Priyesh Wagh on The MVP Show

[mark_smith]: 0:57
Today's guest is from Mumbai, India. He works at Cloud Fonts as the practice lead. He was first awarded the MVP in 2020. He is a Microsoft India D365 user group lead and a 365 Saturday ambassador. You can find links to his bio and social media, et cetera, in the show notes for this episode. Prash, welcome to the show.

[priyesh_wagh]: 1:22
Thank you Mark, thank you for having me on the show. It's a pleasure.

[mark_smith]: 1:26
Good to have you on. Tell me about you. Tell me about food, fun, family, everything you kind of, you know, that occupies your life when you're not working. Do you have any hobbies or anything like that?

[priyesh_wagh]: 1:38
Absolutely. Well, so again, as you know, my name is Priyesh Wang. I started off my career at Cloud Friends back in 2014. I'm an IT engineering graduate.And it's my first generation in Mumbai. My hometown is Aurangabad, which is about 250 miles from Mumbai.And I stay with and power platform space. I grew from being a fresher to a junior to senior and onwards and I grew penchant of Dynamics 365 CRM and power platform in general. So in my initial years I used to be you know referring to the community all the time because I was a new learner there was not much help you know I could seek so I always refer to the community always thought that there are people who are spending their time helping other people on the community. They're really not getting anything probably but what I realized is what they're getting is if you help you also do get helped back.So it's always the that's the whole meaning of the word communities you have to give and you also receive.So I started contributing on the community as well and I credit my good reflexes to gaming. That's how most of the kids grew up in India.But yeah, life has been good so far. Very thankful for that.

[mark_smith]: 3:51
Tell me about the company you work for, CloudFronts.

[priyesh_wagh]: 3:54
Sure. So Cloud France is in Mumbai.It was started by Anil Shah in 2012. I joined one of the initial members in 2014and we are 100% Dynamics 365 on Microsoft Cloud focused.So you know I started off when I was a fresher and that time it was Dynamics 365. It was So not much of on-prem work that I did, I focused mostly on the online side of things.And as Power Platform came along in 2016, gradually all clients started to use more and more of Power Platform, like a little bit of Canvas app, but mostly Power Automate, not so much of Virtual Agents though, but Power BI as well.The RM remains at the core which is now divided between different apps like D665 Sales, Project Service Automation which is now Project Operations,Field Service, Customer Service and so on. So work has been good. Clients have been throughout the world so have gotten rich experience of dealing with clients from all cultures which is rewarding.

[mark_smith]: 5:21
And so I take it, yeah, you get projects from what, more the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere? Would that be right?

[priyesh_wagh]: 5:29
Yeah, more in the northern hemisphere. Some in Australia, I've worked with some clients in Australia, they're also fun to work with.Just that I haven't travelled there yet.

[mark_smith]: 5:38
it'll happen, it'll happen. It will happen soon, yes.You know, it blows my mind. What percentage of the world population is in the Northern Hemisphere? Just do you know the answer or can you have a guess?

[priyesh_wagh]: 5:51
I would like to guess it would be 70% or 80%

[mark_smith]: 5:58
90%. 90%

[priyesh_wagh]: 6:00
90% lives in the northern hemisphere.

[mark_smith]: 6:01
Northern Hemisphere. I couldn't believe it. Only10% live south of the equator. Isn't that crazy?

[priyesh_wagh]: 6:08
I've heard over the years that a lot happens in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere in terms of the economic split,in terms of the weather as well,in terms of agriculture, in terms of natural resources Well, they are more than the southern hemisphere though, but I've heard that northern hemisphere totally overpowers just the way earth is inclined

[mark_smith]: 6:29
9010

[priyesh_wagh]: 6:30
So, wow,90% 90% 10%

[mark_smith]: 6:30
split 9010 isn't that it?Yeah, isn't that incredible?

[priyesh_wagh]: 6:34
It is

[mark_smith]: 6:34
Like because you know, because I'm working for a big company now. And one of the things that we see what our northern counterparts do in the northern hemisphere. And I'm like, you got to understand the population density in the northern hemisphere is 90%

[priyesh_wagh]: 6:48
Yes. It's dense.

[mark_smith]: 6:49
of what 8 million people live in the northern hemisphere. So it is nuts.

[priyesh_wagh]: 6:53
Wow, that is absolutely astronomical.

[mark_smith]: 6:57
How did you become an MVP? What was that process for you?

[priyesh_wagh]: 7:06
So in 2018 or 2019 as I was doing more I was deep into you know doing community work I was primarily answering questions on the Community.dynamics.com which is the Dynamics 365 CRM community back then it still exists today of course So you know people started recognizing that Then there was this person Raj Dynamics Raj Chaudhary from UK about yeah what we're doing is right and the other side of it is that you get to learn a lot of great things other real-world problems which people are facing so it's like a double experience always outside of what you've worked but you also get to know what people have worked on what are the other challenges and I wish that continues.

[mark_smith]: 9:34
Yeah. One thing I noticed with a lot of MVPs is that they are always learning something new, right? You never can sit or because you want to be on the forefront of everything. So for you, when you look at 2023, what's kind of what are the new skills that you're thinking and developing? And it doesn't have to be specific in the area of BizApps, but what are you thinking of generally?

[priyesh_wagh]: 10:00
Yeah, so generally I see a lot of things happening and even our work touching a lot of dynamic 365, sorry, a lot of Azure practice. That is what really interests me. Since last year, even we are doing a lot of integration based projects,which are primarily using Azure, using Azure functions.And with Azure functions, then we touch upon a lot of other aspects of it like storage,remain at the core.

[mark_smith]: 11:03
Are you doing anything in the AI space?

[priyesh_wagh]: 11:06
I'm starting to look at it. I've just, for now,I just looked at the services that are offered,like the test to speech and other four, five types.But yeah, Azure is something I've heard in recent months that heavy investment is going on in Azure's side of things. And it looks like it's gonna be useful more and more for clients as well. So,yeah, of course, when I say Azure, that also is a part of it somewhere. welcome and ask, do you do something on Azure or not? AI side of things.

[mark_smith]: 11:41
What's happening with the community in India? I mean, and what I've observed over the 12 years I've been in the program is that it seems India seems to be flourishing like so many people skills developing, but actually, and I mean in a lot of other countries, but actually in India,you know, the user groups and things, what's happening in that space?

[priyesh_wagh]: 12:02
Yes, sure. So in recent four or five years that I've seen, I've seen the people who have started contributing initially in initial years, they're still doing it. And now there's a younger generation,which is, you know, six, seven, 10 years older than us. They are also, they have also watched what happened in recent years, how people have come in, how people have contributed,finding platform to speak on they find it very exciting when they're able to contribute or when they say that you know I'm part of the community I contributed and I learn as well. That's really booming and I saw that people who initially started they haven't dropped off.They're still as active as they were and it's an uphill climb

[mark_smith]: 12:55
Yeah, I take it. What what do you reckon the impact of the last three years have been, you know, because obviously no MVP summit, no.

[priyesh_wagh]: 13:04
right yes correct.

[mark_smith]: 13:06
The in person events disappeared. How was that for your community there?

[priyesh_wagh]: 13:11
Yes, it's a great question. I always introspected that before 2020, when I was part of the in-person events, the little bit I traveled till then,it had a big networking impact, I feel.Today, all the virtual sessions are easily available. You could go online and join any session and people could be anywhere, right? But it's only limited that you could learn a very few things from a session.and the exchange of ideas is still limited. Travel is expensive, it's time consuming and everything but the value of in-person networking,the connect that you have when you meet in person, it totally changes the dynamic of the relation.Even if you make community friends or if you meet your prospects, possibly it changes. The in-person interaction still is king.happening in person this year. I think that will be back to some extent.But people who were new, who started off in 2020or in the pandemic,they still have, if they don't have exposure of what was before, they'll still believe that virtual events are still cool,which they are, but you know, it still is on a different level to be in person and to have that interaction.

[mark_smith]: 14:38
Are you going to MVP Summit?

[priyesh_wagh]: 14:42
Most possibly this week and next week is when I am planning and just working on my schedule to see if that is possible.But very likely so yes.

[mark_smith]: 14:50
I'm not, I'm not going. It'll be the first time in 12 years that the event has run that I have not gone. But, uh, yeah, as in the, the announcement of it was so late and it seems that

[priyesh_wagh]: 15:03
exactly.

[mark_smith]: 15:03
at the moment airlines have put up their prices and it was,it was getting over $7,000 just to get there and back. It was just like,I mean, that doesn't count for, you know, when you're in the bottom of that's a two-day trip to get there and a two-day a two day trip to get home, you know? So four plus those, that's, you know, it's crazy times, crazy times.

[priyesh_wagh]: 15:28
So how many hours is it from New Zealand to Seattle?

[mark_smith]: 15:31
Do you know I have forgotten because the last time I went, I didn't have to go direct like I was going from London because I was living in London then. And then I've moved, I moved home just before the pandemic. You know,so November 2019 I moved home. My last trip was to Singapore and then boom, you know, the world,the world locked down. So I don't know. I don't know what it, you know, I've got a feeling it's over 20 something hours from maybe 28 hours or something.Just, just,just, and that's just an aircraft. But I, yeah,don't quote me. I can't remember it's been so long.

[priyesh_wagh]: 16:10
Wow, either way it's long distance, it's iron's tiring.

[mark_smith]: 16:13
It's a very long distance.

[priyesh_wagh]: 16:16
Yes, absolutely.

[mark_smith]: 16:17
Hey, Prash, it's been great talking to you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And hopefully we will get to see each other one day at one of these events.

[priyesh_wagh]: 16:22
Yes absolutely we will look forward for that. Thank you Mark for having me on the show. Always a pleasure,I always look forward to it. And yeah, it was great talking to you. Hope to see you.