Blending Tradition and Technology: C R Bhargavi's Journey with Power Platform at Ford

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 India. She works as a senior software engineer at Ford. She was first awarded her MVP in 2024. You can find links to her bio, social media, et cetera, in the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, bhagavani. Thank you, mark. Thank you for coming on Now. When you say Ford, that's Ford Motor Company, right?

C R Bhargavi: 1:30
Yeah, Ford Motor Company.

Mark Smith: 1:32
Fantastic. And what part of India do you come from? Chennai? Chen Company Fantastic. And what part of India do you come from Chennai? Chennai, yeah, okay, okay, so is that? I'm not too familiar. Is that north, south, east or west?

C R Bhargavi: 1:52
It's total as the Tamil Nadu over here, when it's been called under the state and a provenance of it is called as a Chennai.

Mark Smith: 2:05
Gotcha Okay. So I always like to start these episodes with what I call food, family and fun. Tell me about what's the best food to eat there. Tell me about family. Tell me what you's the best food to eat there. Tell me about family. Tell me what you do for fun when you're not doing technology.

C R Bhargavi: 2:20
Okay, regarding food, it would be like I am a kind of foodie and I am a pure vegetarian as well, and I don't like going to hotels and having food. I rather, uh, we used to make food at our home and have it of whatever things. That what we have, what we like to have, like either it can be of um, paneer butter masala or a paneer butter masala is one of the special dish. That what I would like to have, and and whatever it is we used to do at home and we used to have that. Yeah, this is all about food and, apart from technology, if I stay away from technology, that would be like I had went through fashion designing, for which I would be doing tailoring, and apart from that, I would be. I am a classical dancer too, like a Bharatanatyam dancer, and I may engage myself in either practicing or I may be either doing a stage performance over there. So this would be apart from technologies, that what I would be doing on Nice, nice.

Mark Smith: 3:45
I was waiting for you to mention the dance, because I had read something there about your amazing dance abilities. Tell me about. How did you get into technology? Why did you choose technology for your career path?

C R Bhargavi: 3:58
Okay, to be very frank, my father was also a technology person.

C R Bhargavi: 4:06
He was into technology from around 1985, I can say, and from there, since I grew up seeing him day by day, I got into a chance that I should be a technology person and like he was the first person who made me to attend community events and he made me to do the speaking events and then he pushed me into the community and he told me that this is the way that you should be doing and it would be a great way, and like he was the guide for all those things and that's where I came into the technology and everything.

C R Bhargavi: 4:57
It was almost my school days where I came into the community and from there I got into a touch of many people where the community actually helped me in many things like networking and then setting up my career and all those things are done through technology, by networking through the community. And then this was one of one of the best chance that what I got like during the college itself I had a chance to attend community events and then staying up, what happens, updated into the technology, those kind of things, and that's where it actually helped me until now to stay into the technology.

Mark Smith: 5:49
So what tech was he into your father?

C R Bhargavi: 5:58
was he into your father? My father was into software development and he was a project manager as well at the later part of his stage, wherein he would be having around 10 to 20 people whom he would be managing of. And he has now retired and and while he was retiring he was handling I mean, it was Lotus technology that he was handling first and then later it moved on to the different technologies that I mean year to year he was working on for different technologies.

Mark Smith: 6:35
Was he working for IBM? Was he working at IBM at some point?

C R Bhargavi: 6:38
No, he was working for Tenneco Automotives and, like it was later called as Drive.

Mark Smith: 6:50
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Interesting, and it's interesting the influence he's had over you, you know, to guiding you into tech. I see that more and more these days. Tell me about how, then, did you get involved in the Power Platform, dynamics 365? How did you get involved into that part of the tech?

C R Bhargavi: 7:10
Yeah, okay, power Platform is the core technology that. Where I am currently working on Like Gaither, it started as a fresher into the Power Platform. Like Power Apps is the core that what we would be working on, like doing POCs and developing the applications, and then we would be automating the stuff, that what we have inside our plate for the business and those kinds of things would be happening, and from there it actually gradually started into the Power Platform and that's where I am currently into the Power Platform, so it's a core technology for me.

Mark Smith: 8:00
That's interesting and I know Ford for a long time have been invested into dynamics, particularly in the contact center area. I know a lady in the US who works for Ford who led a whole team around and we're talking years ago, not before the modern call center technology that's here now. We're talking about, yeah, some of the original type of tech that came out of microsoft in the very early days of dynamics, and so I know ford is ford kind of. Are they using the power platform to solve many business problems, so lots of applications and automations and things like that being built uh, yes, actually.

C R Bhargavi: 8:39
Uh, they are using different technologies for solving the automation, like either it can be of UiPath or either it can be of Pega or Power Platform. That can be of different platform and they are using it. And they also build applications via the Power Apps and push into the. I mean that gets integrated with Power Automate and from there it actually starts on.

Mark Smith: 9:13
So what's a day in the life for Bhagavani? What do you do day to day, day in, day out? What do you focus on?

C R Bhargavi: 9:22
Okay, day by day, I focus on learning like, um, there are many things in day that, uh, we should be, uh, we should be focused on the learning. Like, uh, if a day goes without learning, then it's something like a day which went off without electricity or without, like it's a day off, kind of so, and to be very focused on we should be contributing something in back to the community as well. So I would be focusing on if something can something that what I learn has to reach many people and it has to be in a good manner, and it's something that what I would be trying to focus on. And then it should be like when, when it comes for day by day, we should be progressing on our own career, right, like we try to. I mean, we would try to do what things went wrong and what things we have achieved for the day.

C R Bhargavi: 10:33
We should get it counted such that when we look after days, like if we get into some failure or something, if we get into some failure or something, and if we look back into the diary, then we can try to get things back in form through the way that what we try to focus on. So it should be like what we achieve versus what we try to fail. So we should capture both things and we should try to focus on where we are to fail. So we should capture both things and we should try to focus on where we are going wrong, so that we can try to achieve those things at the later point of stage.

Mark Smith: 11:15
Nice, nice. So you know the Power Platform is a very large product set. It's made up of many, many tools. What's your kind of core strength? Are you more focused on the Power Apps, on the Power Automate Power Pages product set there's? It's made up of many, many tools. What's your kind of core strength? Are you more focused on the power apps, on the power automate power pages? You know um ai builder data. Where do you specialize in?

C R Bhargavi: 11:36
okay, uh, it's almost about power apps and power automate baron. We used to build around like AI builder inside the Power Automate to get the invoice and all those kind of things over there. So these are the main core technology that what we try to focus on inside the Power Platform.

Mark Smith: 12:02
And that's what your specialist skills are.

C R Bhargavi: 12:04
Yeah.

Mark Smith: 12:08
Yeah, Awesome. So if you look at the next six months ahead and you talked about learning a lot what new skills are you planning on acquiring in the next six months?

C R Bhargavi: 12:16
Okay, I mean I am very focused on the certification part, because it's been almost two years now, I guess I haven't did any kind of certification or any kind of. I mean, I have been delivering to the community and I have been learning, but I never gave up a chance to myself to test my knowledge on how does it work, gave up a chance to myself to test my knowledge on how does it work, so that's something that what I would be trying to focus on for the next six months. Also, I am planning to write a book on the same. I mean it's in progress, almost Like the Copilot Studio is something that what I am trying to write on and I mean Copilot inside the Power Apps and Power Automate and all those kinds of things will be included in it as well Like the Copilot would be the major part of it, and that's something that what I am trying to focus on for the next six months.

Mark Smith: 13:23
Nice. Very, very good. Tell me about your journey to becoming an MVP. How did that happen for you?

C R Bhargavi: 13:29
Okay, reiterating to the same thing, like I engaged myself I mean, I was pushed to engage into the community by my father during my college days. Maybe around college first year or second year I might have came to the community event for the first thing and from there it might be like around seven years back now, be like, uh, around seven years back now and um, yeah, that was the first event, that where I had a chance to attend the um, attend the community community events, and from there I got a chance to meet the speakers and um and get to involved with them and gradually it moved on. Like about when years passed on, I started getting a feeling that why should I be attending events alone and why should I alone get knowledge from others? We should also be contributing something back to the community with where I had learned on is something that what I get a feel on myself.

C R Bhargavi: 14:49
And I went on and approached for calls for speakers and started applying for that and gradually it started moving on and from there it's it's like a month will have an event to the community for me now, at least an event for me now and it's going on in that way and from there I started writing the articles and then blogs and all those different kind of things as well, and I used to write questions under the Microsoft Q&A forum and that's where actually brought me into the MVP right now, like it's almost the seven years I mean I, to be very frank, anbu Mani from India was the first person whom I got to meet from the community event, and when I don't attend events or when I don't attend any kind of sessions over there, anbu used to ask me like I cannot see you for past days.

C R Bhargavi: 16:03
What happened is something that he used to follow up as well and that made me realize that, um, okay, we should be active on the um, active on the community events, and we should be making it, um, making it more, uh, more useful. That is something that what I um, what I felt, and it started moving on.

Mark Smith: 16:27
Who did your nomination?

C R Bhargavi: 16:29
Uh, nomination was Dr Gomathy. Uh, dr S Gomathy was the person who actually nominated. Um, we, uh, we got into LinkedIn and, uh, we started talking something and she was like you have been doing a great job until now and I have been seeing you for years and you feel like I mean, you feel like getting MVP for sure, and I wanted to recognize you is something that what she felt on and she made me into the MVP and that's where I stand on and she is one of the such nice person whom I met on community.

Mark Smith: 17:16
That's so good. That's so good. The final question I have as we wrap up is if people are considering getting involved with the Power Platform, what recommendations would you have about that?

C R Bhargavi: 17:33
Since it's a low-code, no-code tool and since it also has now a cop being like added inside the power platform, um, they don't have to worry about.

C R Bhargavi: 17:49
Like either they have zero knowledge about it or when, when they um, when they are entering into the power platform, they don't have to worry about it.

C R Bhargavi: 18:00
Rather, uh, they can start doing POCs and they can start gaining knowledge, like we can get subscription and by paying it or and for just trying it out, and from there they can get into the POC and they can do all those things and from there they can gradually get into the get into the power platform.

C R Bhargavi: 18:30
Like don't take power platform as a whole umbrella, just fix into two, one or two, two things alone. Like either it can be of, if you, if they want to get into like web development, then they can go for power pages or app development, and then it can be of power power apps and since it has many connectors and all other things being involved inside it, they would gradually know the other technologies of the power platform and from there they can try to learn on. If they see as a whole thing, then it would be like I should be learning many things and that would take many time is something that what they can assume on and they can leave their passion towards it. So just fix on to a smaller part and from there you can gradually develop things is something that what I would try to advise on.

Mark Smith: 19:39
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 NZ365. Thanks again and see you next time. Thank you.