Chris Gherardini on the role of data in ERP and CRM Systems

In this episode Frank and Andy have a chat with Chris Gherardini on the role of data in ERP and CRM Systems.

Transcript

00:00:00 BAILey

Hello and welcome to data driven, the podcast where we explore the emerging fields of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. In this episode, Frank and Andy speak to Chris Gardini about the role data plays in ERP and CRM systems.

00:00:17 Frank

Hello and welcome back to data driven. The podcast where we explore the emerging fields of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. If you like to think of data as the new oil, then you can think of us like Car Talk because we focus on where the rubber meets the road. Although there's not much of a road trip usually on this virtual road trip.

00:00:37 Frank

Is Andy Leonard? How's it going, Andy?

00:00:40 Andy

Hey Frank, it's going really well. How are you doing?

00:00:43 Frank

I'm doing alright, you know, with the exception I might have to buy a new desktop computer.

00:00:48 Andy

Ah, I have not.

00:00:49 Frank

Possibly, or power supply. Literally. We were on this call and all of a sudden everything froze and I was like Oh well, blue screen. Big deal.

00:00:59 Frank

And then when I went to power it back on.

00:01:03 Frank

It just kept keeps beeping so I'm like oh, fee something something hard so I'm going to have to do some search engine work and possibly get a new power supply or something.

00:01:06 Andy

Codes.

00:01:13 Frank

Fortunately, micro center.

00:01:14 Andy

Everything is.

00:01:17 Andy

Go ahead.

00:01:17 Andy

00:01:17 Andy

I've gotta say Frank, everything is figure out able right?

00:01:21 Frank

Everything is figure out able because of my experience with clear DB and all sorts of other drama. I have multiple backups of just about everything it if if you know so it's it's. It'll be an inconvenience, not a tragedy.

00:01:32 Andy

Outstanding.

00:01:37 Frank

But every opportunity to come back from a complete backup failure is an opportunity to learn.

00:01:47 Frank

And, uhm, Speaking of opportunity, it's really good timing that this guest is here because I as folks know I work at the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston and recently.

00:02:00 Frank

There was a, uh, someone we were on this engagement and it was very heavy into dynamics and uh, dynamics is one of those things. I haven't really looked into Andy and I have been experimenting with power apps and power platform, mostly to kind of help automate a lot of our content.

00:02:21 Frank

Production.

00:02:22 Chris

This is crucial as we.

00:02:24 Frank

Continue to put the final touches on our secret project, but this guest here is an expert in dynamics as well as various ERP solutions.

00:02:36 Frank

And he's from Saint Louis, and his name is Christian. I'm really blowing this intro here. His name is Cristiano Gardeny. Did I pronounce that right?

00:02:48 Chris

Cristiano Guardian yeah, he pulled our sounded out there so.

00:02:48 Frank

OK good good.

00:02:51 Frank

He did fine, got it. Sorry about that. He's the president and owner of Turnkey Technologies and they are a Microsoft partner. I did looking around on their website and they are basically they provide development, analytics, training and support services for Microsoft Dynamics.

00:03:09 Frank

If you don't know what Microsoft Dynamics is, a lot of people don't. In the data world tend to just know it tangentially. It's basically Microsoft CRM system, so welcome to the show, Cristiano.

00:03:21 Chris

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

00:03:25 Frank

It's good to have you here, and so what's the weather like in Saint Louis right now?

00:03:30 Chris

Ah, it's beautiful and sunny. Today it's about 64 degrees Sun index is just right around A5, so it's actually it's actually nice and better than the the ice. We had a couple weeks ago so.

00:03:38 Frank

Knife.

00:03:42 Andy

Yeah, it got bitterly cold out there for about a week, didn't it?

00:03:47 Chris

That's right, I happen to be in Florida that entire week. Everybody couldn't believe I missed all the fun. So with the IT was good, it was a good week to be gone. We left Saturday. We came back Sunday was 52 when we got back and the 9 inches of snow had melted and.

00:03:51 Chris

Unfelt

00:03:51 Chris

00:04:00 Chris

So yeah, perfect timing.

00:04:02 Frank

Nice, now you have excellent timing Sir. Not only in just the fact that dynamics is kind of coming up, coming up on my personal radar, but also in terms of avoiding bad weather. My first question is and I'm calm. Still a new bit dynamics. I learned a lot just by working on this.

00:04:23 Frank

One engagement we had DMTC.

00:04:27 Frank

Is Dinah.

00:04:28 BAILey

Mix.

00:04:29 Chris

So Dynamics Dynamics is the biz apps. I mean, you said CRM. It's more than CRM. But today dynamics represents a family of products. You know, the legacy on Prem products, Dynamics AX Dynamics, Navy Dynamics, GP, Dynamics, SL and then the current dynamics 365, which encompasses both you know financing.

00:04:49 Chris

Operations, which was the dynamics AX and then Dynamics 365 business Central which was the Navy? So those are both ERP products.

00:04:57 Chris

And then Dynamics customer engagement, which is the CRM platform so so dynamics is a collection of biz apps. It's a family of products and you know today we we focus on the two dynamics 365 ERP products and the CRM. The customer engagement product. So great solution, but it's a platform also it.

00:05:15 Frank

That's what I noticed, and folks that are listening. They're like this is a data science kind of data engineering show. Why the heck are you talking about?

00:05:25 Frank

Dynamics but dataverse the data models, which are one of the things that blew me away, was on this one demo is that there's a. There's a button where you just basically can dump out all your cream data.

00:05:38 Frank

Or all your data and dynamics out to a data Lake.

00:05:42 Chris

That's absolutely right, Azure. So if you think about the challenges where you move from a legacy system to the cloud, maybe all the data doesn't move and you need to combine it in an Azure data like a data warehouse, and certainly all those tools and all the analytics are all part of the platform. That's just it touches dynamics out of the box, so it's quite a quite a degree of efficiency.

00:06:02 Chris

There.

00:06:03 Frank

Interesting.

00:06:05 Frank

So one question I have about dynamics is it's history now. You mentioned Dynamics AX and a couple of other letters next to the word dynamics.

00:06:17 Frank

Once Upon a time when I worked when I lived in Richmond, there was a guy who used to do a lot of work with that technology.

00:06:24 Frank

Back and it was Solomon in Great Plains is that is that the same thing is that the lineages from it.

00:06:30 Chris

That's correct, that's correct, that's correct. And so the US based products was Great Plains software out of Fargo ND, and a gentleman named Doug Burgum owned that company privately and then his family. They bought the the Salomon product line as well and then in 2001 is when Microsoft bought Great Plains.

00:06:32

Silly.

00:06:46 Chris

Software, so that's kind of how they consume the North American products and then a year later Microsoft went to Europe and bought Dynamics AX and Dynamics Navy. It was called Exapta in division so and that became a second big purchase and instantly at 2002 they had four ERP products and they're in the biz apps space like they've never been.

00:06:48 Chris

OK, so.

00:06:48 Chris

00:07:06 Chris

Before so.

00:07:09 Frank

Ah OK, that's interesting. 'cause I I now I know why. There's a huge Microsoft campus in Fargo.

00:07:16 Chris

Yes, yes.

00:07:18 Chris

It's...