In this enlightening episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, I sit down with Ryan Pollyniak, a seasoned technology consultant with two decades of experience in IT, business systems, and sales. Ryan has extensive expertise in helping businesses of all sizes embark on their digital transformation journeys, particularly within the Microsoft ecosystem. This episode delves into how AI can act as a co-pilot for business growth, guiding organizations through technological advancements and strategic upgrades.
Key Topics Discussed:
Ryan Pollyniak discusses his extensive background in IT and his journey from ADP to specializing in the Microsoft ecosystem. The conversation covers the current landscape of digital transformation and the role of AI in revolutionizing business processes. Ryan emphasizes the importance of having a solid data foundation and addresses common misconceptions about AI. He offers practical advice on preparing data for AI integration and the benefits of migrating to modern cloud-based solutions.
The episode also explores the alignment of sales and marketing strategies with technology. Ryan highlights the use of tools like LinkedIn and CRM systems for effective sales and underutilized features of these platforms. The discussion extends to the concept of a "business in a box," using integrated platforms like Microsoft Dynamics to manage various business operations. Ryan provides valuable insights on forward-thinking technology decisions and the role of AI as a co-pilot, not a replacement for employees.
More about Ryan:
Ryan Pollyniak is a seasoned sales professional with a rich background in the Microsoft Dynamics space. He is passionate about the future of AI, the cloud, and upgrading from legacy systems. He is a Cloud Transformation Executive and has worked closely with the executive teams of mid-sized businesses in a variety of industries to make them feel valued throughout the entire sales cycle.
https://www.westerncomputer.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/microsoftdynamicssolutions
01:08 Ryan Pollyniak's Journey in IT and Digital Transformation
01:56 The AI Evolution in Business: Are Companies Ready?
03:41 AI Implementation Challenges and Strategies
09:29 The Importance of Data Management for AI Success
15:28 Navigating Legacy Systems and Cloud Migration
28:08 Aligning Sales and Marketing in the Tech Landscape
33:42 Leveraging AI and Cloud for Business Operations
38:01 Final Thoughts and Where to Find More
[00:00:00]
Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet. Today, I'm very pleased joining me, Ryan Pollyniak. Ryan, the way I love to do it is, I don't, I was telling you, I don't do these fancy lengthy introductions because I love my guests to introduce [00:01:00] themselves. Tell us a little bit more about you and what you are up to currently.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely, Mehmet. Thanks for having me on. So, Ryan Pollyniak. I've been working in the I. T. Business system space for going on 20 years now. Time flies. It started with ADP in the last 15 years or so. It's been mostly in the Microsoft space, helping all types and sizes of businesses either begin their digital transformation journey, take the next steps.
Ryan: Um, you know, working through companies, uh, growth and helping them strategize, you know, what's next from a systems perspective. Of course, the latest and greatest, uh, a lot of companies are focused on AI, a lot of companies are focused on cloud. So that tends to be where a lot of my day is spent right now.
Mehmet: Yeah, of course, we're going to discuss this in details now, Ryan, and, you know, [00:02:00] like this triggered the first question, actually, in my mind. So you mentioned about the digital transformation, and now, you know, Uh, AI came into the picture. So, um, do you think like organizations are ready to start, you know, this AI evolution in their businesses?
Mehmet: Um, do you think that they have the foundation of the technologies that, you know, uh, they have, you know, established already, or there is still some work, you know, that have to be done before they can step into implementing AI?
Ryan: Yeah, I mean, uh, that's a great question. And, and so. everybody, everybody seems to want AI right now.
Ryan: And, and, and, and, you know, the funniest, funniest description of that, that I've heard is, um, do you, you know, are you, are you, are you looking Mr. executive, Mr. your business owner to. Implement AI and to, you know, leverage all these great new capabilities in your [00:03:00] business. And the answer is yes, we need it right now.
Ryan: Uh, but we're not sure exactly how or why or how we're going to, you know, how we're going to get there. I think to answer your question in short, most organizations are ready to start using AI. on the periphery and in certain ways, um, you know, helping employees to be more efficient, not by replacing them, but by helping them to focus on value added tasks as opposed to mundane day to day, um, you know, uh, non value added tasks, creating emails and recapping meetings and things like that.
Ryan: Now to get to the broader, um, AI. You know, benefit case. I think a lot of companies have a little bit of ways to go. Uh, and, and, and typically that comes in the form of, of getting their data estate in order because [00:04:00] having, uh, you know, data that's in disparate locations, that's not properly structured and it doesn't make any sense or having, uh, data integrity issues, um, AI has to have the proper inputs.
Ryan: If it, if it's, if you're going to make any sense of it, if it's going to give you anything of value in return, you have to feed it, um, data that, that is meaningful. And so AI is, is, is, is cutting edge, right? And there's, there's the sky's the limit. I don't think anybody knows, um, the tip of the iceberg yet in terms of how far AI is going to take us and how far AI is going to transform businesses.
Ryan: I advise our clients. Um, You know, dip your toe in, start using AI for the for the low hanging fruit, so to speak. Um, and then in preparation for what's to come, get your data estate in order. Get your systems in the cloud. [00:05:00] Um, leveraging AI for on premise systems is going to be from a technical standpoint, but more difficult, uh, have have, you know, fewer and farther between use cases.
Ryan: So, um, You know, migrating systems to the cloud and aggregating your data in a, in a manageable and meaningful structure. I think those are the foundational things that businesses need to do to be prepared to take advantage of AI.
Mehmet: Do you think, Ryan, to your point, like the low hanging fruit that I'm seeing organization are thinking about is just implementing, um, kind of a chat GPT on top of, of, uh, you know, whatever system that they have.
Mehmet: And you said like, is this just, you know, the, the. The top of the iceberg, the iceberg, right? So, um, now, why do you think, you know, organizations need to first, of course, the data is very important. Absolutely. But do you think, like, also, there are some misconceptions about AI in general, that, okay, it's just the [00:06:00] chatbot part of the business.
Mehmet: Um, like, don't you think also they are missing on reviewing the processes piece? themselves. I mean, you know, maybe they can add some automation also as well. Do you think that there's some misconceptions businesses they have currently? And how do you think, you know, these misconceptions should be should be addressed?
Ryan: Yeah. So you nailed it in that, you know, there are some when I say low hanging fruit, something like chat, GBT, um, or grammarly or You know, some of the co pilot things that Microsoft offers in Excel and Outlook. These obviously, you know, can be used more tactically where you are composing an email or where you're having something proofread or where, um, you know, you're, you're really generating content, um, avoiding manual data entry and, and, and creating more efficiencies.
Ryan: Note taking is a [00:07:00] great example. Um, you know, if you're on a meeting and you're recording it, um, having a, an AI, uh, assistant, uh, like you've got in, in Microsoft teams where you can You know, get a recap of that meeting and, and have the, the, the action items, uh, relayed back to you, which tells you, you know, here's what you discussed, here's what you promised.
Ryan: These don't require an overall, uh, aggregation and, and, and cleansing of data, it's the more advanced stuff that requires that, right? Uh, if you want to have your, your accounting system go back and. Review your, your customer's payment history, right? So that where most collection departments now, most, most accounts receivable departments now are relying on, on outdated methods to forecast cashflow as an example.
Ryan: So, um, as, as, as you put things into [00:08:00] 30 day aging buckets and you rely on that and you spit out a report that says, Here's how many customers are going to pay me in 30 days. Here's how many are going to pay me in 60 days and 90 days, right? Well, that's, that's kind of wishful thinking and hoping rather than relying on, on, uh, uh, tried and true reality of what's happened previously.
Ryan: So an example of, of an AI that you would have to really have your data in order for would be, do you have a real customer payment history for your clients? Um, meaning X customer typically pays 17 days early and Y customer pays, you know, 23 days late. And, um, once you have that kind of powerful foundation in place from a data standpoint, then you can leverage some of the more powerful aspects of AI to go back and look and say, okay, Your cashflow prediction is not just going to be based on aging buckets anymore.
Ryan: It's going to be based on reality over the last year or two years. However long this is how your customers, your [00:09:00] actual customers have actually paid here, you know, Mr. Owner, Mr. CFO, Mrs. You know, CEO, here's, here's what you're going to expect in terms of cashflow. And, and it's far more, um, you know, realistic.
Ryan: So that kind of data crunching, um, Is a different story than, you know, using a chat GPT to compose an email, for instance, but, um, there are, there are certainly some that's, that's more where the low hanging fruit is on the, on the latter part of that.
Mehmet: Absolutely. Now, back to, you know, something you mentioned also in, into the, in the introduction about the data and, you know, they sit everywhere.
Mehmet: The data sits everywhere. Now, why do you think till now, and, you know, we are in 2024 and. You know, we've been collecting data for such long time, and I know this for a fact, I used to work in the data management space for some time also as well. So people they don't know till now where their data resides, they don't know what kind of data [00:10:00] they have.
Mehmet: Yeah. Um, like it's kind of a, you know, now it's a common word we start to use a lot. I mean, it's a word used before. I mean, the recent episode we repeated a lot. Like it's kind of a technical depth when it comes to, to, to data and, you know. how organizations are able to organize this data. So saying that and knowing that this is a challenge.
Mehmet: So how do you advise Ryan, you know, these organizations where they should start actually? From which point they start. Of course, the structured data, maybe it's easy. So anything which is sitting in the databases, it's there, they know, but they have, as you to, to your point, a lot of things, few in the cloud, some in the edge, some other places we don't know where, so in order to your point also to get this data so they can build on top the AI system they aim to, how they start from where they start and what are like some of the, um, I would say steps usually you advise them to do.
Mehmet: To get things in order. Sure. [00:11:00] Yeah,
Ryan: that's a great question. So primarily, I've lived in the ERP and CRM space for the last 20 years, and that's a great place, um, to start if your organization is outgrowing, uh, the systems that maybe you started your business with, or maybe your organization is taking the next steps into, you know, moving from the small, small, medium sized business market into more of the enterprise market.
Ryan: And you're looking to make that it. Uh, leap to the next evolution of systems, aggregating as much as you can into one system. Without sacrificing, you know, the quality of any particular module is very important. And so what I mean by that is we see all the time a company will have had an, you know, an HR director go out and get an expense management system, and they will have had a sales director go out and get a CRM system, and they might have somebody in the, in the, in the shop floor, Um, running the [00:12:00] manufacturing department, go out and, and, and find, you know, uh, manufacturing, uh, you know, NES system, manufacturing execution system, or warehouse management system.
Ryan: So having people in there, empowering people in each department to make system based decisions on their own is going to start to have consequences down the road. And, and, and the reason for that is when you go to make a big, you know, core fundamental system change. Like ERP, which really is at the hub of everything in, in, in your business as it grows, um, having to rip out some of those processes and some of those systems that have, uh, the, where those decisions have been made in silos is, um, gonna, gonna cause business disruption.
Ryan: It's going to have a tremendous amount of cost. So. Forward thinking and planning out. Okay. Here are the areas of our business where we want to capture data and where we want to automate processes and where [00:13:00] we want to move to the cloud or move out of Excel, you know, where a lot of people manage a lot of tasks these days.
Ryan: And that's a great thing to ask yourself as a, as a startup business owner, as your, as your, as your business grows. What are we doing in Excel? You know, what are people doing on notepads and, um, you know, managing, uh, outside of a core business system? And the more of that you can bring into a true cloud based software as a service system, um, where, you know, that data will be, you know, As long as it's properly implemented, and that's another part of it.
Ryan: You know, don't go out and try to figure it out on your own work with professional to implement the system properly, and it will pay massive dividends down the road. But having as much data aggregated that you can into a system that maybe has some AI capabilities, and there are lots of them out there.
Ryan: Of course, you know, I'm mostly familiar with the Microsoft stack, but a lot of them have AI. And, and then [00:14:00] leveraging, you know, having your, your, your applications in one system. Um, not only does it pay dividends in terms of being able to then leverage something like AI to make sense of that data, but it reduces.
Ryan: integrations, it streamlines process, uh, automation, it's extreme, you know, it, it pays dividends in a number of ways. So, you know, having siloed systems, um, is a, is a big pitfall, I think, and especially as companies grow, um, you know, just going and, and, and picking something off the shelf. Because you need what's, you know, point solution for that particular requirement, um, will lead to disparate systems and integrations and the lack of, uh, consolidated data.
Ryan: So I think that's, it's, you know, would be one of my recommendations to get started.
Mehmet: Absolutely. So a couple of things like siloed systems and what we can call a shadow IT is [00:15:00] something, you know, because someone decided to your point that there's a good, uh, procurement system, I'm going to go and buy it.
Mehmet: And then they start to. Without getting back to the I. T. I used to live in that world back in time. Now, maybe this is for, you know, startups are lucky enough, Ryan, because now they can decide or even it's still if they are in the scale up mode, they can still decide and they have the flexibility going with these.
Mehmet: modern systems. Now, sometimes we have these big companies which have been in the in business for quite some time now, and they are using some legacy systems. Um, of course, these systems, probably they used to be, you know, top technology, you know, when, when they acquired them. Um, but now they are outdated.
Mehmet: And honestly speaking, on many occasions when I used to see Either like when I say legacy, either the system itself is a legacy system. I mean, from architecture perspective, [00:16:00] or sometimes even it's obsolete, but the reason they, they, they, they cannot, you know, they cannot go out of it. Come out with, with a lot of, uh, uh, you know, reasons.
Mehmet: Oh yeah. We've been using it for all the time, but you know, we cannot do this. So now talking about the legacy, uh, systems and first, you know, I want to, to To hear your opinion on why actually, um, it's a problem to stay on legacy systems like And what would be, you know, some of the steps you recommend for successful migration to the cloud?
Mehmet: Now, of course, before you answer Ryan, I know like some people say, Hey, like I'm regulated, I cannot go to the cloud. This is another discussion. But I mean, in general, we're talking here about major majority of the enterprise that they can actually.
Ryan: Sure. Yeah. So, um, legacy systems, uh, and I've [00:17:00] seen in my couple of decades doing this now, all different situations.
Ryan: Let's start with the basic one, right? If you're, if you're, if you're on a system that's unsupported, uh, and this system is absolutely business critical for your business. Um, and maybe you've got someone in the back who can keep it running for you, or maybe you've got a 3rd party company who's able to support it for you.
Ryan: But if the, if the, the developer of that application no longer supports it, it is time to look for. The next iteration of what you're going to do. And that may be painful. Um, and, and, and that leads into another discussion of, you know, how to properly implement going forward, which, you know, we can save for another time.
Ryan: But, um, if you've, if you've got a custom, you know, a lot of customizations and a lot of changes to the system that have been made to accommodate your business requirements, it may be painful, but it's not as painful as having a business critical system that is an unsupported going down and [00:18:00] grinding your business.
Ryan: To a halt, um, that's, that's, you know, kind of worst case scenario, uh, ransomware comes to mind because outdated systems lack security patches and on premise systems, um, no matter how good the, the, the company or the internal it team is that manages your firewall are ripe for cyber attack. And this is where we see all of the ransomware, all of the cyber attacks happen.
Ryan: It's on premise. Uh, it's, it's, you know, something secured internally now outsourcing that to a company who is providing a true SAS solution who has, you know, huge R and D budgets to, uh, you know, keep these systems safe and has a documented track record of doing so. You know, Microsoft is great at this.
Ryan: There are other companies that are great at it. Um, is. It used to be scary to put [00:19:00] your data in the cloud. Um, and you mentioned regulation. Now, there, there are some entities that we run across where it's either an internal decision by executive leadership or some kind of regulatory requirement to, um, really, you know, not go to the public cloud.
Ryan: There are typically options for that. I mean, we see. The government cloud, you know, that is ultra secure and compliant on the U. S. Department of Defense has systems in the cloud. There are all kinds of very highly regulated industries that have cloud deployments. I think the biggest hurdle there is sometimes getting leadership to understand that in all reality, Um, you're much more secure now in a true Sass environment secured by one of the Microsofts of the world who, you know, just locks this stuff down, closes off the back end and you don't see ransomware attacks there.
Ryan: You don't see cyber attacks there. So the other advantage [00:20:00] of getting to a true software as a service offering and just to pause on that software service I'm talking about. Something multi tenant hosted by a provider, not, um, just putting your server in another location and paying someone to manage it for you.
Ryan: That's more, you know, managed it. But, uh, and that can have some advantages. But getting to a true software as a service. application provides the advantage of getting constant updates. You know, typically several times a year, you're going to get bug fixes, you're going to get security patches, you're going to be updated to the new version so that you don't land in that same spot that you're in on this old outdated system that you don't want to touch for fear of cost and business disruption.
Ryan: Um, so, you know, getting getting to the cloud helps really with all of that. So I would say somebody on a legacy system That is unsupported. That is on premise. Um, consider the business risk as, uh, you know, risk mitigation as [00:21:00] really one of the leading. Reasons to migrate. Now, of course, all of the benefits of gaining efficiencies and leveraging, uh, bells and whistles like AI, which are emerging are great.
Ryan: But first get, get yourself on a solid foundation. We've seen situations with on premise outdated applications where big companies, I mean, several hundred million dollar a year in revenue companies go down. Can't ship, can't invoice, can't pay their vendors. And if you imagine the dollar cost of that. Um, it dwarfs anything that you would have to endure to get your systems updated.
Ryan: So it's like a, it's like a trip to the dentist, right? If you're too certain, uh, go get it fixed. It's got to happen. It's, it's, uh, absolutely critical.
Mehmet: Absolutely. And I remember myself one time I've seen, and this was. Yeah, 2020, I think before, before the pandemic, beginning of 2020, I've seen a system running Microsoft SQL [00:22:00] 2005.
Mehmet: Right. And I asked, I asked, I asked the client at that time, I said, what you would do if something goes wrong? He said, I don't know. I have no idea. I said, why you don't change? He said, because whoever built the application to us, you know, he designed a way that you cannot upgrade the database. I cannot remember the reason, but I said, you're running in a single point of failure, you better go and find.
Mehmet: And another, you know, software company that developed that probably, you know, the cost will be much less than if you lose the server that you cannot recover it because I remember I was working in the data protection space and, you know, we could not back up that server because it was running Windows 2003 and SQL 2005 and this is a disaster.
Mehmet: To your point, Ryan, I remember what seeing. a lot of news at some stage because some companies went out of business because their systems were legacy and you know when cyber attack or whatever similar [00:23:00] disaster happened you cannot recover you so you're out of business and to your point uh also as well and just to make it relevant also from geography perspective the hyperscalers all of them including microsoft they've invested in in A lot of regions like including where I live here in Dubai at the Middle East, you know, so we have a lot of regions now.
Mehmet: There's no point about data sovereignty because the data stays here. So absolutely like a hundred percent. I agree with you on this. Uh, but yeah, hopefully people will, will understand the need to, to really modernize best case, at least modernize on prem and then try to shift to the cloud. Because I don't know if you agree with me, Ryan, there is a trick here.
Mehmet: Like just, Shift and lift doesn't work all the time, right?
Ryan: No, no, you're right. And there are a couple of reasons for that. Number one, there's, there are technical limitations. If you're going to go, especially if you're changing platforms, one ERP to the next, and one thing that I always [00:24:00] find myself explaining to executives and business owners is that no, you cannot bring, uh, if you're going to go from X wires ERP to a different one, you can't bring all of your detailed transactional history typically over, um, Because the data structures are different and all the underlying interconnected, um, you know, payments attached to invoices and item ledgers and everything else, um, you can't shoehorn it into the new system.
Ryan: Now, that said, I follow that up with nobody has ever said, okay, we don't need our old data. We'll just start fresh. Of course, you need it. But that can be accommodated by a. Data strategy that involves archiving old data into a data warehouse, cloud based, absolutely, you know, I would recommend, especially if you're going, you know, doing this for the first time, aggregate that data, pay somebody in the, in the data consulting space to [00:25:00] help you create a unified reporting model.
Ryan: Um, because you don't want silos of data again. So you don't want to take all of your data from your, your legacy system and have it in one silo. And then all of your data in your new system in a different silo, you need context, you need trend analysis year over year. Um, and so that, for that to happen, um, aggregating data into a data warehouse, creating a unified data model where your, your new system is updating that data warehouse.
Ryan: in context with your legacy system data. Um, this is how we approach this almost all the time now. And so, um, no, you can't always bring your data to the new system, but there are modern ways to handle that. And if you're a younger company, maybe you're a startup and a data warehouse is overkill, leverage something like power bi.
Ryan: Um, or there are other, you know, data visualization tools out there where you can actually aggregate data. In the cloud service itself. Um, but it has limitations as you grow. And then [00:26:00] maybe you migrate to a more enterprise level, you know, data, uh, architecture at some point. So, uh, lots of options there. So data is one side of it.
Ryan: Um, the other side of of lift and shift is there's no value in it typically, or very limited value because you probably implemented the legacy system. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, even if it's five or six years ago, your business has likely evolved, your requirements is likely evolved, and the business system functionality for the target application is going to be much different than what you have now.
Ryan: So you have to go through an evaluation to, to match up those business requirements. business needs with how this solution is meant to work out of the box and, um, drive your design decisions in terms of how you're going to implement that system based on that, not based on how you used to do it, because, uh, that that's a big pitfall, the lift and shift model.
Ryan: It's, well, we, we've, you know, we've always done [00:27:00] something this way. So we have to do it exactly this way in the new ERP and then people end up customizing things or not using the the target application, uh, for the upgrade or for the migration as it's intended. And everybody comes and, you know, out of the gate saying, well, we want to use it out of the box.
Ryan: We don't want to customize. But also we have to do things exactly the way we used to do them. And that's, those are, those are incompatible. And oftentimes that's driven by the user base and it requires executive level, uh, mandate that change management is a better word than mandate that says, okay, we're migrating systems.
Ryan: Here's why we're migrating systems. We are not going to be doing things exactly the way we used to. We're going to have some change. Here's why, uh, at the end of the day, you're going to be able to accomplish the same tasks that you used to, hopefully more efficiently, but, but it won't, it won't be business as usual in terms of processes.
Ryan: So the data side of it, the process side of it, none of it would lead me to say lift and shift. [00:28:00] In most cases,
Mehmet: absolutely. And, you know, I've seen projects, uh, failed because of that. So 100 percent on that Ryan. Now, right. I want to shift gears because, you know, as well as you are a technology consultant, but also you work as sales in tech.
Mehmet: And this is something I like to ask you because it's relevant. To, you know, a lot of, of the audience here, uh, especially if they are maybe now starting, uh, you know, a consultancy business, or maybe they are a startup in tech themselves. So how important from your long experience, have you seen, to have this alignments between sales and marketing strategy, especially in today's, you know, complex landscape, I would say.
Ryan: Yeah, it's, it's, it's tremendously important. Um, you know, aligning sales and marketing, um, is, is, [00:29:00] you know, marketing's kind of the face of your organization, and this is what's driving people to your business. And so, um, You can, you can leverage tools to direct those inbound leads, um, or qualifying events on your website to the appropriate department in your sales organization, to the appropriate rep, you can leverage tools to deliver.
Ryan: Uh, campaigns back to these companies as they browse your website and, and you're leveraging things like customer insights, um, another, another Microsoft tool that you can leverage to score leads and generate, uh, drip campaigns, and then what you don't want your sales team following up on every breadcrumb, but you do want your sales team to follow up on the, on the breadcrumb trails that are going to lead to potential engagement or at least an opportunity.
Ryan: So. Uh, leveraging tools that can [00:30:00] help to score the activity of these individuals and, and, and put the, the value added tasks in front of your sales team so that they can then, uh, prioritize their day. And instead of chasing their tails, they're, they're chasing the companies and the, and the, and the potential.
Ryan: Engagements that are going to, you know, turn into potential relationships. That is massively important. Um, and it, and it saves you from having to scale your sales team in order to, you know, chase down all leads and funnel them as we used to do, right. That automation is, is really useful for. Taking care of something, some of that funneling and that filtering for your team and helping your sales team to focus on more value added tasks.
Ryan: So, um, I'm not sure if that answers your question or not, but yeah, it's tremendously. Absolutely.
Mehmet: Absolutely. Ryan. And I know [00:31:00] like you, you also, you know, when I was preparing, you talk a lot about leveraging, um, you know, the power of LinkedIn, uh, for sales teams. Like, of course I use it. Myself, you know, I used to use also the back in the days the sales navigate navigator feature from linkedin so How have you seen, you know the the transformation that linkedin?
Mehmet: uh Had on on sales strategy, especially in our industry in the tech industry And what do you think? You know, there are some of the maybe Underutilized, uh, features, I would say that, you know, sales teams, they should start to, to use.
Ryan: Well, I think evaluate, you know, leveraging some of the, the, the premium subscriptions for LinkedIn gets you a lot of visibility into, uh, You know, not only, um, where and or who, what, what the [00:32:00] organizational structure of your target is like, but what their work history is like, and what their interests are in terms of, um, the kinds of the, the, the, the, the, their, their views into your, um, Um, profiles and into your organization, but really understanding, I think for me, it's understanding how an organization is structured, um, and what the history, the history of those individuals is, and each, each sales organization is different in terms of what's important to them.
Ryan: I mean, perhaps it's important to understand, um, what systems a company has worked with. And, um, if the, the CIO has, has experience in one area or another area, You know, for me, that kind of thing is extremely important in the ERP space to understand what, where their, where their knowledge and where their, um, inherent [00:33:00] biases might lie.
Ryan: Now, of course, marketing can leverage LinkedIn for, um, getting, you know, doing, doing campaigns and for generating leads. Of course, I think that depends on the nature of your business and what you're doing as to how effective that could be. But, um, there's a, you know, there's a, there's a. tactical advantage for your reps to be able to understand what they're, what kind of scenario, what kind of environment they're walking into in an organization.
Ryan: And then of course, you know, you have the marketing side of it as well.
Mehmet: That's absolutely right. And you know, this is, brings me to the, my final question for today, Ryan, because again, I relate things together. Now, can we say that now with the power of AI businesses can run almost the full operations in a kind of a Business in a box model.
Mehmet: So I, I would, I'll take just example of the system that you're expert on, which is Microsoft dynamics, for example. [00:34:00] So we have Microsoft dynamics, which act as a CRM ERP with co pilot with business, with the power BI, for example, and all these things. And I'm thinking Microsoft as one example, there are a lot of maybe other complete systems, Google.
Mehmet: They have something and the others, they have something, but let's focus on what you're expert on. So are we seeing is the trend now to have. Everything run in kind of a one place now really finally having one place to manage all my business from because of the integrations automation and the power that AI is bringing to us.
Ryan: So I still think one consolidated place is we're getting there, um, to be perfectly honest, right? You've, you've typically got a couple of cloud platforms, but the, the difference is you want to, you want platforms that are [00:35:00] seamlessly integrated. Rather than custom and yes, AI can absolutely help with that.
Ryan: Um, the, some of the tools out there for automating the, the, the creation of workflows across platforms with voice props and for, uh, platforms like dynamics, where. The ERP and the CRM in reality are different platforms. The two of them. Um, there is some base CRM in the, in the ERP application, but for the full fledged enterprise level CRM, it is a separate platform.
Ryan: However, that platform is natively integrated. On the ERP side so that instead of doing custom development or buying a middleware, you're actually just configuring, okay, I want to, I want to sync accounts one way and contacts the other. And I want to sync my products. And when I, when a sales rep closes an opportunity, I want to create a sales order in the ERP.
Ryan: That's, that should be configuration and set up these days. That should not be. Custom [00:36:00] development and middleware. So, um, while you're typically, in my opinion, going to see ERP and CRM specifically continue to live in separate platforms in many cases, just because they're different data sets, right? You don't necessarily want all of your CRM data.
Ryan: In your ERP system. These are, you know, leads and contacts that you may never bring into your customer base and you may never do business with. So, uh, letting CRM do what it does well in its platform, but then being able to configure rather than develop what's going to be sent over to the ERP and vice versa.
Ryan: Is is really where we're headed in most cases. Um, and that's, you know, that's where I think we'll stay for a while. But absolutely. A. I can help with that. Um, being in the cloud can help with that with exposing things like Web services and and, um, you know, we will continue to get to a more, uh, comprehensive single source of the truth.
Ryan: And part of that's the data [00:37:00] strategy that I mentioned earlier. Part of that is the Process aggregation and the elimination of selecting systems and silos. So there are, there are many facets to accomplishing that and the technology is getting there. Absolutely.
Mehmet: Yeah. And, um, just to your point, also, I've started to see some development where.
Mehmet: You know, like even on the things which, which are like a little bit technical, for example, API integration, that AI actually is able to, to, to get that sorted out. So I've seen some startups in that space, uh, they are still in the early phases. We will see like. What will come out so you know, creating API might become easy.
Mehmet: So this will allow like maybe some systems to together. And then we have like the single pane of glass that everyone wanted. Um, yeah, right. Like as we come to an end, like final thoughts you want to leave us with and where the audience can find [00:38:00] more about you.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. You know, in terms of finding more about me, I'm on linked in.
Ryan: Um, I've got a twitter account out there and, you know, our company, uh, Western Computer does a lot of Microsoft Dynamics. You can find us if you need us in terms of final thoughts, you know, um, before thinking in your technology decisions, um, rather than Just stamping out immediate needs, um, make decisions as a, as a company, as a team, rather than in silos.
Ryan: And remember, you know, AI is not meant to replace all of your employees. It is, it is, uh, you know, appropriately, in my opinion, nicknamed co pilot from Microsoft, it's not named autopilot, right? It's not going to run your business for you. And, and AI. Uh, is not coming for your job typically, but somebody effectively using AI may be coming for your [00:39:00] job or a competitor effectively using AI may be coming for your market share.
Ryan: So, um, be aware of it, um, make sure that, that, that you're using it effectively, um, can start very, very quickly with the low hanging fruit. If you're using office, there's all kinds of AI built into it. Uh, and then when you make your, your decision to upgrade your business system, as painful as that may seem, uh, there's going to be expense.
Ryan: There is going to be pain there. Don't let that scare you because it's going to set up the proper foundation for you to grow as a company and expand and scale and thrive. So don't be afraid to do it.
Mehmet: Absolutely. Don't be afraid. And to your point, Ryan, like. It's not like they are going to replace. I repeated this last year a lot because there was a lot of debate.
Mehmet: Good. Like we start to see people understanding that actually AI is there to help not to replace. And to your point, yes. The one who would take the job is the one who knows how to [00:40:00] use the AI tool. So a hundred percent on this and for the audience, the, you know, links to That ryan just mentioned about will be in the show notes.
Mehmet: So I thank you very much for being with me here today I really appreciate the time and thank you for all your insightful Uh, you know Answers today to to my questions and this is to the audience if you just discovered this podcast by luck Thank you for passing by if you like Please subscribe, we are available on all podcasting platforms, and please share it with your friends and colleagues.
Mehmet: And if you are one of the loyal followers who keep sending me their messages and suggestions, please keep doing so. And finally, if you are interested to be on the show, don't hesitate to reach out to me. You know where to find me. I'm more active on LinkedIn. Send me a message, send me what you want to discuss, and then we will find a way to do it.
Mehmet: Thank you very much for tuning in. We'll meet again in a new episode very soon. Thank you. Bye bye.