versus getting ERP live
and then 10 months later they'refinally able to start quoting
with the solution.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, that makes more sense that you're offering the
customers.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
It's not.
You don't want to be halfrunning when you first thought
you want to be able to work withyour customers and then change
the process again.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, you know, on the second phase, where you can
just do it and of course there'sa lot of setup on the items too
, right, and yeah, no, that it'sa brand new erp, so process is
brand new.
And then they get used to itand all of a sudden there's
phase two and say, oh, justforget what you just learned.
Now you're going to doeverything in, yeah, logics and
it's again.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
It's.
It's beneficial from partnertoo, because my whole
presentation that I gave out atdirections um, yeah, I focused
on the manufacturing space and Iwas kind of like, look, we've
had what now?
Five industrial revolutions inmanufacturing.
If you look at manufacturingprocess 50, 75 years ago, it
looks wildly different than itdoes today, especially with IoT

(46:09):
and AI starting to be a littlebit more a part of the product
configuration process.
But if you look at the salesprocess within manufacturing
companies dating back like 50years, it doesn't look that
different.
People are still calling in andplacing orders.
Most of the manufacturers andwe've worked with a good amount
of the Fortune 1000, they'llcome to us with this monster

(46:31):
spreadsheet where they have allof their pricing, all of their
products, so on and so forth.
Yeah, and like one personmaintains it, we actually talked
to somebody yesterday and theyhave a four like 400 cell by 400
cell spreadsheet.
Um, so it's like 160 000 cellsand if one thing breaks, there's
only one person who has to goback in and update all the forms

(46:52):
.
So you know it's bad from.
You know one, people aren'tactually using the CRM for their
sales process.
You know the CRM or ERP, it justbecomes like an interface at
that point.
But most of the calculations,most of the product
configuration is being doneelsewhere.
So how do we bring that in, youknow, to their core technology

(47:12):
so that they're actually doingthe sale, they're actually doing
the quote, they're on the phonewith the customer asking these
questions, filling it out in theconfigurator and having it all
right back to CRM and ERP.
You know, my whole thing waslike how do we start the sales
revolution?

Speaker 1 (47:26):
That needs to occur, Because it's not the white
knuckle of that whole thing.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Those spreadsheets are so dangerous because as you
had mentioned, the risks that anorganization has.
The spreadsheet can go awaywith knowledge of a person that
may move to a different locationNobody understands it Very
difficult to scale, because nowyou have one person that has a
spreadsheet that's working withsomething and you don't have the
visibility as to what's goingon.

(47:51):
As you'd mentioned, the ERPsoftware then becomes almost
like a notebook or a tool torecord things after the fact.
Exactly so you really are alwayslooking behind versus the
current, into the future to beable to plan and go through, and
a lot of times thosespreadsheets get used.
You have some resistance tochange that because you always
say, well, you can't do that, wehave something so complicated.

(48:12):
I can't tell you how many timesI've heard that it's so
complicated.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
There's no system, it's unique.
Everybody's a special littlesnowflake when they're in a
sales process.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
I work with an organization and they were
manufacturing stuff and they hadmentioned the same thing.
It's oh, you can't do this, weneed a lot of modifications.
We can't do this with the, withan ERP software, because we
have this special thing.
And they got mad at me but Ikind of said you're pretty much
just making a calculator.
You know you're making acalculator, you're making
another product.

(48:40):
It's the same thing.
As you have a finished product,you have a bill of material
process.
You go through a routing Justbecause you have different types
of material that may be morevaluable or something and you
need to track it.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
You still can track it within a system, but they
sometimes they just hold on tothis, thinking that nobody can
do something that they don'thave and that it is a world that
needs to change that that'ssomething they should consider,
then, like preparation wise,before going into an erp
implementation or even expertlogic implementation, just look
around you and see who's usingexcel to go.
Do you know day-to-day work?
Yeah, and you may want to startdocumenting that, because you

(49:17):
don't want to figure that outright in the middle of
everything with thosespreadsheets.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
We actually we have like a term and we even have
like a little jiffy that we havebuilt out internally at expert
logic.
So we call them franken sheets,because they will usually have
so many tabs and so many cellsthat they start to take on a
life of their own.
That's what we will call afrankensheet.
People will sometimes beembarrassed before sending it
over to us.
They're like, oh, it's reallyin-depth, it's really bad.

(49:45):
It's like we have seen everytype of crazy spreadsheet at
this point to warehouse productand pricing information to where
that doesn't intimidate us, andwe actually specifically built
our modeler on Excel syntax tomake it that much easier for
people who are moving from aspreadsheet and those types of
rules and formulas over into CPQ.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Yeah, I just want to make sure we're not bashing
anyone using Excel.
No, no, no, Great product right, yeah, useful, but don't use it
as your ERP.
Excel is a great tool.
It's not bashing.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
In a sense it's just with the understanding that you
may have used Excel for a reason, due to a limitation in your
existing system.
Just because you're using Exceldoesn't mean that no other
system can do it, becausetechnology has advanced.
Individuals have worked throughthese processes and realized
you can do it systemicallyversus in Excel.

(50:35):
It's a matter of taking a stepback and saying, okay, I have
trust in another system, justlike I had to have trust in my
Excel sheet when it firststarted.
You're reading the psych book,but the psychology behind it is
when they first started usingthat Excel spreadsheet it was
still new and foreign and theyhad to build trust with it that
it was calculating properly.
And then they've learned totrust it and they're holding on

(50:56):
to it now when they jump into anewer erp system with a new
product configurator or cpq uh,configuring, pricing, quoting
see, I got that.
I learned something new yeah umyou did that.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
See, I like the term that I've started using in some
conversations I don't know ifit's landing as well as I want
to, because I do feel like it'smore of a of a new age concept
is this idea of technologyblindness.
So people will talk about oh,like we all had eyebrow
blindness, you know, from likethe 90s into the early 2000s.
Like my eyebrows still haven'tfully recovered from when they

(51:31):
were so paper thin, because thatwas the thing, right, that's
what we did, that was the trend,you know.
But we couldn't see how ugly itwas because, like everybody,
everybody was doing it it wasthe status quo, you know like
exactly now, the thick eyebrowsare back in like whatever, yeah,
or even like to give it more ofa, you know, male frame of

(51:53):
reference.
You know there's like there'shair blindness and people who
are trying to like hold on, tolike the one patch of hair
that's there instead of justshaving it off, and I don't know
what brad has under his hat, soI'm not calling him out in any
regard, but my whole family, allthe men in my family are bald.
My head has been shaved since Iwas.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
It's funny because I have been shaving my head since
I was probably 19, 18 and it's.
It is funny because I hadalways shaved it.
I had a high and tight and thenI started getting a little thin
and then I was like I'll justshave it, just shave it to the
point where I really didn't evenknow how much hair I had.
And then there was a point afew years ago I'm like you know
what?
I'll grow it out just to seewhat it looks like.

(52:37):
So now I just keep it a littlebit shorter just because it's
easier, but I still like to bebald.
I'm not holding on to any piece.
I don't have the comb over.
I don't have.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
No, my dad's been bald since he was 23.
Like, baldness is like a thingin my family.
But it's funny because my dadcompared to like some of his
friends who are still holding onto I feel like he looks so much
younger, you know, like yeahsee, chris, that's why I look so
young.
But it's like you know.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Don't be.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Homer Simpson, there's a trend.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
No-transcript.
They might not be in styleanymore, but it's what I know
and what I'm used to, so I feellike I need to.
I need to fine tune thetechnology blindness thing, but
that was a-.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Change is scary.
I love the eyebrow reference.
I really had a conversationwith someone the other day about
that and they were talkingabout the eyebrows because when
they were younger it was thesame things that you would pull
it all out and I guess itdoesn't.
Yeah, I was don't go back, goback.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
I thought they did it kind of like.
I have very like.
I have pretty like naturallythick eyebrows, but I'm a little
bit spotty compared to likebecause of how intensely I would
pluck them during like the nexttime I see you, you know I'm
going to be staring at youreyebrows and take a magnifying
glass and I'll be like well,don't do that, cause I actually

(54:04):
just have one eyebrow, I justwax it really well, so that it's
at least you didn't tattoo it,cause you know my grandmother
tattooed hers and I think my momhas her tattoo.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
I don't I don't really pay attention, but it was
a thing back then, right likejust tattoo it, yeah, or shave
it completely off.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
My grandma still pencils, just draws on her
eyebrows every day.
And what she told me?
She was going because she leadsthe um, the women's church
group at one of the localprisons.
And she showed up one day.
She'd use her lip liner and gotready in the dark instead of
her eyebrow pen.
So she showed up one day.
She'd used her lip liner andgot ready in the dark instead of
her eyebrow pen.
So she showed up with red,little thin eyebrows and

(54:40):
everybody was like that is funny.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
I do.
I see some.
I don't want to talk about that.
I don't want anyone to beinsulted by our talking about
them painting their eyebrows on,but you know it's more about,
more about.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
You know, it's a trend.
We all get like caught up in itand then it's hard to like it's
comfort.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
You don't let go of your comfort level, which is
good yeah, you don't let go ofyour spreadsheet.
Yeah, the one thing from atechnical point of view how is
the information?
What I was thinking about as wewere talking the information
exchanged between businesscentral and the expert logic?
Cpq is business central.
How does the?
What I was thinking about as wewere talking the information
exchange between BusinessCentral and the ExpertLogic?
Cpq Is Business Central.
How does the informationcommunicate back and forth?
How much of the informationlives in Business Central versus

(55:23):
how much lives in ExpertLogic?
So if you set up your products,for example, you set up your
products in Business Central andthen they move over to
ExpertLogic.
So do you set the products upin Expert logics and then they
you manage them over there andthey move back into business
central, for example?

Speaker 3 (55:37):
yeah.
So usually you're setting upthe products with you can.
It's a bi-directional sync, sowe have an integration framework
.
That's, honestly ourdifferentiator.
And this used to bother me whenI was in marketing, because
other cpqs, you know, they haverule-based functionality, they
have 3d product, and so Iremember going back to our head
of product, I'm like what's ourdifferentiator in the CPQ space?

(55:58):
And he's like it's CloudConnect, which is our
bi-directional integrationframework.
And I'm in marketing, I'm likeso our differentiator's
integration, like that's notsuper sexy to like bring to
market, but like now that I'mmore in the sales realm, like
I'm seeing us win these dealsagainst our competitors, really
because of the way that we canwork with Dynamics.
So we can either pull theproduct information from

(56:20):
Business Central or we can startit in CPQ and if they you know,
for example, we're migratingfrom NAV to BC and all the
product information lives in,you know, cpq Once they
implement Business Central, wecan push that all back in, or
vice versa.
So it's bidirectional sync.
It's totally like low-code,no-code type of integration
framework too.
We can connect down to the metalevel of any object and we do

(56:44):
also integrate with Salesforce.
Salesforce has their own CPQproduct.
We can connect to more customentities and endpoints in
Salesforce than Salesforce CPQcan.
So that's the flexibility ofour integration framework and
again, it's truly ourdifferentiator.
It's bidirectional, it's lowcode.
And then I feel like I wasgoing to say one other thing on

(57:04):
that end too.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
The bidirectional.
As you're thinking about that,the bidirectional I do see it as
a selling point and advantage,because now a user does not need
to work in two systems if theyhave that.
I understand some individualsmay have to work on CPQ only,
some individuals may have towork in Business Central only,
but then you'll have thoseindividuals that may manage

(57:29):
products that may have to spendany time either learning two
systems or jumping back andforth between them and
potentially missing somethinginadvertently because they have
to manage two different systems.
So I could see how that'd be abig selling point for an
implementation and it could alsoreduce the license cost.
I don't want to talk aboutpricing because I know it's
different, but when it comes tolicensing of ExpertLogix, how is

(57:50):
it licensed?
Is it licensed by?

Speaker 3 (57:53):
user.
Licensed by app.
Licensed by licensing of expertlogics.
How is it licensed?
Licensed by user?
Licensed by app?
Okay, licensed by user and justby either, like admin user,
sales user, so it doesn't needto be every user that's on
business central or on so it'ssimple just anyone interacting
with it.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Everything has to be easy it's simple.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
It depends on the integration platform too.
So the pricing for fno is alittle bit different than it is
at business central.
Business Central has less userrequirements than Finance and
Operations does so on and soforth.
But yeah, business.
Central particularly, is prettycost productive.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
No.
I like it, simple, simple, andit's important for it.
Well, ms Miranda, thank youagain for taking the time to
speak with us and tell us alittle bit about X.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
I want a rematch Because I lost twice.
I know, I know.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
Twice, maybe even three times and I gave up.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Good thing, Rob's not on this call because I would be
definitely talking some smackto him after the win Are you
going to be in Orlando?
Okay, so do the rematch inOrlando.
We can schedule it now and playnow.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Gotta do a rematch, we'll bring, we'll bring our own
setup.
That'll be at our kiosk, youknow, just in case.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
I'm just letting.
Rob is not going to be in myteam.
I still tell you that, becausehe did not.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I will be on your team, but you have to.
But we have to do it before mybedtime, that's all I'm going to
say.
So if you want to play, it hasto be.
You can stay up all night andwe'll do it before my bedtime.
That's all I'm going to say.
So if you want to play, it hasto be.
You can stay up all night andwe'll do it early in the morning
when I get up.
That's fine, I get up early.
It will be on the East Coast soI can have my normal sleep
schedule.
But if you want to play, I willbe on your team, no problem,

(59:26):
and I do quite well.
But it has to be before mybedtime and after my waking time
so you guys can start early inthe morning at 3 o'clock to stay
up until I wake up.
But it's done.
Rematch, settled Rematch or setOctober.
We'll pick one of the days asit gets closer, but October in

(59:47):
Orlando and we should record it.
But no, thank you.
We do appreciate you taking thetime to speak with us.
You offered a wide range ofvaluable information and
hopefully everyone understands alittle bit more about expert
logics and CPQ.
I know I learned quite a bit.
If anyone would like to learnmore about expert logics and CPQ
, what's the best way to contactyou to find more information?
See the great things that theproduct does.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
Yeah, I will.
My email address is mpowell atexpertlogicscom.
But if you come through as apartner to our website, those
automatically get routed over tome.
So, um, yeah great.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Again, thank you very much for your time.
We appreciate it.
I look forward to speaking toyou again soon.
Talk about these books as wellas now.
The challenge is on.
You have.
What are we in April?

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
You have about five and a half months.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Well, it's at the end of the month, so you have about
six months now to prepare forthis.
Chris, we better startpracticing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
I'm going to practice and create a montage.
Christopher knows I don't needthat much practice, she's good.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
I need to practice create a montage post it and I'm
ready.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
A lot can happen.
If she doesn't play in sixmonths she can lose that skill.
It's not like riding a bikeSure Good.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
But you know what?
She's tall, she has advantage.
I'm this short guy, I have tolob it a little higher.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Oh yeah, forget it.
I forgot, because she can justdrop it drop it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
You have to.
Yeah, yes, miranda, can I be onyour team?
So okay, well, that's why wehad to get christopher involved
last time as the ref becausethere was a little bit of
reaching.
Uh, that was happening, so hewas taking the white napkins and
throwing them down on the tableand calling fouls on, like me
or rob listen, if you're doing anormal reach and you're not
leaning, I'm okay with it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Just that, if your arm is long enough and it goes
halfway, over the table.
It counts, You're on my teambecause I'm not losing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Again, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
And I look forward to speaking with you again soon.
All right, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Ciao, ciao, Thanks guys.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Appreciate the opportunity.
Bye.
Thank you, chris, for your timefor another episode of In the
Dynamics Corner Chair, and thankyou to our guests for
participating.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
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-Ecom, and youcan interact with them via

(01:02:19):
Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E.
You can also find me atmatalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-oi-o,
and my Twitter handle ismatalino16.
And see, you can see thoselinks down below in their show
notes.
Again, thank you everyone.

(01:02:40):
Thank you and take care.