From Bees to Business Central: An Excursion with Kerry Peters, Tech Leader and Sustainable Farmer

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 Indiana in the US. She is the CEO and co-founder of New View Strategies, or NBS. She has awarded her first MVP in 2017. She actively supports the achievement of woman in leadership, which is fantastic. You can find links to her bio, social media etc. In the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, carrie.

Kerry Peters: 1:30
Thank you for having me, Mark.

Mark Smith: 1:32
Good to have you on the show. I always like to start with getting to know my guests around things that they do outside of work or outside of their careers. Tell me about food, family and fun. What are those things mean to you?

Kerry Peters: 1:44
I love that. Food, family and fun. Well, food I like to eat anywhere that's ridiculously expensive and has a chef who can surprise me Family. I live with my wife in a small hobby farm in Indiana For fun. On our hobby farm we have honeybees. We're beekeepers, get to watch all the goings on of those wonderful little insects every couple of weeks or so.

Mark Smith: 2:13
Let's forget about talking about Biz Eps today and let's just talk about hobby farms, because I have a hobby farm as well, just a small acre and a half which I took over three years ago, and I'm slowly turning it into a centropic forest. Ah yeah, a lot of companion planting. I won't have animals apart from chickens, bees. I have a big worm farm. Do we count worms as animals? I have two cats those are my animals and heaps of birds, of course, heaps of wildlife birds.

Kerry Peters: 2:50
Yes, wonderful. Yeah, we love watching wildlife. We get deer in our backyard, which is sometimes a travesty for our garden, but we like having them around because they're so beautiful. Lots of gardens, we do flowers and vegetables. We raise a lot of our own food and can in the fall so that we have fresh produce through the winter.

Mark Smith: 3:11
Wow, that is so cool, as I was bought up on a dairy farm and my mother every season would produce 365 bottles of you know preserved fruit that we would get from all over the place, and that was pretty much how desserts then throughout the year. That was the way it was done. I've never done it in recent times and I haven't got the fruit tree stock yet to allow me, but I'm definitely hoping to get there.

Kerry Peters: 3:42
Yeah, wonderful. Now we have a lot of fun with tomatoes and pickles. A lot of vegetables.

Mark Smith: 3:48
Tell me about bees. How many hives do you have?

Kerry Peters: 3:51
Yeah, this year I have five hives. I've been doing it for about three years. I've been studying up on beekeeping for about 10 years but I finally had some acreage where I could have them. It's just been absolutely a fascinating process to watch these amazing little animals and how they work together. I could really talk your ear off the whole podcast about bees. The queen bee, of course, is the most interesting because she orchestrates everything just by the very way that she smells. That is absolutely fascinating to me. And she produces an amazing amount of baby bees through the year and they have a very busy season in the summer when there's lots of pollen and flowers, and then they go kind of dormant in the winter and in the US at least, it's always a question about whether they'll make it through the winter, and this year is the first year I had every single one of my hives make it through the winter, so that was a giant beekeeping victory for me.

Mark Smith: 4:50
Amazing. Do you have to seal them up a bit for winter and do you provide any heating or anything like that, or they self sufficient?

Kerry Peters: 4:57
They do that all by themselves. Bees produce kind of a glue that's called propolis and it's antiseptic, so it keeps them clean but it also glues everything together, so any little cracks in the beehives. It's very sealed and also hygienic and really helps them to survive.

Mark Smith: 5:14
Incredible, incredible, it's interesting. We can talk about that for ages. In fact, my wife and I are discussing whether we should do a podcast series quite separately around. We're calling ourselves high tech hippies and and because I'm deep and she is deep in technology, and so it's not that we want to go fully off grid although we're pretty close to that point now but we want to have the best of everything around sustainability and you know, from from field to plate been a very short distance. But we we also love technology and so I have everything automated. All my watering systems are automated, they're all timer based. I I have flood trays for all my seedlings of my greenhouse and things like that. So I maximise the use of technology as well in everything that I do. So it's it's it's it's it's it's it's Interesting mix.

Kerry Peters: 6:09
That's awesome. I have a friend who I'm in deep discussion with about the Internet of Things related to beekeeping, and we're discussing how we can set up scales to measure the honey production, because the honey production through the year ebbs and flows, because of course, that's what the bees used to eat, and when we harvest the honey, we only take a certain amount because we want to make sure that they have enough For their own needs, and we could really tell a lot about what's going to happen with bees in the next 30 days by exactly how much the hive weighs. So a simple thing that I'd love to be able to monitor with my phone.

Mark Smith: 6:42
Yeah, and I mean that sounds really doable. You know permanent scales underneath, connected to Wi-Fi, you could be in business Anyhow. There'll be listeners that are like why I took your list rubbish and not talking about business apps Specifically for you, business central, is that right? Yeah, tell us about how you got into it, what was your journey and and a bit about your business.

Kerry Peters: 7:08
Yeah Gosh, how did I get into all this MVP stuff? So I started as an end user. I was a controller for a company who was a coffee roastry and they used Business Central. Back then it was a vision, before it was even NAV, and I found that I didn't have a whole lot of resources out there to help me understand how to use the software. So I started going to conferences and talking with other people and asking them endless questions about how they would solve particular business problems and very quickly I found myself presenting on how I was solving things and teaching classes on how to use the software in a better way, and started my first blog in 2012, where I talked to all about financial reporting, which you would think was the most boring topic in the world, but I love it and every company needs it. So since then, I've worked for a couple of other companies as an end user. I worked for a partner for a while, got some experience there, and the thing that I learned that I loved about Business Central in particular and this particular industry is I really like teaching people how they can do more with the software that they already have. They buy this package of software and there are so many things that they can do with it, and we all talk about how companies don't use nearly enough of the features. So that's really my personal mission in life is to make sure that people understand how to use more of the software and really to use it out of the box, with understanding how business process works, along with the software and a little bit of training, and that's where the company where new view strategies started. We started focusing purely on training and then expanded our consulting services into business process improvement, and it's a joy to work with these companies who are really struggling. They've already invested in the software, but they just don't know how to use it well enough, and to go in there and teach them a few things, help them understand how to change some processes and then be able to establish that relationship over time to help their company grow by more fully utilizing this tool is incredibly satisfying, and the team that I've built in this process is even more passionate than I am about it, so we have a great time together just helping companies to do better.

Mark Smith: 9:30
I like that. I want to index on that word that you use their passionate about it, because what I notice in the business central community, if we look at the whole landscape of business apps but we focus on the biz, the central community, it seems to be a passion in there that transcends the other products in the suite. And what I'm talking about is you know, I I in my career is 20 years in business applications I've I have not seen FNO people get so excited as I see biz apps. People get about their product and and I hear words, like you know, I get to touch all parts of the product. I don't have to specialize in one specific area like supply chain or warehousing or something like that. I can get into all of it. And I end and this is in a world and I might get smacked on the hand for this where I don't believe Microsoft internally promote business central anywhere near to the degree they promote finance operations, ce, the other products right. Yet with the transition from NAV to BC, bc just seems to have taken off and has created a community of fanatics on the technology. Why, how did that come about? Why do you think that's and why isn't Microsoft replicated in other products?

Kerry Peters: 10:58
Yeah Well, I don't know if I can answer why Microsoft hasn't replicated in the other products, although maybe I could. I would say that we could follow the dollars right, but let's follow the value of what happens with that software. It was one of the first ones to be cloud-based. It was one of the first ones to be subscription-based. While that was challenging for some companies to make that leap, and still continues to be challenging for some companies today, companies who are moving over to the new platforms and the new technologies are experiencing such wonderful, beautiful incremental updates all the time to their software. It's completely solved the problem that we've had for decades now of, well, customer, you're going to have to upgrade and it's going to cost you X and it's going to be massive. That's just the way it is. Now we can have smaller problems, which are this new feature showed up and I want to use it and I don't know how. Well, great. Let me show you how I think that that has made it better. It's also just the ability to more easily integrate locking down the main code, so that we didn't have a billion different instances of the software out there where each company had their own version of the software locking down the primary code was huge, because now when we build extensions, we can truly plug those in and we don't have so many versions out there that customers have customized. They're doing it smarter. I think Microsoft has made some really great key decisions there that have made it a lot more easy to work with. Honestly, I think it's made it a lot more reachable for more customers. They can have a broader slice and on both ends of the spectrum. It's not just people who are coming from QuickBooks, but it's people who are coming from FNO and other enterprise products from both ends. They hadn't experienced that in the past.

Mark Smith: 12:55
Yeah, that's the other thing. I know it's hard to get marketing and messaging right. What you've told me there is that Microsoft is deeply invested in it and they are doing these incremental releases. Is it disconnect? Just on the marketing side, the big beast in the house is finance and ops and therefore they're going to promote that heavily. And whatever gets collected in the vortex behind type thing is BC. Um, what are your?

Kerry Peters: 13:26
thoughts. They have different seasons. So you know they've got their list of priorities, just like any other business. But they do put emphasis on different areas. With each of the different releases Over the last five years, I would say I'm seeing more emphasis in multiple areas instead of one at a time, which is good, because then you don't have the finance people always getting something in the warehouse, people getting it every two years, you're having everybody get a little bit more. And then they're always focusing on overall usability every single release. So the overall usability just gets better and better and the continuity that they have with their office products has been fantastic. It's become more and more intuitive. Where people just get it, they understand what shortcuts to use, because there aren't differences between the two different suites. They understand how to send information into and out of other softwares where that really makes sense. But I think that they're doing a good job of actually putting more and more volume of released information every time. You know we used to see, you know, 10 years ago, a thimble full of new updates that would come for one area and everybody would kind of sigh and say, well, maybe my group will be next year. Now we have people complaining that they can't keep up, and that's a great problem to have, because they're getting new functionality and you know. The other thing that's really cool, mark, is Microsoft has done an excellent job of showing the customers how they listen to feedback for this product, where they collect feedback in a public space, they allow people to vote on it and when they put it out in the release notes, they specifically show this came from a customer recommendation. And what better thing to make the customers really feel valued and for the consultants who work with the product to say listen, if this is something that you really feel strongly about, give your input, because I can tell you, two months ago my suggestion got included with the product. I think that's amazing.

Mark Smith: 15:28
I think it's critically important because we live in a world now where you know you buy a product and 20 minutes later you get a survey to how good was the product. We haven't even shipped it yet. You know, and you're asking me now for more information. I gave you my money. You don't get my free survey. That wasn't part of the deal. And part of how I feel and I assume I'm a representative here is that people have sent out surveys because that's the thing we do, but there's a feeling that they never acted on. We never see visibility, we never see a result from it. So you know, I work in a big corporation. I get internal surveys all the time. I never fill in a single one of them, never, ever because I'm like there is no evidence of anybody else filling them in that has created any change, so why am I doing it? Everybody's been tasked to create surveys and send them out. That's very interesting that by tagging to the feedback that has come from the people using the system, of course people are going to go hey, that's tangible, maybe my idea is going to get included. I think it's amazing.

Kerry Peters: 16:34
And what a great way for Microsoft to get new ideas on exactly how to improve the software. We've got a giant list that's coming direct from customers and direct from partners, telling them exactly what they need to do next.

Mark Smith: 16:48
Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Now here's another little. What will we call it? We'll call it a maybe a misconception or wrong mindset in the industry that business central is only really good for small to medium enterprises and doesn't play in the enterprise end of town. Now, why I bring this up is because I was interviewing somebody else earlier this week who works for the company I work for and I said how many BC Consultants do we have? He said oh, around 600. And I was like what? I had no idea, and I've been working here two years, you know. And then and he was like yeah, and he reeled off three big corporate brand names, global brands.

Kerry Peters: 17:35
Yeah, I think that it's all about the fact that the definition of enterprise has changed, so enterprise, software and enterprise companies no longer live in a bubble where they're just this big company all on their own. Think about all of the mergers and acquisitions activity that we see out there. When we have that we have this giant hub and spoke structure of companies that are using all sorts of different software, and a lot of those enterprise companies are starting to use products like business central to say, okay, we're acquiring you, here is your software that's appropriately sized to your company, that we can also integrate with and bring up to consolidate all of our information together, so that the mergers and acquisition activity is a big deal there at the hub and spoke model that people are using more and more and it's not even as formal as that. It's that you know, this is our method and how we do. That is part of it. And I think, too, that the feature set has come up, where we have the ability because it's cloud based, because we don't have the limitations of on premise anymore, that that extends the ability to move to enterprise corporations even without that type of activity.

Mark Smith: 18:47
Yeah, amazing. You mentioned business process improvement before, and that's one of the things that you you do a lot of as as part of that, are you using power automate when it comes to any automations on that? What's the level from your perspective of power automate? Power apps, the power platform in general, are being used in the context of business central.

Kerry Peters: 19:14
Right, I think it's still in its infancy. So we made it a point in the last three years to really focus on increasing our professional acumen in those areas so that we're ready to be able to put those type of improvements in place for our customers, and what we've found is that, by and large, they're not quite ready for it yet. It's a little bit too too much. So I think that that will happen as more and more companies see concrete examples of what they can do. A lot of the demos and things that we've seen marketing these products haven't really resonated with the customers and until they see some really good examples of how people are using that in a way that's truly impactful, where they're actually getting you know, measurable ROI out of using that, they're not ready to take that leap into new technology. I would say power bi is the exception that we have great adoption of power bi across the board, but power bi had a three to five year lead on all the other products. So the capability is there, but the level of acceptance is not quite there yet.

Mark Smith: 20:24
Yeah, so true, so true. Final question, because our time has gone so quickly Tell me about your journey as an MVP. I see you've won multiple awards from the user group, community granted awards and so you've obviously been very active in the community. Tell me about you know life as an MVP, what's it been for you, your journey to becoming an MVP and any, any tip bits recommendations you'd have to other aspiring MVPs.

Kerry Peters: 20:53
Yeah, I would say that the thing that really led me to be passionate about pursuing the MVP and continuing to pursue the MVP is that I realized that I could reach so many more people by being an MVP than what I could with was not being an MVP. So I was very involved with the national level user groups and I've gotten an all star award and a legend award, and that's all great. The MVP broadens the field so that I can talk to more people. I have more opportunities like talking with you on podcasts like this because of that designation, and I feel very strongly that getting that message out there that business process improvement is possible and that all you need is training and an expert to help you to do more with the investment that you have. Being able to talk to thousands of people instead of hundreds of people makes that worth it for me. I would say that the key to getting to that spot was will be willing to give away your information, give away your knowledge, give away your expertise. Don't expect to be compensated for it, and I know a lot of mbps would Differ with me on that, but I will tell you that I have received far more back in rewards from giving that information away and I have never had anybody rip me off With the stuff that I've put out there, because I've had lots of people give me that advice that you'll you know you give away too much or you know somebody's gonna take your idea great. If they take my idea and it makes them better, fantastic, I'm all for it. So the advice that I would have for other people put yourself out there so be willing to speak on a panel or speak with somebody else about a topic that you're passionate about, or write a couple of articles or start a blog Any of that information that you can give out there and then be willing to help people. So I've mentored individuals. I've mentored companies different not for profits where I've said I'll be happy to give you a few hours of my time To help you with your business processes and you know what I get great referrals from those people eventually. So all that stuff really comes together to make that possible and I really encourage especially women to put themselves out there, don't wait to be invited, raise your hand, get involved and say I want to do this. And say it more than one time and say it to more than one person. I was a little timid when I started out eventually, and it took me more than a few years from when I started my blog to when I got my MVP, and if I would have had somebody in the background, hopefully like me, encouraging me, I probably would have accomplished that faster. So find somebody who's willing to be an advocate for you but, more importantly, be an advocate for yourself and just put yourself out there and take the risk. You're gonna fall down and you're gonna make yourself look foolish at least a few times when you're doing this, but that's okay because we have all done it. We've all had weird technical problems on some type of a webinar, we've all had a computer that failed during a presentation, and you know what your passion and your knowledge shines through anyways, and that's what really makes you an MVP.

Mark Smith: 24:22
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 guy. Thanks again and see you next time.