Honeywell, SAP and the Power Platform

Mark Smith: 0:06
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 Poon, India. He works as a Senior Information Technology Manager. He was first awarded as MVP in 2023. He has a focus on business applications with Microsoft, both Dynamics and the Power Platform. You can find links to his bio, social media, etc. In the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, Mourtaza.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 0:56
Thank you so much, Mark, and I am honored to participate in your show. Thank you once more.

Mark Smith: 1:03
I really appreciate you coming on and to tell your story, and I always like to start with getting to know you personally outside of the technology area. So, with that in mind, tell me about three things regarding food, family and fun what do they mean for you?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 1:20
Okay, when it comes to food, I'm more about, like you know, born and brought up in madagascar, which is uh, uh, which was, which is, which was, an, uh, francophone kind of a culture. I love to eat french cuisine and I would say that is the most preferred cuisine worldwide and, being being in pune, it's not always easy to get those type of food, like you know. Uh, family, yes, for sure, I'm a family oriented person. I love to spend time with my family whenever, like you know, it is possible. Uh, I've got one son, who is 11 years old now, and, when time permits, like you know, of course, once I'm done with the work, that is my stress reliever, like you know, to play with my son.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 2:14
And when it comes to fun, I love beach. So, uh, the nearest beach from pune is go, I would say you'll be visiting soon, once you'll be in India, and those are from. From an Indian perspective, goa is the most liked beach. However, like you know, from where I am coming from, like you know, because Madagascar being one of the most natural country in the world right now, so they have got also the most beautiful beach, even currently.

Mark Smith: 2:49
I've had a lot of advice that I should go to Goa as part of you know, when I come and live in India for three months. I keep saying it because I know, if I say it enough, man, that's going to happen.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 3:01
The manifestation technique right. Yeah, bring my family there.

Mark Smith: 3:05
So tell me a bit about you're an author, that's right. You've written a book.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 3:09
Correct. So, mark, when I came to India, like you know, of course, india being an Anglophone country, so I was not very much into English that time, I think, so I would say, in year 2008 or 2009 so I had to, uh uh, take a completely basic start, start. I had to start, like you know, from the basic when it comes to an english language and in meanwhile, like you know, uh uh, to to maintain my French language, I used to give tuition and I was teaching French language in one of the most reputed, renowned institute in Pune. It is, like you know, symbiosis Foreign Institute of Languages. Okay, and then I discovered, like you know, the gap of the Indian students, at least from Pune.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 4:09
Of course I am a native speaker because Madagascar, being the official first language of Madagascar, is French, being a Francophone country, and having said that, french is my french first language and that helped me also to connect with the indian french language lovers, because I was part of duolingo as an ambassador and we used to organize, at least whenever possible, like you know, once in a month, to meet up with the french language lover. And then they were asking me, like you know, what are those tips for to get fluency in the french language and so on. So, on and off, I was helping them and later on, like you know, one fine day it clicked me I should write a book because, again, that was a kind of a childhood dream to write a book, yeah, yeah. So, of course, to find a topic, it was not so easy. And then I I met a few mentors who helped me out, like you know, to use ikigai methodology, japanese ikigai very famous methodologies wherein to find, like, like you know, my inner passions.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 5:26
So, of course, two things came out one was information technology, which I am into, and the second was, like you know, again, like you know, I was in, I'm interested into the french culture, french language and so on. So that's why I took that opportunity that, like you know, let's do it. Uh, however, uh, once you start thinking, even to write a book, you need to have a very uh disciplined schedule, because it's not always easy, like you know. And, if you remember, in March 2020, 2020, the main lockdown, the hard lockdown, started, even in India. Everyone was locked at their house and, of course, the new way of working started work from home, home office and that gave me an opportunity, like you know, because in the evening I was free, no, and that gave me the opportunity to write that book at that point of time.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 6:29
So, in short, that was my story, yeah.

Mark Smith: 6:31
Yeah, this is so cool. This is so cool. Now, that technique. Is that a Japanese technique? Was it Ikigai, correct?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 6:39
yes.

Mark Smith: 6:40
Okay, I need to look into that a bit more. I find that intriguing. How many languages do you speak now?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 6:46
I would say, let's start. My mother tongue is Gujarati, okay, and I would say, still the internal thought process is still in French. So my first language is in French. I speak the local language of Madraska still Malagasy Once I came to India. Of Madagascar still Malagasy once I came to India, of course, english and Hindi, again being the national language, bit of Marathi, like you know. I have started understand. I understand Marathi, but while speaking, it's still challenging for me, but I'd say, and a bit of Arabic because, being Muslim, like you know, I speak a bit of Arabic, not much, but, but let's say and a bit of arabic because, being muslim, like you know, uh, I speak a bit of arabic, not much, but so let's say, maybe five fluent and maybe one to two coming up so so can you read arabic?

Mark Smith: 7:35
because isn't the quran in arabic? Uh?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 7:38
uh, for sure, because when we pray namaz, uh, it's all in arabic. Uh, like you know, you have to pray this sermon from the Quran, and that is why, like you know, from our childhood, we have been trained to read Arabic. However, when it comes to kind of communication, I'm not so good to be. Yeah, because that is again another story.

Mark Smith: 8:03
Wow, so interesting, so interesting. Tell me then how did you get into your tech career?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 8:09
Yeah, All right.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 8:11
So, like you know, from Madagascar itself, my father had, thanks to my father, he had an intuition that, like you know, I should focus into information technology, IT, wherein I started with those that time, like you know COBOL, turbo Pascal, dbase, if you, I'm not sure, if you remember.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 8:43
So those were my first programming language and I had really fun, like you know, doing that. And since childhood I was a computer kind of a person, very much addicted to computer, day and night, yeah, and I have also that habit to give back to the community, like you know, whenever, yeah, yeah. So, as you, I think so I believe you are also a spiritual person, because I heard of manifestation techniques and all. So whenever I give back to the community, we always get more and more, like you know, in return also. That is, I believe, a lot. So since those days, I was helping some of the person of my community, of course in line of technology person of my community, of course in line of technology, and I started my IT career in Madagascar itself in year 2000 and, I would say in 2006 or 7, I came back to India wherein I had to polish a few of my IT skill because India being one of the motherland of technology to polish those and get an entry into the industry in India itself, in fact in Pune itself.

Mark Smith: 10:08
Yeah, Wow, so interesting. Now the companies that you work for. I see Honeywell in the mix.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 10:18
What's the company you work for? Currently? It's a German-based company. German, yeah, I joined Honeywell in 2013. However, even within Honeywell, I was working with the same German company, and they are into manufacturing of machines and inverters and all, and currently I'm taking care of one of their IT department, and so is your team all over the world. I'm taking care of one of their IT department.

Mark Smith: 10:56
Very neat, yes, you're sure, and so is your team. All over the world, then, not just in India.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 11:02
Yeah, for sure. Like you know, it's a global team and the headquarters is in Germany and Lindsay has a presence in 60 countries and the team, yeah, uh, which makes it more interesting, like you know, because you get to connect with lots of interesting people and, uh, uh, the team which I am into is a core team which provides services to all these 60 countries, service it services. I would say, when it comes to IT service, it starts with Microsoft, starts with business applications, azure, sap, it security, it administration and so on.

Mark Smith: 11:42
Yeah, have you done much work around SAP and the Power Platform as in from an integration perspective?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 11:49
I have in my team, like you know, some export related in SAP, abap and BASIS and basis and, for example, right now there is some plan of migration to they are using they are going to use brownfield implementation when it comes to sap migration. However, from my end, we did an integration of with using power automate and sap easy dms, like you know, using power power automate connectors, power integration with using Power Automate and SAP Easy DMS, like using Power Automate connectors, power Platform connectors and using OData and all.

Mark Smith: 12:23
So that was one of the interesting projects which we got and we got it created successfully Excellent excellent Because I know I see from Microsoft obviously that's a big growth area for them in seeing more and more, you know, particularly SAP going to a clean core model as they, you know, more and more migration to the cloud. They've got this whole concept, of course, and I think Power Platform is such a great wraparound story that it allows for you know, those unique workloads, automations, things like that to happen abstracted away from the core SAP system and using the tools of the Power Platform. It's interesting that you're doing work in that space. How big a deal is Power Platform inside the organization and Dynamics? Is it a core part of your enterprise stack of tools that you're using?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 13:21
Dynamics. I'll start with Dynamics. Unfortunately, we are not using much because the entire ERP system is SAP, at least for the company which I'm working right now. Yeah, however, power Platform, yes. When it comes to digitalization, like you know, uh many, uh my team being an expert in uh power platform we are using extensively on a daily basis, for sure, okay, but also, side by side, we are pushing people, each department, like you know, each product manager or each leaders, to uh use and empower them with the tool, because nowadays, with this low-code, no-code technology, it becomes really easy to digitize any processes. And Power Platform has a very good great suite of tools such as, like you know, power Apps, power Automate, power Pages, power BI and so on, even coming with Copilot nowadays. So that helps really. Like you know, people achieve more with less, as Microsoft says, like you know, Interesting.

Mark Smith: 14:31
Tell me how did you become an MVP? What was that journey for you?

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 14:35
Yeah, yeah, that was also an interesting journey. So, as I said earlier, mark, like you know, I have that inclination towards helping people since, like you know, many years same and even if I I even when I came back to india, as I again uh mentioned earlier, like you know, uh, whenever I was getting an opportunity, I was helping also, for example, students to get uh proficient in the french language and so on, and so was for the uh technology related. So I think so, uh, I'm not sure about the year, but uh, 10 years ago, I got an opportunity from uh times of india wherein, like you know, I had to present similar podcasts related to sharepoint and so on, and extensively started during the covid time because, uh, like you know, I got connected with uh, uh one fellow uh, patrick gimone, I think so he's the owner and founder of uh ems or amp community worldwide. He's a frenchman and I got connected with him. I got connected with uh african people wherein, like you know it was also I was providing technical knowledge, being a technology evangelist and sharing, kind of you know, the latest trends of technology, at least from a business application side, and I like those type of, like you know, knowledge sharing. It's fun and it helps you also to connect with very interesting people from all side of the globe. And for sure, as mark, we meet today and for sure we are going to meet more once. I believe we are going to connect soon in person, so that helps. Like you know, for me, relationship matters.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 16:42
Yeah, and one fine day, uh, I'm uh, like you know, I met one lady from ireland, foin. Her name is foin and yeah, yeah, I think so. She is quite famous and she's one of the I think so, one of the leader of power uh, platform technology in ireland. She's working with avana day in accenture. And she told me would you like to get nominated for mvp? I say, for sure, why not? Let's give it a try. And she nominated me. I, I would like again, I'm taking this opportunity again to thank her in this platform, I hope. And yes, that was the story in short. And Fuin nominated me. And then, one fine day, I got an email from Michael Congratulations, you are an MVP now. Yeah.

Mark Smith: 17:35
So good, so good, that's so exciting.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 18:01
No-transcript again, as I mentioned earlier, I think. So, uh, thanks god, like you know, I had, uh, still, uh, I had. I've got very good mentors in my life, even now, because that is a very important point to get the good mentors, unless you'll not get into the right direction earlier, like no thanks to my father because he showed me at least this direction to be to come into the IT, because in years and 90s they already technology was a boom, of course, in different areas, different aspects and different technologies, but as we are currently experiencing the age of AI, so in those earlier, like you know, it was something different, because IBM, mainframe and those type of technology and why I'm into information technology, it's an exciting domain, mark, because technology is magic. Technology is magic and it empowers human life, as we are seeing right now, and maybe one line of your code could change someone's life or make someone's life better, I would say, and that I love it.

Mark Smith: 19:38
Mourtaza, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Mourtaza Moïse Fazlehoussen: 19:41
Yeah, yeah. Thanks to you, Mark, for this great opportunity and looking forward to meet you in person very soon in India.

Mark Smith: 19:53
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 want to be a supporter, check out buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash NZ365guy. Thanks again and see you next time. Thank you.