Paul Soliman is one of the newest Microsoft MVPs and the first for business applications in the Philippines. As we learned from our recent profile piece, Paul splits his time between running two businesses, Hacktiv and Raven Global Ventures and helping to organize his country's growing business apps community group, which has grown from single digits to hundreds of members. Paul sat down to discuss his experiences in more depth, including his work experiences at major Dynamics NAV customers in his country and his realization at the possibilities of the Power Platform to transform businesses and careers. (Editor's note: Due to some audio engineering issues, some parts of the interview have a bit of distortion, but it is still easy to understand.) Show Notes 2:45 – Paul's experience getting started in the Dynamics NAV space, including what he learned about corporate culture from his early employers 5:30 – Experiences as an admin on a legacy ERP and exploring open source enterprise software 10:00 – Transitioning to a consulting role and working with the Philippine Red Cross 13:30 – Using empathic listening 15:45 – Embracing the Power Platform 17:00 – What it took to become an entrepreneur 20:00 – Why focus on the Philippine market for his company's solutions 23:45 – Favorite Power Platform use cases so far 27:45 – The types of people who find roles via Hacktiv 30:40 – Paul's early experiences as a Microsoft MVP 32:40 – What's next in the Philippines Dynamics community 36:30 – New and upcoming technology Paul is excited about: Adaptive cards, Teams, and more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIp013-t5Ww

Microsoft has noticeably ramped up efforts to offer a path for its on-premises SMB ERP customers on Dynamics NAV, GP, and SL to Dynamics 365 Business Central. Some technical tools already exist to help migrate data to the cloud, and there is a roadmap for more to come. And Business Central partners are armed with favorable licensing conversions and special offers for these existing customers. While many SMB ERP customer will be well suited to a future Business Central solution, others will be best served looking elsewhere. Staying in the Microsoft family, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations is the logical option for organizations with multi-company, multi-currency, or other complex needs that their current ERP is struggling to fulfill. Some may end up looking at other third party options. Our guests on this episode, Karen Riordan of Menlo Technologies and Peter Joeckel of TurnOnDynamics walk us through some of the reasons today's on-premises SMB ERP customer may be tomorrow's SaaS enterprise ERP customer – or not. Show Notes: 2:00 – Karen's background in the ERP channel 3:00 – On being challenged to think about more than just Business Central for today's GP customers 5:00 – When a GP customer should stay on GP 7:45 – Microsoft's advantage by improving GP to BC cloud migrations 11:00 – The importance of master data cleanup 14:00 – Why GP customers may not be aware of the extent of the customization and ISV add-on solutions in their ERP 18:30 – Consolidating legacy systems 20:30 – Why leaving GP ought to be a move to the cloud in some form – whether BC, F&O, or another See also: Peter and Karen's new article on the options that GP customers can consider when evaluating their on-premises GP solution's future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD-Pj9skF-w

Editor's Note: This episode is sponsored by PowerObjects. The Power Platform has evolved into a collection of services underpinning everything about Microsoft's Business Applications suite. First-party apps like Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service are really Power Apps now, but so are the thousands of custom applications, automated processes, and dashboards built by and for customers. Our guests on this episode are Avni Pandya, Merlin Schwaiger, and Dave Kuntz of PowerObjects and they will be discussing how organizations that use the Power Platform should approach critical components of any development project like user adoption, app development, and data protection. They also share lessons from the field about learning how to use tools like Power Apps and Power Automate, mitigating risk, and some success stories. Learn more about PowerObjects' training on organizational adoption and governance of Microsoft’s Power Platform. Show Notes 5:00 – How to begin understanding the Power Platform 11:30 – Protecting your data. 19:00 – The benefit of a common database to build upon 22:00 – Assigning responsibility to your users for building, with guardrails 23:30 – How to encourage use in places with resistance? 27:00 – A story of the benefits of modernizing a carpet company 33:30 – A key benefit of asking your team to help define the apps they need: ownership 34:45 – The limitations of the citizen developer's skills and involvement 36:00 – Other app examples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOjH-JmWVEY