Navigating Tech with Komi Siabi: From Web Development to Dynamics 365 and the Journey to Becoming an African MVP

Mark Smith: 0:37
Welcome to the MVP Show. My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills. If you have not checked it out already, I do a YouTube series called how to Become an MVP. The link is in the show notes. With that, let's get on with the show. Today's guest is from Nigeria. He is a Dynamics AX 2012 and Dynamics 365 FNO Technical Consultant at GEM Consulting. His first award is MVP in 2023. He is a Microsoft certified trainer who's delivered both functional and technical training to users both in French and English. He's also bilingual and amazing. You can find links to his bio and social media in the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, Kermi.

Komi Siabi: 1:35
Hi. Thank you, Smith. I'm very, very happy to be here.

Mark Smith: 1:40
I'm pleased to have you on the show. Before we get started, I always like to find out a bit about the when my guest is from, the geography, a bit about their family, what they do for fun when they're not doing Microsoft business applications work. Then, if I was to come to your region, what's the best food that I should eat?

Komi Siabi: 2:03
Okay, also to start with, I'm originally from Togo. Togo is a French-speaking country in West Africa. Currently I am in Nigeria where I'm working as a Dynamics consultant, all right. So when we talk about the climate, it's basically the same thing in West Africa it's either sunny or it's rainy, yeah. So talking about the food, I would say we have what we call the Nigeria Jollof, which everybody likes to taste whenever they are either in Nigeria, in Ghana or in Togo.

Mark Smith: 2:44
Tell me a bit about that food. What's it made of?

Komi Siabi: 2:47
All right. So most of our foods here are made of corn or maize and we eat a lot of soups that are made of vegetable. So we have varieties of food, of soups, whether in Nigeria alone we have thousands of soup. So some of them are a goosey soup, vegetable soup, a gikai called okra, so on, and so forth.

Mark Smith: 3:16
Nice Sounds like fun. If people are to visit Nigeria or your home country, what do you recommend that they do and see?

Komi Siabi: 3:26
All right. So in Nigeria, or let me be specific about Lagos, lagos means the economic city of Nigeria, so we have what we call the mainland and the island, all right. So the island is, of course, surrounded with water and there you have the big industries when it comes to tech, when it comes to oil and gas, when it comes to foreigners and the rest of them All right. And we have beautiful beaches around Lagos. And when you come to the mainland, we have some museum, we have the theater center, we have the national stadium and we also have a lot of bars where you can go and taste these local drinks and local food.

Mark Smith: 4:19
Nice, nice. What's the biggest sport in Lagos? Is it soccer? Is soccer what everybody follows? Football, football.

Komi Siabi: 4:29
Yes, it is.

Mark Smith: 4:30
Nice.

Komi Siabi: 4:31
At the amount of fat we have. We have a lot of football fans. Some of them prefer Messi over Ronaldo. So you see them arguing all the time Ronaldo is the best. This one said Messi is the best. So football is the most predominant sport here in Lagos, Nice.

Mark Smith: 4:50
Nice, how did you get into technology?

Komi Siabi: 4:55
All right. So I would say I got really interested in technology way back in. So I had a cousin, so I do visit him and he has a brother then. So we're just discussing and he started telling me about his whole web development team, how you can create websites, so on and so forth. So from there I picked interest and I think a week later I came back to him and I told him hey, I'm currently interested in learning this web thing you talk about the other day. So at that time I was a French language teacher, so I was teaching French in high school, right, so it was a part-time job. So I told him I'm not fully occupied. After my classes I can come to you and you teach me this web development. So he said, okay, fine, then we started with HTML, from HTML1 to CSS, from CSS, then one to JavaScript. All right, so after the first four weeks of the classes that we had, I tried to create a simple website using WordPress. So from there I was able to see how I can manipulate WordPress using CSS, html, javascript, and we went on a length PHP. Of course WordPress is built with PHP, so I can easily modify this PHP code by going to thedev file, remove the folder and put my own folder and some other things like that. So with that I was able to find much more interest in programming, especially the web development, and I was able to get some jobs in web development. I was able to design websites with some schools. I was able to also design an e-commerce website for a friend who lives in France. So with that I was able to build more on the web development skills. So that's how I finally got into it.

Mark Smith: 7:05
Wow. So that's a big jump, though, because you went from web design front-end development into ultimately now being in Dynamics 365 Finance. Is that right?

Komi Siabi: 7:17
Yes, exactly.

Mark Smith: 7:18
How did you make that jump? What was the initial Dynamics related project? How did you get involved in Dynamics?

Komi Siabi: 7:25
All right. So while I was teaching, I happened to find myself in a WhatsApp group where you meet friend speaking fellows. So there was a day, I think there was a post that came into the group that talked about PHP, a PHP framework, so I was able to comment on it. Then someone inboxed me and said hey, so you know how to write code. I said yes, so it became friend. At the time he was already working as a Dynamics expert. It was a technical consultant, so it became friends. Two years later he told me hey, how are we doing for you? Will you be interested? So in my mind I was like, is he a teaching job? He said no, you will like teaching so much. So he told me I want you to venture into something new, which is Microsoft Dynamics environment. So at that time it was really AX 2012, ax 2009, and AX 7, rather.

Mark Smith: 8:30
So all on premise, right. All on premise to premise, yeah on premise.

Komi Siabi: 8:36
So he explained everything to me and told me the company at the time wants someone that speaks French as well. So the plan was to see how the company can venture into the Francophone market. So that was how I got into Dynamics, without having any prior knowledge of what business processes is. So that's just how I did. I took that leap from being a work developer into Dynamics space.

Mark Smith: 9:11
How many projects have you worked on now? How, like, what's your depth of knowledge around Dynamics? Did you just focus on finance, or do you do supply chain or anything else?

Komi Siabi: 9:21
All right, so not just finance, supply chain, human resource. I would say the exemption is just the commerce I got with.

Mark Smith: 9:33
But for all the information that I've done I've worked on finance modules, human resources, supply chain modules- Interesting because if you did commerce then you would be going full loop right, because commerce is the frontier that you can get into the e-commerce side of things as well, which is back on web design again. Why have you stuck with finance? Have you looked at Dynamics 365 customer service and looked at what's available in there, like in the CRM space? Do you do any work in that space and do you do any work on the Power Platform?

Komi Siabi: 10:11
All right. So when it comes to CRM, yes, I've done a few works there because I had a project where I need to do some integration between F and O and the customer engagement. So, with the help of Dwarite, I needed to test my integration. So with that I wouldn't have to wait for someone from CE to validate my integration. So what I need to do is to do some hands-on on CE how to create contact, how to create accounts, how to create product in CE, how to create orders, push them to F4 and see how they're really right. So a little bit of Power Platform as well. I could remember my very first task when, I joined GEMS Consulting was to do an automation using Power Automate. So when a vendor is created in F and O, send an email notification to Gmail. So that was my very first back and it was wow, I was receiving emails over and over and over because the trigger will just continue so I had to stop it. So I'll say that I have a little bit of experience with Power Platform and also customer engagement.

Mark Smith: 11:31
Excellent, excellent, what, out of all the different modules, et cetera, that you work with in the Dynamics 365 portfolio, what do you like working with the most?

Komi Siabi: 11:43
So I would say human resource module, the general manager, six asset module, the system administration module, of course, the organization administration module, cache and Bank module. Yeah, those are the main ones.

Mark Smith: 12:08
Are you still doing a lot of training or are you just now consulting only?

Komi Siabi: 12:12
Okay, yeah, so I do more of consulting and I also offer trainings. Of course, when we have implementations during the life cycle of the program, there are times where we need to train those users. So I also do partake in these trainings.

Mark Smith: 12:28
Yeah, fantastic. How did you become an MVP? What was your journey to becoming an MVP?

Komi Siabi: 12:34
All right. So the journey to becoming an MVP started exactly one year ago. So I had a colleague in the office where we're talking about some what I call them some products in the F1O People like Andre Pitarama. There's this other guy on the community who's Martin yes, martin. So we're like it's something we can also have in Gems Consulting. So I told him you know what? I'm going to become the next MVP or the first MVP in Gems. So that's how it all began. I went to the community, I had to answer questions. I also quoted a blog where I tried to post some of my works also. So with that, I think, what actually filled full and I became MVP. Wow.

Mark Smith: 13:37
So you're the first one in GEM to become the MVP.

Komi Siabi: 13:41
Yes, I am.

Mark Smith: 13:43
Wow, that is fantastic. It's fantastic. I only took you a year to get to that point. When you look at your MVP contributions, are they mainly on the forums that you're doing or mainly on blogging?

Komi Siabi: 13:58
Yes, so both forums blogging and sometimes also do speaking at some events online.

Mark Smith: 14:10
Ah, okay, okay, and do you enjoy doing the online speaking events, and are they more in English or more in French?

Komi Siabi: 14:18
Yes, so I enjoy both. So far, I've done just two in French and I'm looking forward to doing more in French, actually.

Mark Smith: 14:27
Awesome, awesome. I just think that it's really important that you know there's lots of English speaking content around the world. I think that to create content in other languages is so important because it makes it more accessible to people. If that's their first you know language or primary language, it makes it easier for them to learn and consume content. So I think that's. I think that's amazing. I see you've got a heap of badges on the Dynamics 365 community 1444 posts, 1493 comments. You do a lot up there.

Komi Siabi: 15:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually I so last year before December. Yeah, so my science at Dynamics is normal-wise. She always pushes me to go to the community, right, because there was a time where I was going into cryptocurrency. I always tried to check my portfolio. So she would be like is. I doing crypto or you are in the community. So when she sees that I'm actually in the community, she doesn't say anything, but when she sees me doing crypto, she tends to complain. So I want to say she has really been a push to me. She has really motivated me because I told her the goal is I want to get the MVP or I want to be able to contribute to the community. And one other thing I also learned here that contributing to the community helps me to learn more. Right, because there are some questions that, before you answer them, you even learn more.

Mark Smith: 16:13
Are you familiar, so I think that's.

Komi Siabi: 16:16
Herion yeah, so I think that also helped me in many.

Mark Smith: 16:20
Yeah, agreed. Are you familiar with the FastTrack Recognized Solution Architecture program? Yes, I am. Are you planning on becoming one?

Komi Siabi: 16:31
Yes, how much have you applied to becoming one?

Mark Smith: 16:34
Yeah, I think it's a smart move For somebody in the finance and operation side, following the principles of success by design that Microsoft have published, and I think that that covers around 7,000 implementations around the world. All the learnings and that success by design book, plus the there's a Dynamics 365 implementation portal. I don't know if you've got access to that, but if you start putting all the projects that you're working on in that portal, it's definitely a pathway to facilitating that FastTrack Recognized Solution Architecture title, which I think, in my opinion, it's more valuable than an MVP title, because it shows your deep technical skills and handling projects using Microsoft's best practice for your customers. So I hope to see you as a FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect in the future and perhaps come back on the show and tell us about that. Last question for you what's a one bit of advice you'd give to other people in Africa wanting to become an MVP?

Komi Siabi: 17:52
Okay. So the advice is you just need to learn and be patient, Right? Whether you wanna become an MVP, you wanna become anything else, I think the key is keep on learning and be patient, but once the time comes, everything that you've done in the past will help you get to the top.

Mark Smith: 18:20
Hey, thanks for listening. I'm your host Business Application MVP Mark Smith, otherwise known as the NZ365 guy. If you like the show and wanna be a supporter, check out buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash NZ365 guy. Thanks again and see you next time.