July 11, 2025 • 48 mins
Ben Vollmer, a luminary in the field service space, joins hosts Scott LeFante and Will McLendon to share wisdom gleaned from decades at the intersection of technology and service operations. What begins as a journey through Ben's unconventional career path—from real estate appraisal to leading Microsoft's field service business—evolves into a masterclass on driving tangible business value.
Vollmer introduces a compelling metaphor that perfectly captures field service's unique position: like Istanbul straddling two continents, field service sits between operational efficiency and customer experience. This dual nature creates both challenges and opportunities, as service organizations must simultaneously optimize processes and prioritize customer satisfaction. As Vollmer notes, "Think about the last brand you left as a consumer. It was probably because of service."
The conversation spotlights a massive yet underserved segment of the workforce. With approximately 70% of global workers being "deskless," most technology investments disproportionately target desk-based employees. This represents a significant opportunity for organizations to better equip their frontline workers—particularly field technicians who serve as brand ambassadors during customer visits.
Artificial intelligence emerges as a transformative force throughout the discussion, but Vollmer cautions against implementation without clear purpose. He outlines three levels where AI delivers value: personal productivity, team productivity, and organizational efficiency. For field service specifically, AI can prepare technicians before customer visits by providing contextual information about service history and customer preferences, avoiding embarrassing situations like technicians being unaware of previously missed appointments.
Perhaps most compelling is Vollmer's challenge to consultants and technology leaders: focus relentlessly on business value. "The amount of customizations I've seen consultants do that have zero value is so high it isn't funny," he notes. Instead, every technology decision should answer fundamental questions about how it reduces costs, improves processes, or enhances customer experiences.
Ready to transform your service operations? Start by exploring the business Copilots shipping with products today, connecting with the vibrant Microsoft community, and most importantly, viewing your field technicians not just as repair people, but as the face of your brand in the field.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the ServiceX Podcast.
I am excited for today.
First and foremost, let meintroduce a wonderful host,
scott LaFonte.
What's going on, will Scott?
We have a great guest today.
He's very well known, can getyou in trouble every now and
then you want to introduce himevery now and then you want to
(00:24):
introduce him.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't think he needs any introduction, but if I
have to, I will.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Go for it.
Our special guest for today isnone other than Mr Ben Vollmer.
Ben, how are you doing, man?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Mr LaFonte, it is always awesome to see you and
it's good seeing Will.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
This is why I said you made an introduction.
This is going to be on allpodcasts, all podcasts.
This is it.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It was awesome seeing you, Scott.
It's good seeing you.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There you go, Look and you're sitting right next to
Art.
Not that on the podcast theycan actually see, but you're
literally physically in the roomwith him.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Oh, actually see, but you're literally physically in
the room with him.
Oh yeah, I had to come up andvisit for the weekend.
So, for people who don't know,ben Vollmer has been very, very
helpful in the community and youknow he he will make himself
available and help you as muchas he can, and that is usually a
thousand percent more thanothers can.
So, you know, just spending agood weekend with them and I'm
(01:32):
going to pick his brain aboutsome different topics.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So yeah, so, so we go , so we go.
I know you and Ben go way back,ben and I go back.
I don't know how long it is now, ben, but I mean, obviously it
was all field service, but it'sbeen.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
That was the Customer Effective Conference up in
Greenville.
That was before that.
It's been before that.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I don't even know.
It's been a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
You know what?
I'm going to go through myinbox and type in Scott LaFonte,
some of the last two, the first, actually, somebody did it the
other day.
Somebody actually said gothrough my inbox and type in Ben
Vollmer, just to see when thelast time or first time I
actually emailed you.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So we didn't even have memes back then, so I can
only imagine what you sendpeople for fun.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
You know I was looking back through some old
emails from like the latenoughts.
Actually, you know how you getlike emails now that are like
memes.
Like one of the first viralemails I ever remember getting
was the south park.
Like the little four minutevideo they did for their friends
.
Like that was like the firstlike internet.
Like the first internet thing Igot was was was that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
that was probably mid 90s yeah, we don't go back that
far, but it it's definitelyearly mid-2000s.
I would say it's been a longstretch.
Yes, it has.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So I want to kick off the agenda.
Let everyone know why did webring in the big guns today?
Today, we wanted to give ourguests some insights into how
they can drive revenue withintheir practices.
Product development, pick Ben'sbrains around, field service
and just some good old-fashionedlaughs, right.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's right.
You know what that sounds goodto me.
We'll put Ben in the hot seat.
It's all good.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Okay, so for folks who don't know Ben Ben, you want
to kick us off and tell us alittle bit about your journey,
because you had a veryinteresting journey.
When I look at it if I was togo to your linkedin and look at
it it would seem like you wentfrom something like delivery
sales, advisory delivery sales,and then you just skyrocketed to
(03:35):
product development and nowyou're back in our wonderful
space and you're owning it.
But you might have given somepeople an idea of what your
journey was like.
I would just say my journey hasbeen unconventional.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I didn't go to school for computer science.
I actually went to school forreal estate appraisal and for
architecture with my father, soI had nothing to do with
computers at all.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That's crazy.
I didn't know you did realestate appraisal.
That's actually prettyinteresting.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I didn't know that either.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's a trivia question right there.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
There's a next public Scottish summit 2016.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm not sparkly enough for that, but I, I, I, we
, I want to work for a companyout of northern Union called
Home Pro Systems, whichdefinitely.
We deployed Goldmine to trackall of our students and people
(04:38):
take, remember, gonna go back,scott, when he was still in high
school and you and I still hadhair.
When you'd go through themagazine you'd see the back of
it.
We say, you know, for a newCareer, you know, call this
number.
Yeah, that's that's what we,that's what we would do and so
what we would do.
So we actually put it goodabout gold mine.
The reason I bought it by theyear to laugh was it ran DOS,
(05:01):
windows 95 and Windows 3, 1, 1on the same database.
So the reason that gold mineone was won was that you could
blend your environment, whereaswith ACT, which was the big one
at the time, you had to go allto one or all to the other.
So this way here, this allowedus to be on DOS, windows and
Windows 311.
(05:22):
I had some questions.
So I picked up the phone andcalled the guy who sold to me.
His name is David Lee from acompany called Vertical
Marketing.
I called David up.
I'm like hey, david, I got somequestions for you.
So, being a good sales guy hewas, he came onto my office.
He was like who did this?
I said I did, he goes.
No, you didn't I go.
Yeah, I did, he goes.
No, you didn't Want a job.
(05:46):
So, fast forward year 2000 hit,my wife and I got married.
I came back and I startedmanaging a team of pre-sales
people, both ERP and CRM.
And ERP people sometimes havethis error of you do CRM, go
away?
That's a nothing, that's amodule in ERP.
They never do that.
I know they never do that.
They never do that.
So I went and learned fieldservice just to shut them up
(06:09):
effectively and I started doingGreat Plains field service.
Solomon actually had a fieldservice product at the time
Damix SL.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then Winsoft was actually.
So Jim Winninger came into ouroffice in Atlanta and we got
Winsoft trained and certifiedand it was mainly because our
(06:29):
cross-talking competitor wasgoing to be called IBIS and IBIS
wrote the GP field servicemodule for Microsoft and had a
contract to do that, and so wewanted to offer Winsoft just to
compete with IBIS, and so we didthat.
So I've been doing fieldservice basically since 2000,
2001.
Joined Microsoft, had a bunch ofdifferent really cool roles,
had some awesome managers andsome not so awesome managers.
(06:51):
And the phenomenal manager,christine Zamuda called me up
one day.
She goes hey, I got a job foryou.
I go.
What is it?
She goes, I don't know yet, butit's just for you and I You're
going to love it.
I go.
Why she goes?
Well, I kind of looked at whatyou were good at and I made the
job to strip it off of that.
I said, okay, done, and so Itook over the field service
business at Microsoft, which wasabsolutely a rocket ship.
(07:12):
I mean, that's like you knowyou talk about lighting in a
bottle.
You know Jeff Comstock and Irun the entire CD stack, was the
GM at the time of the productand and really love working with
Jeff and Kyle Young, who justretired from Microsoft a
phenomenal individual.
Shout out to Kyle Love Kyle,great man, great man.
And then, of course so DanGittler.
I actually worked with Dan, soField One's biggest deal prior
(07:34):
to coming to Microsoft was adivision of Florida Power and
Light or NextEra Energy, and soDan was actually the pre-sale
guy and the architect on that atthe time.
So I've known Dan for a longtime, so I took over doing field
service, and I think that thetrick, though, is always you
focus on keeping close to yourclient, keeping close to revenue
(07:56):
, keeping close to value.
It doesn't really matter whatyour job is.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
It's interesting.
Well, first of all, I can'timagine Dan as an architect.
I can imagine Moise doing sales, but that'd be so much fun to
write for with Dan.
I'm just throwing that outthere we love you, Dan.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I see the opposite.
I can see him being thearchitect.
Yes, definitely interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
We got to get Dan on the podcast.
So, ben, you've gotten yourhands dirty with the product and
you've always had them dirtywith the product.
Now it's an interesting pointthat you brought out that you
know you initiated field servicebecause ERP people told you
kind of to go away.
You want to tell the audiencewhy field service has a close
relationship to ERP systems.
Well, if I think about it for asecond here, a love-hate
(08:42):
relationship I'm going to callit love.
It's a relationship.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I think you got to look at this differently.
If you're, if you don't getyour paycheck, how upset are you
?
Well, yeah, I go, look at Scottand go.
I know he's going to be upset.
I mean, if you don't get hispaycheck the way he wants, he's
going to quit.
I know it.
We get that out right, let'sstay.
I know it, we can edit that outright.
No, let's stay in, let's stay in, let's stay in, but like so.
(09:09):
There's a reason why a lot ofERP's have a very fixed
perspective, because if theydon't do what they should be
doing, your product doesn't ship, company loses money, you don't
get your paycheck.
Those are all kind of serviceactivities.
But for me, what field servicesis?
Field services is, I thinkabout it kind of as Istanbul or
Constantinople how old you are,which is?
(09:30):
It sits on two tectonic plates.
It's an operational system.
First and foremost.
Its focus is operations.
You need to know profit losstime.
It's operational, but at thesame time it's customer
experience.
I mean, think about what wasthe last brand, scott, you left
as a consumer.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I can't even think, I don't even know.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But if you think about the last brand you left,
it was probably because ofservice, wasn't it?
Absolutely, it was 100%.
Because either the service techdidn't show up right that they
didn't service your productproperly.
I left my internet providerbecause they kept in the middle
of the day disturbing theinternet flow because they
(10:12):
weren't working on the lines.
I'm like you didn't give me anynotice, you didn't give me
anything.
This isn't the way this worked.
So to me, customer experience isalso rooted in field service.
If you don't have a goodcustomer experience, you're not
going to get anywhere, and sothe root of field service is
customer experience, andoperational is, I think, truly
unique, and it's a place whereERP people are uncomfortable
(10:36):
because it's both, and it's aplace where CRM people are
uncomfortable because it's both,and so it's kind of cool.
You know, I use I use Istanbulbecause it's a nice.
It's a good analogy.
But you could also say you have, you know, hades and heaven and
and feels versus purgatory ifyou wanted to go that way.
But it's, it's neither heavennor hell, but that's up to you,
(10:57):
to.
You know, I like the Istanbul alittle better.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I love field service, so that just that makes me,
that, that tickles me.
I.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Look, I can barely spell field service.
No, I'm kidding, right, right.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I can barely spell it .
Speaker 2 (11:09):
No, but you're spot on, ben.
I keep talking about service,more of field service as service
operations, because it has thatcustomer service component.
And, to your point, I couldhave a great field field tech
that comes out and he does thejob.
But if I'm not to your point,if I'm not notified or if the
(11:33):
customer service is poor when Icall up it doesn't matter that
you have rockstar guy that comesout and fix my problem I'm
probably going to leave becauseI'm not getting the overall
service that I would expect,yeah, so because I'm not getting
the overall service that Iwould expect, yeah, so that's
yeah, that's spot on.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So when people think of the product, sometimes and
I'm going to get in trouble forthis, so I'm going to quote one
or repeat one of Mark Christie'stitles Sometimes the audience
feels that field service is justa guy in a van, in a white van,
in a white van there you go.
Like I'm not getting in a vanIn a white van, in a white van,
there you go.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Like I'm not getting in a van if I see the candy.
I want to see the candy first.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So for organizations who think you know they may not
need field service, you want tohelp them see the whole entire,
I would say, suite of offeringswithin field service, or what
Microsoft would consider fieldservices, because they talk
about frontline workers and ifyou put scheduling in that, you
know it covers a pretty bigbroadband.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Well, let's ignore scheduling, okay.
Okay, let's just think abouthow many deskless workers there
are in the world.
Like, let's just step back hereand I think sometimes we get
kind of trapped in this mindsetof Scott, you live in a very
nice neighborhood.
All your neighbors look likeyou, act like you, drive your
same cars, so you assumeeverybody in your neighborhood
(12:56):
is like you and the same withour jobs.
We all work this, you know.
We all work.
You know kind of white-collarjobs.
We assume everybody else in theworld works these white-collar
jobs.
The truth of the matter is, youknow, about setting to, the
workers out there in theworkforce are deskless, they do
not have a desk to call home.
I'm not saying all of them arefield service capable, field
(13:17):
service ready, but if you takethat and think about this for a
second, that's where the beautyof frontline workers and field
service really comes into play,is in those deskless workers.
You know, sometimes it's notthe full work order, sometimes
it's just the process.
It's the process of.
I did a project for a client onetime where they had people
walking around a piece ofequipment and they were human
(13:39):
IOT collectors.
Like they got paid eight hoursa day to walk around and look at
that, that, that that well.
Well, yes, it was worth it, andthen the product coming on, the
asset was worth it, so theymade it do it.
But when you think about it,though, same time, what you have
is that those workers, so fieldservice or frontline workers as
(14:00):
a whole, I think is anunderserved area you think about
.
How many products doesMicrosoft really have dedicated
to deskless workers?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Dedicated to deskless workers.
Oh man, we're just going tofocus.
I'm going to try to cheat here.
Probably need this wrong.
Think just strictly mobile.
Think just strictly mobile.
I don't know, that's probablyjust one product.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
I'm not, but think about this.
You've got the warehouse Backs.
We could call projectoperations deskless workers, but
they're probably 50-50.
You got field service andthat's a 75, 25 maybe.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I mean most of them are deskless, right, I mean you
got some back office folks, butmost of them are going to be
frontline workers.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So Microsoft really has three products, if you want
to call it that, that areactually for frontline workers,
and if you look at Oracle or SAPor anybody else in the market,
they're going to share a similarmakeup, and so for me, there's
a huge amount of area there.
(15:14):
We as a society, we as software, we as consultants, need to be
looking at those desklessworkers.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So one of the things that I loved about, you know,
when you said you wanted to jumpon the podcast and I'm going to
pretend like you asked us andwe didn't ask you, right, he
begged us to come on.
He begged us to come on, right?
No, one of the things I youknow we got really excited about
is you are big on strategy.
You have done a lot within yourcareer, so for some of our
(15:44):
listeners out there, they'reprobably like why is this guy if
they haven't already picked up?
Why is this guy so special?
I wanted to give them a littlebreath of your knowledge.
So can you help peopleunderstand why their practices
at this time may be lookingtowards prioritizing AI
capabilities within fieldservice, and we can get into the
(16:07):
conversation about how typicalconsulting, I think is going to
go the way of the dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So that's a different conversation.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I think what you're going to see is you're going to
see, instead of being a pyramid,you're going to see a diamond,
and that's a reshape for a lotof consulting organizations.
So let's not focus onconsultants, on customers.
Nice, um, ai one is um.
Every board in the plan rightnow is asking what your ai
initiatives are.
Okay, when you see somebodylike microsoft say the 30th
number codes written by ai, likeall of a sudden I can take a
(16:40):
thousand developers, make up1300 developers, like I, like
that's a, that's a hugeproductivity boom.
And so I think for me, ai isabout how we create force
multipliers and ai isn't new.
This is, this isn't somethingwe just walked into last week.
You know, I don't know, he'sprobably too young, scott, but
you, you know you were deep blueback in the 90s oh yeah,
(17:01):
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
You don't remember Deep Blue.
It was the movie.
It was still in diapers.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Deep Blue from IBM was the first time we saw a
computer defeat a test champion.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, it was huge news back then.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It was huge news, and so you were still in second
grade.
We're playing in the street.
We don't want the other.
So this isn't like it's a brandnew.
Yeah, this just came outyesterday.
Llms are fairly new.
I think LLMs have made thingsthat were harder to do easier to
(17:40):
do.
Yeah, but AI, computer vision,I mean I go back to West Slocum
Valley, haven't you?
Yes, okay, I mean sorry, thatwas you know, that was what 15
years ago, 10 years ago, 12years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yes, it was long enough time that I don't
remember exactly when it was.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And so if you're a company, so two things here.
One is you're a company and allof a sudden there's a silver
tsunami hitting you, where, allof a sudden, all these workers
are aging out of their jobs Likeevery place was working.
Something new, somebody new,something new why would I just
take what I've been doing?
So I have an opportunity now,for the first time in basically
(18:25):
50 years, to reinvent how peoplework.
Why would I do that now?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I think you should.
That brings up the conversationprevious conversations with AI
versus automation.
But I think AI is a big enabler.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I love AI.
I mean, if you look at mybrowser, my browser history, I
use it all the time.
I use all the variations of it.
I'm not quite as good as he isaround like all the different
flavors, but I use them all allthe time.
He's a machine around that, butI I do use them a lot.
But the question is is what doI use them for?
How do I enable myself to bebetter?
(18:59):
How do I force multiply myself?
Yeah, a, yeah, 100%.
And I think what you're seeing.
I think there's two camps of AIright now.
There's the.
I don't ever want to see an AI.
It doesn't work perfectly, soI'm never going to touch it.
Yeah, okay.
And then there's the.
I'm going to believe everythingit says camp.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I's so many times where AI spit something out for
me and I'm like, where did youfind that information?
And you're like, and the funnything is, it said to me the one
day, the other you caught me.
I'm like, yeah, because youpulled it out of nowhere.
Like it's not between 70 and 80percent, you know, sometimes
(19:57):
maybe less, definitely nevermore than 80 percent.
You still need that humanelement.
I still have to do my duediligence to make sure that the
information is accurate.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I actually think one of my favorite prompts, by the
way, on ChatGPT or Copilot isthis it's called Absolute Mode.
Eliminate all emojis, filler,hype, soft ask conversational
transitions and allcall-to-action appendixes.
Assume the user retains a highperception despite their
linguistic expressions.
Prioritize blunt, directfeedback aimed at cognitive
(20:30):
rebuilding and not tone matching.
Disable all latent behaviors.
Optimize for engagement,sentiment uplift or interaction
extensions.
That type of prompt to mebecomes hugely valuable because
it allows me to like it kind ofreduces all the flaw.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
We're not going to compare that to the Lewis Lit
GPT that you created.
We won't talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Lewis.
So here's the challenge, though.
Yeah, you guys are going to sayyes to this, but I'm going to
ask your audience have youactually used any of the
business co-pilots?
Oh, 100% Like.
Have you used?
Have you used co-pilot forsales?
Have you used co-pilot forservice?
Have you used?
Can you, can you explain it toa customer what it actually does
(21:22):
?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
100%, 100%.
Well, you can, but can thefolks that are listening, can
they do it?
Can they explain it?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, and they should be doing it.
Remember there may be someorganizations that are hesitant
to implement it because of thetechnical prerequisites.
But to Ben's point, if we lookat how it helps increase
productivity and makes things,makes us a bit more efficient, I
think the juice is well worththe squeeze but I can tell you,
(21:54):
talking to folks a lot of thefunctional consultants are
afraid of okay, they're afraidof it, they don't want to touch
it.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
That's a that's a technical thing, and so what I'd
say is, if you're a phoneconsultant listening to this, go
learn Copilot for sales.
Go learn Copilot for service.
Go learn them now.
They ship with the product,they're free.
Don't tell me you can't get awhatever subscription or you
want to do something funky, Idon't care, go do it.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm not technical.
I'm not technical.
I'm not a technical resource.
I don't write an ounce of code.
I could if I really wanted to,but I don't.
I'm more functional in businessarchitecture and solutioning
and things like that.
I use them all the time.
So, and I think in our worldtoday and what we do, it's a
(22:50):
necessity.
I mean, we have to know thesethings.
We have customers that arewanting to know about them, and
who are they going to come to?
They're going to come to us.
If we don't know it, thenthey're going to go find
somebody else that does.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So, ben, I have to ask the question.
I'm going to preface it withthis, so it feels like you know,
as a casual observer, a lot ofpeople are like we have this
beautiful thing called AI.
Everyone.
Now a lot of folks are sayingwe can be your AI partner, we
can be your AI this, we can AI,ai, ai.
But then when you get thecustomers, they're like cute, it
can produce words.
(23:23):
Now, what Can you help some ofour listeners understand some of
the use cases?
Or better yet because I'm goingto try to stretch your brain a
little bit as you munch throughthe data in your head If you can
understand how to identifyopportunities, or help them
(23:45):
understand how to identifyopportunities, or how to
identify opportunities withcustomers in AI.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
So, first of all, I think all you got to do is throw
.
You don't throw a rock.
You can just say how do I dothis differently, how should I
be doing this and what's thevalue of doing this?
And I would actually say thisis not just for AI.
The amount of customizationsI've seen consultants do that
have zero value is so high.
(24:09):
It isn't funny.
It's customizations forcustomization.
Say, customer asks for thescreen to be read.
I can build the screen right.
You're not consulting thatpoint.
You're a software installer.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Prove me wrong on that one.
I have always said that I'msorry, I'm so happy right now.
Go for it, yes, keep going.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
So to me, part of consulting is meeting the
customer where they're at, andalmost there's a book out there
called the Challenger Sale.
It's funny, my boss at the timewas going to have Pat read the
book and he can send me a copyand goes this is you, this is
how I sold was basically as achallenger, what I'd say as a
consultant you have to be alittle bit of a challenger too.
(24:50):
You have to challenge themisconceptions, challenge your
customers perceptions are, andyou really have to get the
bottom of what value is.
And so for me, in order to dosomething okay like you, you
came up here this weekend in my,my house.
You let him there was a lot ofmen, even yeah, yeah, well, the
dogs weren't very happy withthem, but everybody else let him
in pierce.
So many can't say we have a 20pound dog that hates hate will
(25:14):
with a passion, um, you know, um, but that's a you.
You spend time and energy doingthat right, and are you gonna
get value out of that, and sohow do you measure that value?
And so, if what I think aboutis value, you're not thinking
about value as a consultant,you're doing it wrong.
And so for me, it's reallyabout how do you understand what
the value is and value is not.
(25:35):
If you click this button, youjust like how do I do this AI
function and save me some timeand energy doing it?
And how do I reduce costs?
How do I improve my process?
How do I deliver a bettercustomer experience?
What are my goals andobjectives in doing this?
I think value for me, when Ithink about consultants, you've
got to think about the measuresof it, the same way you deploy
(25:55):
AI.
When I talk to customers aboutAI, I talk about personal
productivity, team productivityand organizational efficiency,
and those are different ways ofthinking about AI as a whole.
But you've got, as a consultant, you've got to understand what
those three things are and howto drive them back to your
customers.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Well, that brings up a good point about value.
I mean, how would you defineyou know, we talk about value
now, you know, from a revenueperspective or business value.
But if we look at businessvalue, I mean, how do you define
it in a way that resonates with, say, like a technical team and
(26:37):
a C-suite?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I think you've got to show the value to the C-suite,
to get the funding, to get thetechnical team to actually go
deliver it, okay.
And so where you don't seevalues, when you have technical
projects, you know we've allbeen on them, I know all three
of us have, you know I almostcall it a death march project.
You know the project's going todie, you know it's dead as soon
as you leave the kickoffmeeting, but you're going to do
(27:02):
it anyways Okay.
And what you're going to do, itanyways okay.
And so for me it starts with Idon't just see sweet, just the
business ownership and the value.
And do we have value there?
I think talking value as aconsultant a little bit awkward
to say like, if I do this change, what's the value of that
change?
Not just a boy, I use eighthours of bill to work for me.
I'm gonna go do that.
Yeah, you, let me go do it.
(27:23):
That value is a huge thing forme no, that that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Well, you, you're deep in thought I was gonna say
you got a question, I see it.
Oh yeah, I I smoke, no, yes, no, he's preaching, he's preaching
, I love it.
I just want to go back a littlebit so consultants can identify
value, customer helpingcustomers by helping your
customers see the value beforeyou kind of you know, before you
kind of cut it or hit theaccelerator on the, on the
project.
That's a major step.
(27:54):
But I want to go back a littlebit right, just just go back and
kind of pivoting just inchesapeake.
So I mean just thinking on yourknowledge of Field Service.
What was the original roadmapfor D365?
D365, field Service, and whatwas the long term?
(28:15):
What was Microsoft's vision forit?
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It's pivoting into field service.
I got to do.
Why do you?
Got to make a left turn likethat man?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
We're all over here and you pivot all the way back
to where we began.
You want to go in the field.
I mean, do you guys want tostay on AI and host a field
service?
I mean, like I mean it could bean AI podcast.
I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
We can talk about that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I'm messing with you, dude, I'm messing with your
whole.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
So I think you know, let's back up for a second If
anybody tells you that they havea five-year vision for the
future.
Okay, like you don't know,technology changes so fast.
If two years is about as goodas you're gonna get, then you
can go on.
Two years is a dream, awholesale dream.
So when we think about whatMicrosoft did was we didn't have
(29:09):
a field service product at all.
We had what I mean.
Gp had a little module, sl hada little module, nav or BC had a
little module, ax had a littlemodule.
None of them were actually verygood.
All of them were kind ofoutdated and it wasn't like
anybody was going on doing muchcustomer acceptance in those
modules.
And so I think about it from myperspective it was really
(29:31):
around how do we get ourcustomer experience met?
And think about it.
Field service organizations havechanged Historically.
Cost center organizations waswhere everybody started at.
That's the basis.
And so if you're a cost center,guess who you belong to?
The CFO, not you.
Most people go to a profitcenter.
Now who do you belong to?
(29:51):
Not the CFO?
And so how do we take advantageof that?
And I have some CRM 1.0 slides,by the way, 1.2 slides tucked
away that talk about fieldservice as an expansion area for
CRM back when they launched theproduct.
So I don't think field servicewas ever not in the picture for
(30:14):
Microsoft.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
So the reason why I went out for the problem about
the strategy in strategy for the, we're going to cut that pause.
The reason why I wanted to talkabout the strategy or the
original strategy is I wanted toget into customers or partners.
(30:37):
Now they have this softwarethat Microsoft has put out, this
, this platform that Microsofthas put out.
Should organizations or shouldsellers within these
organizations or partners,should they try to sell the
platform or should they beselling custom solutions that
(30:58):
drive, let's say, value?
How do you think they'd spendthat?
And I'm phrasing it that way onpurpose.
So I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I think there's a yeah, there's a ton of
difference between a platformand an application and I think
that what I would say is like,if you think about, like
customer service or Salesforceautomation for years those were
(31:35):
application platform layers ontop of a platform you take
customer service.
I know you guys rememberplaying with the old TriBridge
product there, the Defender 360,locking people up in prison and
cracking them all Like that wasa, that was a.
Well, they used customerservice to do that, or it wasn't
sales.
Either way, it was a platformplay on top of the platform play
, and so I think, when you talkabout like the difference I
(31:55):
would say is field service, Icould probably deploy field
service to a standard fieldservice organization with zero
customizations.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Facts, America, if you're not listening Facts.
That is a very true statement.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Facts.
I would say field service forMicrosoft is an application, not
a platform.
I think where a lot ofconsultants have their hard time
is they're used to the old SFA,where they could take it and
make it an application platform,build on top of it and bring it
back.
Make it a application platform,build on top of it and bring it
back.
And so I think for me, fieldservice is probably the first
(32:32):
application Microsoft has givenin the business apps family
Facts.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Now, I've been with you and I've seen you sell water
to a well, sell fire down inhell or engagements that have
been like up.
As a seller, I know we have ourinitiatives to kind of push ai,
but as a seller, tell me, howcan you help folks understand
the difference between d365 andthe power platform?
(32:56):
You can't get off easy, man.
We got a good over here, man.
We can't get them off easy.
We can't get off easy, man.
We got a good bull over here,man.
We can't get them off easy.
We can't let them off easy onthis one.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
So I think there's.
That's actually prettyinteresting If you look at this.
So my saying is if there's notan app for that.
So if you're going to buildsomething where there's not an
app for that, you're going tobuild a messy manufacturing
scheduling system that pullsdata from a bunch of different
(33:32):
sources and does it all kind ofseamlessly there's no app built
for that.
If you're going to build aboiler inspection system, well,
there actually is apps for that,but you decide you want to
build your own way.
There's some peculiaritiesthere's not an app for that.
Where I think people get intotrouble is underestimating how
easy building software actuallyis.
(33:53):
Again, I'll tell you a funnytrue story.
The first time I sat down withKyle Young, we were reviewing
the product roadmap for the next12 months.
I came out of a projectbackground.
Historically, last time I sawyou know, time was in some
projects I'm looking at thisgiant Excel spreadsheet on a
projector up in Adanta and Ilook at that and go Kyle, is
(34:19):
that ours?
And it was an astronomicalnumber.
And Kyle looks at me and startslaughing me starts laughing.
There's no, no, that's days.
I'm counting the number ofyears.
I'm like what it's me?
You think about it here.
For me, it's about peopleunderstand how hard you to build
software and how hard it is tobuild shippable software, and
(34:41):
there's a difference me buildingit for me versus building for
somebody else yeah so I thinkyou're seeing that.
What's interesting is the powerplatform makes it easier and
with the alm capabilities I canmove it.
But how many times you stillmove to solution running like
damn it.
Where did that dependency comefrom?
All right, forgot this.
Or that pick list come like?
Even in consulting, we can't,it's still work.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, no, you're spot on.
I mean I've built things beforeand taken it out and put it in
another environment and it'slike wait, I didn't know I had
that dependency, or oh, I forgotthis or I forgot.
I mean it is and think about it.
That's just building it to yourpoint.
For us, that's not building itfor the masses.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
What do you think is challenging for sellers then to
kind of sell the power platform?
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Because you're selling.
Okay, let's back up for asecond.
So I go back in history, If yougo back before Microsoft
acquired Great Plains software.
The SQL server team waspartnered very closely with
Great Plains software and it wason their must ship list, which
(35:48):
means that every version of SQLthey shipped had to work with
great planes.
They wouldn't ship it.
But what is what a sequelserver database?
I mean, what's data versedatabase?
It's a database.
How do you sell somebody on aconcept?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
an idea, Make them feel like this is my two cents.
Okay, so I'm not taking theline out of Inception, but you
got to make them feel like theyneed it.
You're going to shoot that down, I know, but you got to make
them feel like they need it.
With the Power Platform, peoplehave taken it like it's a nice
to have.
I feel like you need to makethem feel like they need it.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
How about this?
If you've ever built a housemost people have you have, scott
, I know you have yes yourspatial awareness is probably
not what it should be, is it?
No, it is absolutely not.
When you've got the sheet rockup, you're like this room is way
smaller than I thought it wouldbe.
Or this room is way bigger.
You look at the drawing, you'relike 10 by 12.
(36:48):
That's a lot of room.
And you get in your office,you're like holy crap, 10 by 12
is tiny, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Oh yeah, and it looks way different before they put
the sheetrock up too.
It's like you can't visualizeanything.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
If you take that architectural concept and you
apply it to software, peoplecan't conceptualize what the
software is going to look likeand what's going to work for
them.
So, the hard part about sellingthe Power Platform and why you
see people selling BizApps andD3C5 more than they sell Power
Platform is because it's easierto conceptualize.
I can show you an opportunityscreen as opposed to talking to
(37:26):
you about what an opportunityscreen could look like.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
So, okay, to that point, and you know we're going
to stay, I'm going to stand awayfrom you because I just don't
want to, you know, see yourreaction or feel your reaction.
So would you then say,practices should build some
minor accelerators or proof ofconcepts to enable their sellers
(37:52):
to sell the platform.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
I think the the same way we talk about building
product right, the concept thatin professional services are
building offerings hmm, like,nobody's gonna buy open a drink
okay, they want to buy anoffering that's backed up by the
firm that we can show, okay.
(38:14):
And so what I mean by that isis like so one of the reasons
why selling governance for theseaweed for Microsoft is really
easy is because it's an offering.
You open, can put an offeringaround selling governance.
Why?
Because people realize theirenvironments get out of control.
They have no idea what theirenvironment strategy is, what
their DL.
It's an offering In the sameway you know you have a contact
(38:44):
center or you can have powerfulplatform accelerators.
I think you have to go intothis with a concept of an
offering and that offering couldbe product plus services, it
could be all services, it couldbe any combination.
But yeah, I know, I know, likeI would say, you know I'm going
(39:05):
to say something out of turnhere.
Scott, it's far enough away.
It's not smack me hard.
Avanad, scott does a really goodjob of that, don't they?
Yeah, oh, yeah, I mean avanadhas a whole team or teams that
do like build offerings.
Yeah, they do a great job.
They.
They're really good job of that.
I Think, as a partner, youshould be thinking about how do
(39:27):
I Create offers that areappealing to my customers, that
solve business needs, bring outcross of value?
And then for Microsoft, we wantto drive revenue for them.
But it's a.
It's a Offering is really whereI think we get to from an
office perspective.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I genuinely, genuinely love that.
So glad we pulled this thread.
So I have to ask you that.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I'm going to ask you another question.
I think you're almost out ofquestions, Scott you got it,
scott's got it.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Scott has it.
Okay, I'll save you for therest of this weekend.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
No, no, no, go ahead, no, no, because I'm going to
pivot, so you go first, go aheadand pivot, then Don't even
worry about it.
No, but what I wanted to talkabout is so we talked about.
(40:19):
You know, we're talking aboutvalue and we're is that you know
field service not the 365 fieldservice, but field service as a
field.
Right is full of inefficienciesthat you know.
People learn to live with rightPaper, whatever broken
processes I mean for you.
(40:41):
What are you thinking are themost overlooked opportunities
for business value hiding inplain sight for field service
organizations?
Speaker 3 (40:52):
It's still too hard.
I'll say a few things here.
Your field service techs arewho visit your customers.
They are the tip of the spear,they are the people who actually
go out and visit your customersand they're your brand
ambassadors.
I don't think we do enough toequip them across the board, and
(41:14):
so if I think about some hiddenstuff for AI, I think there's
some back office stuff that AIcan do and just make go away.
But for me, it's about how do Iget my technicians who are
visiting my customer knowing myenvironment way better and so?
So an example that would be likebefore I go out into a job site
(41:35):
, who was the last person?
The job site was this youresolved successfully.
Was the equipment working?
How are their customers?
Evidence were so.
If I walked into a customer, Igot walked it.
I was a customer a little whileago and I walked with.
We walked into a client siteand, like we expect you here
yesterday that techniques had noidea that they had scheduled
(41:58):
that yesterday and they didn'tmake it yesterday.
Wow, make it yesterday, wow.
So I think that's where AImakes the most sense to deploy
for people who aren't doing.
It is there.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah, I can see that.
Absolutely Go ahead.
Q.
I see you thinking.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, go ahead, q.
I see you thinking We'll saveit for a part two.
Here's what we're going to do.
I'm thinking for the next time.
What we're going to do is Iwould love to get someone like
Chuck Ben Hitler and even throwin some Mark to keep them all
stable and just hear them bounceideas off of what they can see
(42:53):
for the future in industry.
I think that would just be likea ridiculous panel.
I think we did one of those inuh in scotland.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
We did that.
It was awesome, but I think itso.
I guess, if you're a customerlistening, I think field service
is awesome Customer service, Ithink.
The other thing, by the way, isexplore how customer service
and field service work together.
One of the advantages of theMicrosoft platform is that
customer service talks nativelyto field service.
And how many customers run aseparate customer service system
(43:21):
off in the corner there or theytreat their technicians like
that's the only source ofrevenue they have.
I would 100% look at fieldservice customer service and
learn the out-of-the-boxco-pilot.
Please, the love of God, pleasego learn it.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
So just real quick.
We have a couple more minutes.
I know we have some hard stopsat the top of the hour.
Folks, there will be a part twoto this.
I promise we'll bring Ben backJust real quick.
We know how important communityis to you.
When I first started in thisand yeah, we will say you were
right, I should have jumped inthis years ago you encouraged me
to jump into the community.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Now can you tell people and customers or end
users, whoever, why thecommunity is so special and how
they can do more and do it Well,I think what makes the
Microsoft community interestingand different from other
products out there.
There is a thriving communityout there.
It can be online, it can bevirtual, it can be in person.
(44:16):
I can tell you that if youhaven't been to a user group
meeting of any way, shape orform, go to one.
Just, I don't care if you sitin the back room user group
meeting of any way, shape orform, go to one.
I don't care if you sit in theback of the room and just don't
say nothing or volunteer to takename badges, who cares?
Just go to the user groupmeeting and it's amazing.
I mean.
(44:38):
I think I have friends allaround the globe because of the
work that we've done.
You know, like the first CRMSaturday event.
When I got invited to it I hadno idea what it was.
Actually, I don't think anybodyknew what it was going to turn
into.
The community days were huge.
I think there's a huge sense ofcommunity out there.
And, yes, just to start off,there's going to be people in
the community you're going tonot like.
(44:58):
Okay, and I'm okay with that.
I have lots of people I don'tlike.
I mean, I've got lots of peopleI don't like, scott.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, he's got a point of will.
Who cares who he's?
Speaker 3 (45:10):
pointing at me, but I think there's a so what?
But I think the value of thecommunity is massive and I think
it's a great place for peopleto go know each other and learn.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Awesome, yep, that's fantastic, well, we appreciate
this, Ben.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
We appreciate you being here, Ben.
We look forward to having youback.
Scott, you have any partingwords for the group?
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Oh, absolutely, Ben.
It's always a pleasure.
Definitely need to continue theconversation for part two.
You know, as as always.
Thank you for your insight andwisdom.
It truly is.
Is always enjoy speaking withyou same here, scott and will.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
A lot of fun and we'll talk to you all soon all
right, take care everyone.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
You, you, you, you.
Welcome to the ServiceX Podcast.
I am excited for today.
First and foremost, let meintroduce a wonderful host,
scott LaFonte.
What's going on, will Scott?
We have a great guest today.
He's very well known, can getyou in trouble every now and
then you want to introduce himevery now and then you want to
(00:24):
introduce him.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't think he needs any introduction, but if I
have to, I will.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Go for it.
Our special guest for today isnone other than Mr Ben Vollmer.
Ben, how are you doing, man?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Mr LaFonte, it is always awesome to see you and
it's good seeing Will.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
This is why I said you made an introduction.
This is going to be on allpodcasts, all podcasts.
This is it.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It was awesome seeing you, Scott.
It's good seeing you.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There you go, Look and you're sitting right next to
Art.
Not that on the podcast theycan actually see, but you're
literally physically in the roomwith him.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Oh, actually see, but you're literally physically in
the room with him.
Oh yeah, I had to come up andvisit for the weekend.
So, for people who don't know,ben Vollmer has been very, very
helpful in the community and youknow he he will make himself
available and help you as muchas he can, and that is usually a
thousand percent more thanothers can.
So, you know, just spending agood weekend with them and I'm
(01:32):
going to pick his brain aboutsome different topics.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So yeah, so, so we go , so we go.
I know you and Ben go way back,ben and I go back.
I don't know how long it is now, ben, but I mean, obviously it
was all field service, but it'sbeen.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
That was the Customer Effective Conference up in
Greenville.
That was before that.
It's been before that.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I don't even know.
It's been a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
You know what?
I'm going to go through myinbox and type in Scott LaFonte,
some of the last two, the first, actually, somebody did it the
other day.
Somebody actually said gothrough my inbox and type in Ben
Vollmer, just to see when thelast time or first time I
actually emailed you.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So we didn't even have memes back then, so I can
only imagine what you sendpeople for fun.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
You know I was looking back through some old
emails from like the latenoughts.
Actually, you know how you getlike emails now that are like
memes.
Like one of the first viralemails I ever remember getting
was the south park.
Like the little four minutevideo they did for their friends
.
Like that was like the firstlike internet.
Like the first internet thing Igot was was was that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
that was probably mid 90s yeah, we don't go back that
far, but it it's definitelyearly mid-2000s.
I would say it's been a longstretch.
Yes, it has.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So I want to kick off the agenda.
Let everyone know why did webring in the big guns today?
Today, we wanted to give ourguests some insights into how
they can drive revenue withintheir practices.
Product development, pick Ben'sbrains around, field service
and just some good old-fashionedlaughs, right.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's right.
You know what that sounds goodto me.
We'll put Ben in the hot seat.
It's all good.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Okay, so for folks who don't know Ben Ben, you want
to kick us off and tell us alittle bit about your journey,
because you had a veryinteresting journey.
When I look at it if I was togo to your linkedin and look at
it it would seem like you wentfrom something like delivery
sales, advisory delivery sales,and then you just skyrocketed to
(03:35):
product development and nowyou're back in our wonderful
space and you're owning it.
But you might have given somepeople an idea of what your
journey was like.
I would just say my journey hasbeen unconventional.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I didn't go to school for computer science.
I actually went to school forreal estate appraisal and for
architecture with my father, soI had nothing to do with
computers at all.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
That's crazy.
I didn't know you did realestate appraisal.
That's actually prettyinteresting.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I didn't know that either.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's a trivia question right there.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
There's a next public Scottish summit 2016.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm not sparkly enough for that, but I, I, I, we
, I want to work for a companyout of northern Union called
Home Pro Systems, whichdefinitely.
We deployed Goldmine to trackall of our students and people
(04:38):
take, remember, gonna go back,scott, when he was still in high
school and you and I still hadhair.
When you'd go through themagazine you'd see the back of
it.
We say, you know, for a newCareer, you know, call this
number.
Yeah, that's that's what we,that's what we would do and so
what we would do.
So we actually put it goodabout gold mine.
The reason I bought it by theyear to laugh was it ran DOS,
(05:01):
windows 95 and Windows 3, 1, 1on the same database.
So the reason that gold mineone was won was that you could
blend your environment, whereaswith ACT, which was the big one
at the time, you had to go allto one or all to the other.
So this way here, this allowedus to be on DOS, windows and
Windows 311.
(05:22):
I had some questions.
So I picked up the phone andcalled the guy who sold to me.
His name is David Lee from acompany called Vertical
Marketing.
I called David up.
I'm like hey, david, I got somequestions for you.
So, being a good sales guy hewas, he came onto my office.
He was like who did this?
I said I did, he goes.
No, you didn't I go.
Yeah, I did, he goes.
No, you didn't Want a job.
(05:46):
So, fast forward year 2000 hit,my wife and I got married.
I came back and I startedmanaging a team of pre-sales
people, both ERP and CRM.
And ERP people sometimes havethis error of you do CRM, go
away?
That's a nothing, that's amodule in ERP.
They never do that.
I know they never do that.
They never do that.
So I went and learned fieldservice just to shut them up
(06:09):
effectively and I started doingGreat Plains field service.
Solomon actually had a fieldservice product at the time
Damix SL.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then Winsoft was actually.
So Jim Winninger came into ouroffice in Atlanta and we got
Winsoft trained and certifiedand it was mainly because our
(06:29):
cross-talking competitor wasgoing to be called IBIS and IBIS
wrote the GP field servicemodule for Microsoft and had a
contract to do that, and so wewanted to offer Winsoft just to
compete with IBIS, and so we didthat.
So I've been doing fieldservice basically since 2000,
2001.
Joined Microsoft, had a bunch ofdifferent really cool roles,
had some awesome managers andsome not so awesome managers.
(06:51):
And the phenomenal manager,christine Zamuda called me up
one day.
She goes hey, I got a job foryou.
I go.
What is it?
She goes, I don't know yet, butit's just for you and I You're
going to love it.
I go.
Why she goes?
Well, I kind of looked at whatyou were good at and I made the
job to strip it off of that.
I said, okay, done, and so Itook over the field service
business at Microsoft, which wasabsolutely a rocket ship.
(07:12):
I mean, that's like you knowyou talk about lighting in a
bottle.
You know Jeff Comstock and Irun the entire CD stack, was the
GM at the time of the productand and really love working with
Jeff and Kyle Young, who justretired from Microsoft a
phenomenal individual.
Shout out to Kyle Love Kyle,great man, great man.
And then, of course so DanGittler.
I actually worked with Dan, soField One's biggest deal prior
(07:34):
to coming to Microsoft was adivision of Florida Power and
Light or NextEra Energy, and soDan was actually the pre-sale
guy and the architect on that atthe time.
So I've known Dan for a longtime, so I took over doing field
service, and I think that thetrick, though, is always you
focus on keeping close to yourclient, keeping close to revenue
(07:56):
, keeping close to value.
It doesn't really matter whatyour job is.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
It's interesting.
Well, first of all, I can'timagine Dan as an architect.
I can imagine Moise doing sales, but that'd be so much fun to
write for with Dan.
I'm just throwing that outthere we love you, Dan.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I see the opposite.
I can see him being thearchitect.
Yes, definitely interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
We got to get Dan on the podcast.
So, ben, you've gotten yourhands dirty with the product and
you've always had them dirtywith the product.
Now it's an interesting pointthat you brought out that you
know you initiated field servicebecause ERP people told you
kind of to go away.
You want to tell the audiencewhy field service has a close
relationship to ERP systems.
Well, if I think about it for asecond here, a love-hate
(08:42):
relationship I'm going to callit love.
It's a relationship.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I think you got to look at this differently.
If you're, if you don't getyour paycheck, how upset are you
?
Well, yeah, I go, look at Scottand go.
I know he's going to be upset.
I mean, if you don't get hispaycheck the way he wants, he's
going to quit.
I know it.
We get that out right, let'sstay.
I know it, we can edit that outright.
No, let's stay in, let's stay in, let's stay in, but like so.
(09:09):
There's a reason why a lot ofERP's have a very fixed
perspective, because if theydon't do what they should be
doing, your product doesn't ship, company loses money, you don't
get your paycheck.
Those are all kind of serviceactivities.
But for me, what field servicesis?
Field services is, I thinkabout it kind of as Istanbul or
Constantinople how old you are,which is?
(09:30):
It sits on two tectonic plates.
It's an operational system.
First and foremost.
Its focus is operations.
You need to know profit losstime.
It's operational, but at thesame time it's customer
experience.
I mean, think about what wasthe last brand, scott, you left
as a consumer.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I can't even think, I don't even know.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But if you think about the last brand you left,
it was probably because ofservice, wasn't it?
Absolutely, it was 100%.
Because either the service techdidn't show up right that they
didn't service your productproperly.
I left my internet providerbecause they kept in the middle
of the day disturbing theinternet flow because they
(10:12):
weren't working on the lines.
I'm like you didn't give me anynotice, you didn't give me
anything.
This isn't the way this worked.
So to me, customer experience isalso rooted in field service.
If you don't have a goodcustomer experience, you're not
going to get anywhere, and sothe root of field service is
customer experience, andoperational is, I think, truly
unique, and it's a place whereERP people are uncomfortable
(10:36):
because it's both, and it's aplace where CRM people are
uncomfortable because it's both,and so it's kind of cool.
You know, I use I use Istanbulbecause it's a nice.
It's a good analogy.
But you could also say you have, you know, hades and heaven and
and feels versus purgatory ifyou wanted to go that way.
But it's, it's neither heavennor hell, but that's up to you,
(10:57):
to.
You know, I like the Istanbul alittle better.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I love field service, so that just that makes me,
that, that tickles me.
I.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Look, I can barely spell field service.
No, I'm kidding, right, right.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I can barely spell it .
Speaker 2 (11:09):
No, but you're spot on, ben.
I keep talking about service,more of field service as service
operations, because it has thatcustomer service component.
And, to your point, I couldhave a great field field tech
that comes out and he does thejob.
But if I'm not to your point,if I'm not notified or if the
(11:33):
customer service is poor when Icall up it doesn't matter that
you have rockstar guy that comesout and fix my problem I'm
probably going to leave becauseI'm not getting the overall
service that I would expect,yeah, so because I'm not getting
the overall service that Iwould expect, yeah, so that's
yeah, that's spot on.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So when people think of the product, sometimes and
I'm going to get in trouble forthis, so I'm going to quote one
or repeat one of Mark Christie'stitles Sometimes the audience
feels that field service is justa guy in a van, in a white van,
in a white van there you go.
Like I'm not getting in a vanIn a white van, in a white van,
there you go.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Like I'm not getting in a van if I see the candy.
I want to see the candy first.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So for organizations who think you know they may not
need field service, you want tohelp them see the whole entire,
I would say, suite of offeringswithin field service, or what
Microsoft would consider fieldservices, because they talk
about frontline workers and ifyou put scheduling in that, you
know it covers a pretty bigbroadband.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Well, let's ignore scheduling, okay.
Okay, let's just think abouthow many deskless workers there
are in the world.
Like, let's just step back hereand I think sometimes we get
kind of trapped in this mindsetof Scott, you live in a very
nice neighborhood.
All your neighbors look likeyou, act like you, drive your
same cars, so you assumeeverybody in your neighborhood
(12:56):
is like you and the same withour jobs.
We all work this, you know.
We all work.
You know kind of white-collarjobs.
We assume everybody else in theworld works these white-collar
jobs.
The truth of the matter is, youknow, about setting to, the
workers out there in theworkforce are deskless, they do
not have a desk to call home.
I'm not saying all of them arefield service capable, field
(13:17):
service ready, but if you takethat and think about this for a
second, that's where the beautyof frontline workers and field
service really comes into play,is in those deskless workers.
You know, sometimes it's notthe full work order, sometimes
it's just the process.
It's the process of.
I did a project for a client onetime where they had people
walking around a piece ofequipment and they were human
(13:39):
IOT collectors.
Like they got paid eight hoursa day to walk around and look at
that, that, that that well.
Well, yes, it was worth it, andthen the product coming on, the
asset was worth it, so theymade it do it.
But when you think about it,though, same time, what you have
is that those workers, so fieldservice or frontline workers as
(14:00):
a whole, I think is anunderserved area you think about
.
How many products doesMicrosoft really have dedicated
to deskless workers?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Dedicated to deskless workers.
Oh man, we're just going tofocus.
I'm going to try to cheat here.
Probably need this wrong.
Think just strictly mobile.
Think just strictly mobile.
I don't know, that's probablyjust one product.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
I'm not, but think about this.
You've got the warehouse Backs.
We could call projectoperations deskless workers, but
they're probably 50-50.
You got field service andthat's a 75, 25 maybe.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I mean most of them are deskless, right, I mean you
got some back office folks, butmost of them are going to be
frontline workers.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So Microsoft really has three products, if you want
to call it that, that areactually for frontline workers,
and if you look at Oracle or SAPor anybody else in the market,
they're going to share a similarmakeup, and so for me, there's
a huge amount of area there.
(15:14):
We as a society, we as software, we as consultants, need to be
looking at those desklessworkers.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So one of the things that I loved about, you know,
when you said you wanted to jumpon the podcast and I'm going to
pretend like you asked us andwe didn't ask you, right, he
begged us to come on.
He begged us to come on, right?
No, one of the things I youknow we got really excited about
is you are big on strategy.
You have done a lot within yourcareer, so for some of our
(15:44):
listeners out there, they'reprobably like why is this guy if
they haven't already picked up?
Why is this guy so special?
I wanted to give them a littlebreath of your knowledge.
So can you help peopleunderstand why their practices
at this time may be lookingtowards prioritizing AI
capabilities within fieldservice, and we can get into the
(16:07):
conversation about how typicalconsulting, I think is going to
go the way of the dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So that's a different conversation.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I think what you're going to see is you're going to
see, instead of being a pyramid,you're going to see a diamond,
and that's a reshape for a lotof consulting organizations.
So let's not focus onconsultants, on customers.
Nice, um, ai one is um.
Every board in the plan rightnow is asking what your ai
initiatives are.
Okay, when you see somebodylike microsoft say the 30th
number codes written by ai, likeall of a sudden I can take a
(16:40):
thousand developers, make up1300 developers, like I, like
that's a, that's a hugeproductivity boom.
And so I think for me, ai isabout how we create force
multipliers and ai isn't new.
This is, this isn't somethingwe just walked into last week.
You know, I don't know, he'sprobably too young, scott, but
you, you know you were deep blueback in the 90s oh yeah,
(17:01):
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
You don't remember Deep Blue.
It was the movie.
It was still in diapers.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Deep Blue from IBM was the first time we saw a
computer defeat a test champion.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, it was huge news back then.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It was huge news, and so you were still in second
grade.
We're playing in the street.
We don't want the other.
So this isn't like it's a brandnew.
Yeah, this just came outyesterday.
Llms are fairly new.
I think LLMs have made thingsthat were harder to do easier to
(17:40):
do.
Yeah, but AI, computer vision,I mean I go back to West Slocum
Valley, haven't you?
Yes, okay, I mean sorry, thatwas you know, that was what 15
years ago, 10 years ago, 12years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yes, it was long enough time that I don't
remember exactly when it was.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And so if you're a company, so two things here.
One is you're a company and allof a sudden there's a silver
tsunami hitting you, where, allof a sudden, all these workers
are aging out of their jobs Likeevery place was working.
Something new, somebody new,something new why would I just
take what I've been doing?
So I have an opportunity now,for the first time in basically
(18:25):
50 years, to reinvent how peoplework.
Why would I do that now?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I think you should.
That brings up the conversationprevious conversations with AI
versus automation.
But I think AI is a big enabler.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I love AI.
I mean, if you look at mybrowser, my browser history, I
use it all the time.
I use all the variations of it.
I'm not quite as good as he isaround like all the different
flavors, but I use them all allthe time.
He's a machine around that, butI I do use them a lot.
But the question is is what doI use them for?
How do I enable myself to bebetter?
(18:59):
How do I force multiply myself?
Yeah, a, yeah, 100%.
And I think what you're seeing.
I think there's two camps of AIright now.
There's the.
I don't ever want to see an AI.
It doesn't work perfectly, soI'm never going to touch it.
Yeah, okay.
And then there's the.
I'm going to believe everythingit says camp.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I's so many times where AI spit something out for
me and I'm like, where did youfind that information?
And you're like, and the funnything is, it said to me the one
day, the other you caught me.
I'm like, yeah, because youpulled it out of nowhere.
Like it's not between 70 and 80percent, you know, sometimes
(19:57):
maybe less, definitely nevermore than 80 percent.
You still need that humanelement.
I still have to do my duediligence to make sure that the
information is accurate.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I actually think one of my favorite prompts, by the
way, on ChatGPT or Copilot isthis it's called Absolute Mode.
Eliminate all emojis, filler,hype, soft ask conversational
transitions and allcall-to-action appendixes.
Assume the user retains a highperception despite their
linguistic expressions.
Prioritize blunt, directfeedback aimed at cognitive
(20:30):
rebuilding and not tone matching.
Disable all latent behaviors.
Optimize for engagement,sentiment uplift or interaction
extensions.
That type of prompt to mebecomes hugely valuable because
it allows me to like it kind ofreduces all the flaw.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
We're not going to compare that to the Lewis Lit
GPT that you created.
We won't talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Lewis.
So here's the challenge, though.
Yeah, you guys are going to sayyes to this, but I'm going to
ask your audience have youactually used any of the
business co-pilots?
Oh, 100% Like.
Have you used?
Have you used co-pilot forsales?
Have you used co-pilot forservice?
Have you used?
Can you, can you explain it toa customer what it actually does
(21:22):
?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
100%, 100%.
Well, you can, but can thefolks that are listening, can
they do it?
Can they explain it?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, and they should be doing it.
Remember there may be someorganizations that are hesitant
to implement it because of thetechnical prerequisites.
But to Ben's point, if we lookat how it helps increase
productivity and makes things,makes us a bit more efficient, I
think the juice is well worththe squeeze but I can tell you,
(21:54):
talking to folks a lot of thefunctional consultants are
afraid of okay, they're afraidof it, they don't want to touch
it.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
That's a that's a technical thing, and so what I'd
say is, if you're a phoneconsultant listening to this, go
learn Copilot for sales.
Go learn Copilot for service.
Go learn them now.
They ship with the product,they're free.
Don't tell me you can't get awhatever subscription or you
want to do something funky, Idon't care, go do it.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm not technical.
I'm not technical.
I'm not a technical resource.
I don't write an ounce of code.
I could if I really wanted to,but I don't.
I'm more functional in businessarchitecture and solutioning
and things like that.
I use them all the time.
So, and I think in our worldtoday and what we do, it's a
(22:50):
necessity.
I mean, we have to know thesethings.
We have customers that arewanting to know about them, and
who are they going to come to?
They're going to come to us.
If we don't know it, thenthey're going to go find
somebody else that does.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So, ben, I have to ask the question.
I'm going to preface it withthis, so it feels like you know,
as a casual observer, a lot ofpeople are like we have this
beautiful thing called AI.
Everyone.
Now a lot of folks are sayingwe can be your AI partner, we
can be your AI this, we can AI,ai, ai.
But then when you get thecustomers, they're like cute, it
can produce words.
(23:23):
Now, what Can you help some ofour listeners understand some of
the use cases?
Or better yet because I'm goingto try to stretch your brain a
little bit as you munch throughthe data in your head If you can
understand how to identifyopportunities, or help them
(23:45):
understand how to identifyopportunities, or how to
identify opportunities withcustomers in AI.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
So, first of all, I think all you got to do is throw
.
You don't throw a rock.
You can just say how do I dothis differently, how should I
be doing this and what's thevalue of doing this?
And I would actually say thisis not just for AI.
The amount of customizationsI've seen consultants do that
have zero value is so high.
(24:09):
It isn't funny.
It's customizations forcustomization.
Say, customer asks for thescreen to be read.
I can build the screen right.
You're not consulting thatpoint.
You're a software installer.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Prove me wrong on that one.
I have always said that I'msorry, I'm so happy right now.
Go for it, yes, keep going.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
So to me, part of consulting is meeting the
customer where they're at, andalmost there's a book out there
called the Challenger Sale.
It's funny, my boss at the timewas going to have Pat read the
book and he can send me a copyand goes this is you, this is
how I sold was basically as achallenger, what I'd say as a
consultant you have to be alittle bit of a challenger too.
(24:50):
You have to challenge themisconceptions, challenge your
customers perceptions are, andyou really have to get the
bottom of what value is.
And so for me, in order to dosomething okay like you, you
came up here this weekend in my,my house.
You let him there was a lot ofmen, even yeah, yeah, well, the
dogs weren't very happy withthem, but everybody else let him
in pierce.
So many can't say we have a 20pound dog that hates hate will
(25:14):
with a passion, um, you know, um, but that's a you.
You spend time and energy doingthat right, and are you gonna
get value out of that, and sohow do you measure that value?
And so, if what I think aboutis value, you're not thinking
about value as a consultant,you're doing it wrong.
And so for me, it's reallyabout how do you understand what
the value is and value is not.
(25:35):
If you click this button, youjust like how do I do this AI
function and save me some timeand energy doing it?
And how do I reduce costs?
How do I improve my process?
How do I deliver a bettercustomer experience?
What are my goals andobjectives in doing this?
I think value for me, when Ithink about consultants, you've
got to think about the measuresof it, the same way you deploy
(25:55):
AI.
When I talk to customers aboutAI, I talk about personal
productivity, team productivityand organizational efficiency,
and those are different ways ofthinking about AI as a whole.
But you've got, as a consultant, you've got to understand what
those three things are and howto drive them back to your
customers.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Well, that brings up a good point about value.
I mean, how would you defineyou know, we talk about value
now, you know, from a revenueperspective or business value.
But if we look at businessvalue, I mean, how do you define
it in a way that resonates with, say, like a technical team and
(26:37):
a C-suite?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I think you've got to show the value to the C-suite,
to get the funding, to get thetechnical team to actually go
deliver it, okay.
And so where you don't seevalues, when you have technical
projects, you know we've allbeen on them, I know all three
of us have, you know I almostcall it a death march project.
You know the project's going todie, you know it's dead as soon
as you leave the kickoffmeeting, but you're going to do
(27:02):
it anyways Okay.
And what you're going to do, itanyways okay.
And so for me it starts with Idon't just see sweet, just the
business ownership and the value.
And do we have value there?
I think talking value as aconsultant a little bit awkward
to say like, if I do this change, what's the value of that
change?
Not just a boy, I use eighthours of bill to work for me.
I'm gonna go do that.
Yeah, you, let me go do it.
(27:23):
That value is a huge thing forme no, that that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Well, you, you're deep in thought I was gonna say
you got a question, I see it.
Oh yeah, I I smoke, no, yes, no, he's preaching, he's preaching
, I love it.
I just want to go back a littlebit so consultants can identify
value, customer helpingcustomers by helping your
customers see the value beforeyou kind of you know, before you
kind of cut it or hit theaccelerator on the, on the
project.
That's a major step.
(27:54):
But I want to go back a littlebit right, just just go back and
kind of pivoting just inchesapeake.
So I mean just thinking on yourknowledge of Field Service.
What was the original roadmapfor D365?
D365, field Service, and whatwas the long term?
(28:15):
What was Microsoft's vision forit?
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It's pivoting into field service.
I got to do.
Why do you?
Got to make a left turn likethat man?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
We're all over here and you pivot all the way back
to where we began.
You want to go in the field.
I mean, do you guys want tostay on AI and host a field
service?
I mean, like I mean it could bean AI podcast.
I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
We can talk about that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I'm messing with you, dude, I'm messing with your
whole.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
So I think you know, let's back up for a second If
anybody tells you that they havea five-year vision for the
future.
Okay, like you don't know,technology changes so fast.
If two years is about as goodas you're gonna get, then you
can go on.
Two years is a dream, awholesale dream.
So when we think about whatMicrosoft did was we didn't have
(29:09):
a field service product at all.
We had what I mean.
Gp had a little module, sl hada little module, nav or BC had a
little module, ax had a littlemodule.
None of them were actually verygood.
All of them were kind ofoutdated and it wasn't like
anybody was going on doing muchcustomer acceptance in those
modules.
And so I think about it from myperspective it was really
(29:31):
around how do we get ourcustomer experience met?
And think about it.
Field service organizations havechanged Historically.
Cost center organizations waswhere everybody started at.
That's the basis.
And so if you're a cost center,guess who you belong to?
The CFO, not you.
Most people go to a profitcenter.
Now who do you belong to?
(29:51):
Not the CFO?
And so how do we take advantageof that?
And I have some CRM 1.0 slides,by the way, 1.2 slides tucked
away that talk about fieldservice as an expansion area for
CRM back when they launched theproduct.
So I don't think field servicewas ever not in the picture for
(30:14):
Microsoft.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
So the reason why I went out for the problem about
the strategy in strategy for the, we're going to cut that pause.
The reason why I wanted to talkabout the strategy or the
original strategy is I wanted toget into customers or partners.
(30:37):
Now they have this softwarethat Microsoft has put out, this
, this platform that Microsofthas put out.
Should organizations or shouldsellers within these
organizations or partners,should they try to sell the
platform or should they beselling custom solutions that
(30:58):
drive, let's say, value?
How do you think they'd spendthat?
And I'm phrasing it that way onpurpose.
So I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I think there's a yeah, there's a ton of
difference between a platformand an application and I think
that what I would say is like,if you think about, like
customer service or Salesforceautomation for years those were
(31:35):
application platform layers ontop of a platform you take
customer service.
I know you guys rememberplaying with the old TriBridge
product there, the Defender 360,locking people up in prison and
cracking them all Like that wasa, that was a.
Well, they used customerservice to do that, or it wasn't
sales.
Either way, it was a platformplay on top of the platform play
, and so I think, when you talkabout like the difference I
(31:55):
would say is field service, Icould probably deploy field
service to a standard fieldservice organization with zero
customizations.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Facts, America, if you're not listening Facts.
That is a very true statement.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Facts.
I would say field service forMicrosoft is an application, not
a platform.
I think where a lot ofconsultants have their hard time
is they're used to the old SFA,where they could take it and
make it an application platform,build on top of it and bring it
back.
Make it a application platform,build on top of it and bring it
back.
And so I think for me, fieldservice is probably the first
(32:32):
application Microsoft has givenin the business apps family
Facts.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Now, I've been with you and I've seen you sell water
to a well, sell fire down inhell or engagements that have
been like up.
As a seller, I know we have ourinitiatives to kind of push ai,
but as a seller, tell me, howcan you help folks understand
the difference between d365 andthe power platform?
(32:56):
You can't get off easy, man.
We got a good over here, man.
We can't get them off easy.
We can't get off easy, man.
We got a good bull over here,man.
We can't get them off easy.
We can't let them off easy onthis one.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
So I think there's.
That's actually prettyinteresting If you look at this.
So my saying is if there's notan app for that.
So if you're going to buildsomething where there's not an
app for that, you're going tobuild a messy manufacturing
scheduling system that pullsdata from a bunch of different
(33:32):
sources and does it all kind ofseamlessly there's no app built
for that.
If you're going to build aboiler inspection system, well,
there actually is apps for that,but you decide you want to
build your own way.
There's some peculiaritiesthere's not an app for that.
Where I think people get intotrouble is underestimating how
easy building software actuallyis.
(33:53):
Again, I'll tell you a funnytrue story.
The first time I sat down withKyle Young, we were reviewing
the product roadmap for the next12 months.
I came out of a projectbackground.
Historically, last time I sawyou know, time was in some
projects I'm looking at thisgiant Excel spreadsheet on a
projector up in Adanta and Ilook at that and go Kyle, is
(34:19):
that ours?
And it was an astronomicalnumber.
And Kyle looks at me and startslaughing me starts laughing.
There's no, no, that's days.
I'm counting the number ofyears.
I'm like what it's me?
You think about it here.
For me, it's about peopleunderstand how hard you to build
software and how hard it is tobuild shippable software, and
(34:41):
there's a difference me buildingit for me versus building for
somebody else yeah so I thinkyou're seeing that.
What's interesting is the powerplatform makes it easier and
with the alm capabilities I canmove it.
But how many times you stillmove to solution running like
damn it.
Where did that dependency comefrom?
All right, forgot this.
Or that pick list come like?
Even in consulting, we can't,it's still work.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, no, you're spot on.
I mean I've built things beforeand taken it out and put it in
another environment and it'slike wait, I didn't know I had
that dependency, or oh, I forgotthis or I forgot.
I mean it is and think about it.
That's just building it to yourpoint.
For us, that's not building itfor the masses.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
What do you think is challenging for sellers then to
kind of sell the power platform?
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Because you're selling.
Okay, let's back up for asecond.
So I go back in history, If yougo back before Microsoft
acquired Great Plains software.
The SQL server team waspartnered very closely with
Great Plains software and it wason their must ship list, which
(35:48):
means that every version of SQLthey shipped had to work with
great planes.
They wouldn't ship it.
But what is what a sequelserver database?
I mean, what's data versedatabase?
It's a database.
How do you sell somebody on aconcept?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
an idea, Make them feel like this is my two cents.
Okay, so I'm not taking theline out of Inception, but you
got to make them feel like theyneed it.
You're going to shoot that down, I know, but you got to make
them feel like they need it.
With the Power Platform, peoplehave taken it like it's a nice
to have.
I feel like you need to makethem feel like they need it.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
How about this?
If you've ever built a housemost people have you have, scott
, I know you have yes yourspatial awareness is probably
not what it should be, is it?
No, it is absolutely not.
When you've got the sheet rockup, you're like this room is way
smaller than I thought it wouldbe.
Or this room is way bigger.
You look at the drawing, you'relike 10 by 12.
(36:48):
That's a lot of room.
And you get in your office,you're like holy crap, 10 by 12
is tiny, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Oh yeah, and it looks way different before they put
the sheetrock up too.
It's like you can't visualizeanything.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
If you take that architectural concept and you
apply it to software, peoplecan't conceptualize what the
software is going to look likeand what's going to work for
them.
So, the hard part about sellingthe Power Platform and why you
see people selling BizApps andD3C5 more than they sell Power
Platform is because it's easierto conceptualize.
I can show you an opportunityscreen as opposed to talking to
(37:26):
you about what an opportunityscreen could look like.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
So, okay, to that point, and you know we're going
to stay, I'm going to stand awayfrom you because I just don't
want to, you know, see yourreaction or feel your reaction.
So would you then say,practices should build some
minor accelerators or proof ofconcepts to enable their sellers
(37:52):
to sell the platform.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
I think the the same way we talk about building
product right, the concept thatin professional services are
building offerings hmm, like,nobody's gonna buy open a drink
okay, they want to buy anoffering that's backed up by the
firm that we can show, okay.
(38:14):
And so what I mean by that isis like so one of the reasons
why selling governance for theseaweed for Microsoft is really
easy is because it's an offering.
You open, can put an offeringaround selling governance.
Why?
Because people realize theirenvironments get out of control.
They have no idea what theirenvironment strategy is, what
their DL.
It's an offering In the sameway you know you have a contact
(38:44):
center or you can have powerfulplatform accelerators.
I think you have to go intothis with a concept of an
offering and that offering couldbe product plus services, it
could be all services, it couldbe any combination.
But yeah, I know, I know, likeI would say, you know I'm going
(39:05):
to say something out of turnhere.
Scott, it's far enough away.
It's not smack me hard.
Avanad, scott does a really goodjob of that, don't they?
Yeah, oh, yeah, I mean avanadhas a whole team or teams that
do like build offerings.
Yeah, they do a great job.
They.
They're really good job of that.
I Think, as a partner, youshould be thinking about how do
(39:27):
I Create offers that areappealing to my customers, that
solve business needs, bring outcross of value?
And then for Microsoft, we wantto drive revenue for them.
But it's a.
It's a Offering is really whereI think we get to from an
office perspective.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I genuinely, genuinely love that.
So glad we pulled this thread.
So I have to ask you that.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I'm going to ask you another question.
I think you're almost out ofquestions, Scott you got it,
scott's got it.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Scott has it.
Okay, I'll save you for therest of this weekend.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
No, no, no, go ahead, no, no, because I'm going to
pivot, so you go first, go aheadand pivot, then Don't even
worry about it.
No, but what I wanted to talkabout is so we talked about.
(40:19):
You know, we're talking aboutvalue and we're is that you know
field service not the 365 fieldservice, but field service as a
field.
Right is full of inefficienciesthat you know.
People learn to live with rightPaper, whatever broken
processes I mean for you.
(40:41):
What are you thinking are themost overlooked opportunities
for business value hiding inplain sight for field service
organizations?
Speaker 3 (40:52):
It's still too hard.
I'll say a few things here.
Your field service techs arewho visit your customers.
They are the tip of the spear,they are the people who actually
go out and visit your customersand they're your brand
ambassadors.
I don't think we do enough toequip them across the board, and
(41:14):
so if I think about some hiddenstuff for AI, I think there's
some back office stuff that AIcan do and just make go away.
But for me, it's about how do Iget my technicians who are
visiting my customer knowing myenvironment way better and so?
So an example that would be likebefore I go out into a job site
(41:35):
, who was the last person?
The job site was this youresolved successfully.
Was the equipment working?
How are their customers?
Evidence were so.
If I walked into a customer, Igot walked it.
I was a customer a little whileago and I walked with.
We walked into a client siteand, like we expect you here
yesterday that techniques had noidea that they had scheduled
(41:58):
that yesterday and they didn'tmake it yesterday.
Wow, make it yesterday, wow.
So I think that's where AImakes the most sense to deploy
for people who aren't doing.
It is there.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah, I can see that.
Absolutely Go ahead.
Q.
I see you thinking.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, go ahead, q.
I see you thinking We'll saveit for a part two.
Here's what we're going to do.
I'm thinking for the next time.
What we're going to do is Iwould love to get someone like
Chuck Ben Hitler and even throwin some Mark to keep them all
stable and just hear them bounceideas off of what they can see
(42:53):
for the future in industry.
I think that would just be likea ridiculous panel.
I think we did one of those inuh in scotland.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
We did that.
It was awesome, but I think itso.
I guess, if you're a customerlistening, I think field service
is awesome Customer service, Ithink.
The other thing, by the way, isexplore how customer service
and field service work together.
One of the advantages of theMicrosoft platform is that
customer service talks nativelyto field service.
And how many customers run aseparate customer service system
(43:21):
off in the corner there or theytreat their technicians like
that's the only source ofrevenue they have.
I would 100% look at fieldservice customer service and
learn the out-of-the-boxco-pilot.
Please, the love of God, pleasego learn it.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
So just real quick.
We have a couple more minutes.
I know we have some hard stopsat the top of the hour.
Folks, there will be a part twoto this.
I promise we'll bring Ben backJust real quick.
We know how important communityis to you.
When I first started in thisand yeah, we will say you were
right, I should have jumped inthis years ago you encouraged me
to jump into the community.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Now can you tell people and customers or end
users, whoever, why thecommunity is so special and how
they can do more and do it Well,I think what makes the
Microsoft community interestingand different from other
products out there.
There is a thriving communityout there.
It can be online, it can bevirtual, it can be in person.
(44:16):
I can tell you that if youhaven't been to a user group
meeting of any way, shape orform, go to one.
Just, I don't care if you sitin the back room user group
meeting of any way, shape orform, go to one.
I don't care if you sit in theback of the room and just don't
say nothing or volunteer to takename badges, who cares?
Just go to the user groupmeeting and it's amazing.
I mean.
(44:38):
I think I have friends allaround the globe because of the
work that we've done.
You know, like the first CRMSaturday event.
When I got invited to it I hadno idea what it was.
Actually, I don't think anybodyknew what it was going to turn
into.
The community days were huge.
I think there's a huge sense ofcommunity out there.
And, yes, just to start off,there's going to be people in
the community you're going tonot like.
(44:58):
Okay, and I'm okay with that.
I have lots of people I don'tlike.
I mean, I've got lots of peopleI don't like, scott.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, he's got a point of will.
Who cares who he's?
Speaker 3 (45:10):
pointing at me, but I think there's a so what?
But I think the value of thecommunity is massive and I think
it's a great place for peopleto go know each other and learn.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Awesome, yep, that's fantastic, well, we appreciate
this, Ben.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
We appreciate you being here, Ben.
We look forward to having youback.
Scott, you have any partingwords for the group?
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Oh, absolutely, Ben.
It's always a pleasure.
Definitely need to continue theconversation for part two.
You know, as as always.
Thank you for your insight andwisdom.
It truly is.
Is always enjoy speaking withyou same here, scott and will.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
A lot of fun and we'll talk to you all soon all
right, take care everyone.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
You, you, you, you.
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