Welcome to the MVP show . My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills . If you have not checked it out already , I do a YouTube series called how to Become an MVP . The link is in the show notes . With that , let's get on with the show .
Today's guest is from Australia . He works at DXC Technology as a senior consultant . His first award is MVP in 2023 . You can find links to his bio and socials in the show notes for this episode . Welcome to the show Parag .
Thank you , mark , for inviting me to the MVP show .
Good to have you on the show . Tell us a bit about food , family and fun . What does that mean to you ? Where do you live , work and play ? In Australia .
So you can say it's a very big journey . I was born and brought up in India in the year 2017 . I moved to Europe . I've been to multiple countries in Europe , like Netherlands , belgium , luxembourg , germany . Last year I moved to Canberra because of my family issues . My sister lives in Canberra .
We thought let's do it in Australia so we can stay all each other . Now we all are living in the one place , canberra my sister she lives in the same city . We enjoy the company . We visit every week or once in a month . We visit the family and have fun together . We share the food , our cultures , all those things .
Nice , nice . So what was your journey into IT ? Why was that your career plan ?
Okay . So I did my engineering from India . While doing engineering , I learned so many languages , like COBOL , pascal , data structure algorithm , but when I got my first job I was into NET . Then Microsoft ERP is something new for me . So I got the job in SA Global . So with SA Global , I was working with Microsoft Dynamics ERP project .
Mostly , I was working with the Microsoft support and the product development . So that's how I started my ERP journey .
I started working with AX 2012 version and 2009 previous version from the Microsoft and then later I worked with multiple companies in India , for example , tecura they are like a global company TCS , then T8O , then Eurofins and in the year 2007 , I moved to Europe , netherlands . There I worked with the Dicor , tate and 4Vigin .
4vigin , I worked for almost four and a half years With 4Vigin . I was working together with Microsoft for building the human resource functionality . So maybe you are aware about the talent human resource . Back to FinOps all those stories .
Throughout my career I work with big customers , small customers , big companies , startup companies , and I built a lot of integration , supporting and different products on Dynamics 365 , powerfactform and Microsoft Azure .
And so the pivot point for you , from doing all those languages and what not in university , was it at SA Global that you got your first shot on Dynamics .
Yeah .
Yeah , okay , so that's where you're introduced to it . Why have you stuck with it ? What appeals to you about Dynamics ?
The reason . Dynamics like Microsoft , microsoft they keeps changing the product technologies . So with Dynamics ERP you have a multiple platform to work . For example , you have Visual Studio . In Visual Studio also you have a different kind of projects you can do like a Blazor or maybe ASphereNET or C-ShotNET . And within ERP you have X++ now you have a C-Sharp .
And then you have a Power BI , a PowerFactForm now you have a Microsoft Fabric . So within ERP you have a lot of learning curve , so you can learn a lot of languages or , if you want to go to the functional area , that's still possible .
So that's why I choose let's continue with Microsoft ERP and with this technology I can also get the knowledge into other technologies like Microsoft ERP also like ERP , crm . So I'm also learning some ERP and CRM applications from Microsoft .
Yeah , okay , so that makes sense . So that's what's made it sticky for you . Yeah , what's been ? Has there been any real projects that stand out on your mind , that were career highlights for you that you've worked on ? You don't need to give the details of the customer maybe the industry or something like that and what you did and why was it a highlight .
You can say I work with one of the company called Tato and I was working with one of the big customers from Finland . They were a paper manufacturing industry . So with that project I learned everything from scratch .
You can say start up the project like assigning users access , creating the environments , going to the customers , training sessions , pre-sales demo everything , integrations , reporting . So with that customer I learned about 30 different external system , how we can integrate transactions of million data from CRM to Phenobs .
So with that customer I got very good scope for the learning .
So , and that's why it's a highlight for you , because the amount you were able to learn on the project- yeah , so with that project I learned maybe like ERP , crm , net integrations , reporting so many things within one project . What do you do ? It's interesting that you talk about learning , and that was one of the biggest reasons . It's a highlight for you .
What do you do to maintain your skill sets and , as in , to keep them up to date , because Microsoft is always adding new features , functionality , right . Twice a year they do the wave releases . Then there's that rolling wave of releases happening all the time .
How do you make sure that you're across what you just mentioned Fabric which , of course , was just announced at Build ? How do you make sure that you're across everything ? Are you waiting till something comes up on a client project to then go and research it , or do you have a proactive model that you work on to stay up to speed ?
I think that's the good question . A lot of people ask me the same questions . What exactly I do is I never wait for any task or any projects to be done from my side . What I do is there are a lot of events happening in the world like Power communities . There are communities in ANZ region , europe region and the US region .
I subscribe to those communities and whenever they have some interesting sessions on Dynamics , the 65-year PowerFat form , I just go and attend the session . Sometimes I can't attend the session , but then I watch the recording . So , like recently , we have a Microsoft build session and now again we are , we will have a session on Microsoft Summit , another conference .
So with this conference you just go to your skill set area , like business , application and whatever you want to learn or you want to get , the want to Know something new . So just just go and just see the highlights . Like sometimes you can see the topics Microsoft , fabric , what .
So it's very interesting because Microsoft keeps changing , like it was a power BI , now Synapse , now you have a fabric , maybe next year it will be something different . So and all , and also the , the , maybe the another Factories . You can just subscribe Microsoft community sometimes . Yeah , maybe you have experienced person . You are solution architect .
You know a lot of things . But when people keep asking questions on the Microsoft community , then you will learn some more new things . Sometimes it's a basic thing for you . Other knows but you don't know . So that's how you can get to know everything about the Microsoft product . You will . We have always let us information .
Yeah , so true . How ? How did you become an MVP ? What was it you were doing that got identified as A Value to the community ? What was the MVP journey for you ?
Okay , so I'll start with the company for vision . For vision , I joined in in the year 2018 , so before before for vision , I was not much active on the dynamics community . I was helping dynamics community , but after joining for vision , mostly I was working on the human resource product together with Microsoft . So what I did ?
I started writing a blog on the human resource , so I was writing a unique content . So before writing any any blog post , first I was searching on the internet . If there is no article , then I was doing a lot of research creating the articles .
Sometimes in the Microsoft learn community you will see only the details , not the screenshot or not much Are descriptions like in the description . So I was trying to create some something like that so that this will be useful for the HR people . So I write almost 100 blocks .
On the Dynamics HR and the PowerFed form community , I was mostly active on the Yammer Microsoft community and I am active member of Dynamics HR community and from last three years I am a Dynamics 365 HR community star .
Okay , that's really interesting . It's a lot of blog posts to write . Tell us a bit about that community . How big is it ? Because HR is not a product that I've come across or needed to use very much at all across my career . How big is the community surrounding Dynamics 365 , hr , and is it all over the world , or is there groups of people more ?
Is some countries selling it more than others ? What's your observation ?
See , I spent my observation Dynamics HR mostly . I found in Europe and US , not in ANZ region , so in Australia and New Zealand , mostly the companies or partners . They are using Workday SAP or any other technologies , not the Microsoft Dynamics HR product .
And if you say about the Yammer community for Dynamics HR , I think there are around more than 1000 users in the Yammer community .
Wow , wow , that's interesting , and I'm not aware of the Yammer community , is it ? How do people find that community to get involved in it ?
I think there are two communities . I think one is private community and I think one is public community . I think you can just search for the human resource on the Dynamics community . So I think you will get that particular group . And for the MVP , I got this nomination from Microsoft only .
Ah , so Microsoft nominated you to become a MVP . Was that in Australia ? Microsoft Australia or Microsoft in the US ?
It was from the Microsoft US product team . So I was working with a product team almost for more than two years building the HR products on Live and Obsense , because Microsoft bought the IP from 4Vision and from the 4Vision I and one of the person called Edward we were the point of contact for delivering the application .
Right , okay , I didn't realize that acquisition had happened . How many MVPs are MVPs and BizzApps because of HR , as in their specialty , as HR ? As per my information , there are only two more people .
One is Kamal , who is based in Europe , and the second is the Ana . Interesting , interesting .
That's not many .
No , only three people . I think , yeah , only three people , including me for the HR . Well , what recommendations do you have to others that if they want to become an MVP .
What do you recommend they do ?
I think first they start learning from the dynamics community , just research , like I know that there are a lot of people who want to be MVP , but they should first understand as MVP you have to contribute a lot Apart from your work . Like mostly people have 9 to 5 mentality . But apart from your work you have to help community .
Maybe let's say I'm not asking to work 24 by 6 , or asking to work 24 by 7 , but 30 minutes or one hour you can just go to the dynamics community see what people are doing .
So in the same way you can help community , start giving some presentations on the power communities or whatever the topic you understand better , you can try to explain others in a better way . So this is how you can start to become an MVP . It's not like in one day or one year . Sometimes this takes years of time of your hard work .
Yeah , yeah , so true . Tell me , are you doing anything in the area of AI , any research , or using it ?
Oh yes , so for , like , how I'm using AI at this moment is I'm writing the blocks . So previously , before AI , I was just writing the blocks as it is and I was posting into my website , but now , with the power of AI , so I'm using the chat GPT to write my content in more descriptive way .
So you're using it to assist you in bringing your blogs to life , type thing .
Yeah .
Yeah , brilliant , brilliant . That's a great use case . Well , parag , it's been great to have you on the show . Maybe I'll get to meet you sometime at upcoming events , and maybe even when I'm in Canberra , because I get there from time to time for work . It'd be good to catch up . Okay , thanks for having me on the show . Hey , thanks for listening .
I'm your host Business Application MVP Mark Smith , otherwise known as the NZ365 guy . If you like the show and want to be a supporter , check out buymeacoffeecom forward slash NZ365 guy . Thanks again and see you next time .