Talking Business Central with Søren Friis Alexandersen, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft
A Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central podcast | Episode 47 A Shot of Business Central and A Beer
Welcome everyone to episode 47 of A Shot of Business Central and A Beer where we bring you the best of both worlds: Business Central and Beer. Today we have a very special guest joining us, Søren Friis Alexanderson.
Søren is a seasoned expert in the field of Business Central, has years of experience working with various other Microsoft software, has become a champion for Women in Dynamics, and is also a gifted musician. And while he’s a master at technology, he’s also a fan of beer.
So, grab a cold one and join us as we dive into the world of Business Central with Søren. It’s sure to be a fun and informative conversation, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this podcast episode.
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A Shot of Business Central and A Beer Podcast Show Notes
Beer we're drinking
Historically, a quadrupel is a Trappist style of brewing.
Quads are typically 9.1%-14% ABV.
Quads:
Require fifty percent more malt
Use some sort of 100 percent fermentable sugar in addition to the malt bill – usually Belgian candi sugar
"You can’t brew a Belgian-style beer without Belgian yeast” and this is the most important part because of the flavors the yeasts produce.
Alcohol: 11.3%
IBU: 27
Style: Dark Intense Trappist Ale
Ingredients: Water, barley malt, candi sugar, hops, coriander, and yeast.
Rochefort 10 was developed in the late 1940s and early 50s. It appears on virtually every list of the world’s finest beers.
Beer Advocate Score: 99 (WOW)
Beer Ratings
Ken: 75
Michael: 83
Søren: 90
Shot of Business Central Show Notes
Soren’s history with working with Dynamics
Mid-90s (around the same time as myself) start in IT (servers, networks)
1998-2005 – AX infrastructure specialist and developer
2005 – transition to NAV/BC – with focus on infrastructure, development, integrations (BizTalk, SQL Server)
2008-2014 – continued with NAV/BC, but also transitioned into SharePoint, Office add-ins, etc.
Soren’s current role at Microsoft
2016 – joined Microsoft as a Technology Strategist and advanced to Principal Product Manager for Business Central.
What does this current role entail?
Specific responsibilities?
Business Central's Onboarding Automation detailed discussion
From LinkedIn page: “It is all about a mix of technology, people skills, relations and the ability to communicate the possibilities of new technology. How businesses can benefit from leveraging new technology.”
This appears to strike at the idea that in order to deliver and deploy a successful technology solution, that people (who are unique on each implementation and bring with them their own experiences and expectations) along with the unique requirements of each business (types of transactions, volumes of transactions, integrations, and proprietary systems) is a fundamental part of enabling organizations to effectively leverage new technology.
What role do these factors (which are unique on each implementation) have in automation of onboarding?
What is realistic in terms of the percentage of the implementation that can be fully automated today in Business Central? In 5 years? 10 years?
For customers who want to self-serve.
Ready to get up and running by themselves.
This segment is on the rise.
More opportunities for complex customers too
Sign-up Context
The sign-up context is the answers to the questions given to prospects during BC trial sign-up.
Customer-Centric Onboarding Experiences
Step 1: On our website we can ask specific questions
Step 2: Upon selecting start trial the prospect will be redirected to sign up at Dynamics.com
Step 3: Microsoft will provision a standard Business Central Trial
Step 4: Microsoft will install one of our BC Trial apps before customer the signs in.
These apps will be installed based on the prospects answers stored in a system table.
Things You’ll Be Able to Do
Once customer’s trial is setup with specific apps you can add a checklist
Use videos in the checklist
No more than 7-8 items in checklist works best
Use assisted setup instead
Choose which role center to show as the immediate role center
Choose which company shows up
Customize teaching tips
Women in Dynamics
What is Women in Dynamics?
What’s your role?
What can people do to help out or get involved?
Research on “Women at Solution Systems”.
Over 40% of our staff is women
For comparison, in 2022, women make up 28% of the tech workforce. (SSI = 40+%)
Amongst staff women and men earn virtually the same amount each year.
For comparison, overall gender pay gap: 17%
Womenintech.co.uk: the tech industry’s gender pay gap at 16%
Outro
Well, you’ve reached the end of another episode of A Shot of Business Central and A Beer podcast. Connect with us at www.solsyst.com and on all major social media channels. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you always know when the latest episode is available.
See you next month!
