 Hey, this is Christian Buckley with another MVP Buzz Chat, and I have the pleasure of interviewing a dual MVP and fellow Microsoft Regional Director Tobias. Hey, good evening for you. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's indeed the evening, rather late evening right now. But so very happy to have you. Thanks for inviting me. Well, why don't you introduce yourself, like who you are, where you are, and what you do? Yeah, my name's Tobias Fenster. As you just said, I'm from Germany, actually Southern Germany. So the two bigger cities that are nearer that you might have heard of is Munich and Stuttgart. So we're kind of in between in a smaller city. That's where I actually grew up. But I didn't travel for a long time for far away. And actually, it's always been the same place that I've been staying. Traveled a lot for work, of course, but that's my home, basically. I have a family of two small kids. And on the business side, as you already said, I'm a dual Microsoft MVP both for business applications and for Azure, started off on the business application side. And as that more and more moved towards Azure, I did more things on Azure. The company I worked for started to move into the Azure direction. And so it was kind of a natural progression that came up. And then last year, I had the great honor and also a bit of a surprise that I was accepted as a regional director. So I'm fairly new to that program as well. Well, excellent. It's great to have you. And I have to say, so the first time I was visiting a client down Stuttgart in the auto industry, and I was somebody caught wind that I was gonna be in the area and I ended up speaking to the user group there at one of, it wasn't, I'm thinking, it wasn't an auto museum. I think it was like a storage facility, like beautiful glass walls, you know, with very expensive cars. And the conference room was upstairs with glass looking out on all these beautiful vehicles everywhere. And yeah, so that was my first visit to the region. I've been down two or three other times, but it's a beautiful part of the country down there. Yeah, it really automotive is the weird part. You have Daimler, so Mercedes, and you have Porsche, basically the same city. And then like 250 kilometers away, there's BMW and then Audi is also not far away. So that's really an automotive region overall. Yep, well, it's great. Well, so let's kind of dive in the things that I know that you're very active in the community. No, none of us are traveling and other plans. I think I saw that it's like, you're not hopeful about doing any in-person events for the rest of the calendar year. You know, I think it's a good strategy, but I think it's realistic for a lot of regions. But what are the kinds of things that you're actively talking about, presenting about, writing about? Yeah, so on the business application side, I'm mostly working with Business Central. I'm coming from a Business Central background like the last 10 years. And the company that I now work for, Cosmo Consult, is also having a broader spectrum. So I've started to look into F and SEM and customer engagement and Power Apps and so on. But really my strongest background is on Business Central. So that's what I'm writing about, but really not on the functional side. I'm very much on the technical side. So things like Docker containers, I kind of was on the forefront when those got established on the Business Central side. That's where I'm writing a lot about Azure DevOps as a tooling platform done a lot in the last couple of years. And then because I started my career as a developer, also Visual Studio Code and Dev Containers and the kind of thing that's more on the development side. And then, yeah, of course also Azure related things, automation mostly. I'm really, that's one of the not so, let's say unusual mantras, but something that I really, really like to think about a lot is everything that can be automated, should be automated. Of course, always there are limits even to that, but that's really something that I strongly believe in. And I really hate to do things twice. So it's my own inspiration and also a lot of the benefits that I can see. So I'm also talking and sharing about that. So I know that, so you're also, you have in your profile, so you talk about working with Dynamics Nav. I think you're the first person I've interviewed through this series and you're like number 112, I think, that has done anything on the ERP side. I mean, that used to be a little bit of my past world and it's just, it hasn't been in 20 plus years. Is it that long? Yeah, almost, it's thinking back. Wow, not quite that. So 16 years since I was in that space, but working with high-tech manufacturing companies and trying to automate a lot of that manufacturing and the collaboration. That's actually how I moved into the collaboration space was working with manufacturing companies and taking the very process-centric, the manufacturing process, helping them to halt that manufacturing process, do a redesign, a rejigger something about it and then understand the impacts of the design changes but collaborate around that change and then restart that process. And it's a, I mean, it's fascinating from a technology and automation standpoint. But like I said, I've not been paying attention to as much to that sector in the last 15 plus years. But what's kind of going on from a Microsoft perspective around that side? Yeah, I mean, the big story of course is that NAV has done a major rehaul around 2009, between 2009, 2010, 2011, something like that. They went from the old technology stack to a three tier architecture SQL server as a backend. So that's now in IT terms already ancient history, but that was a big change. And then in recent years, they moved from, again, the old development style having CL as a programming language and an integrated development environment into Visual Studio Code. So that's now really a modern state of the art environment. When I first joined the NAV world and they showed me how all of this works and there was no version control, you had to write comments when you wanted to track changes, you had to manually extend the database size. And I actually came from a Java world using Eclipse and tools like that. And I was, okay, you're kidding, right? That can't possibly be how you're doing professional development. So that was really something where I was always torn. You saw the progress and then it was something like 2015 or 2016 when they showed, okay, now we have autocomplete in the IDE. And I was like, it's nice, but maybe 10 years too late. So it really felt good that they made a big step forward in the last couple of years. And if you now look at the landscape, I think BC is really in a good position in working with modern technology. As I said, they picked up Docker containers as a mechanism relatively early, are strongly pushing that one. Then Visual Studio Code is really my personal favorite environment, even if I'm not doing business central stuff or instead anything else, I'm still a tend to use Visual Studio Code. So I'm very happy with that decision. Oh yeah, I really think since outgrowing NAV and going into business central, a lot of good things have happened to the technology stack there. Well, you just reminded me of the, talking about the way of doing source code management. At the beginning of my career, I was a tech writer and a business analyst and part of my role working for a consulting company in California was to work with the engineering team to make sure I documented all of the changes and go in and add them to the comments, you know. And then the paper, that was still paper-based documentation and then update the binders. That was a lot of fun. It was a good job. You can't imagine, yeah. Yeah, I think things have really changed a lot around that. Well, it's interesting. I think broadly looking across the dynamic space, again, I've not been as familiar with what's been happening outside of the Dynamics 365 side of things that for a while just things were so quiet we used to question whether Microsoft was really taking seriously, like what's actually happening with these other brands and the acquisitions Microsoft made in that space. And, you know, so what kind of, what's changing? What's, you know, what's kind of driving the growth that's happening now? I mean, if you look at it just like a few years back you had the Exapta or AX world, you had NAV, Navision and then you had Great Plains and you had Solomon. So it was really not easy to understand where Microsoft was going. Then they had things like Project Green where it seemed like they wanna move to one platform. Then actually the first time that I went to a big conference in North America the head of business central or at that time NAV came up and basically said, okay, the NAV is a thing of the past. We're only offering white label anymore. And there was a big uproar and they had to reverse that decision. And as far as I know that that also was a tough one for a lot of people inside Microsoft. But nowadays it looks like the GP people are more and more moving over to business central. And also Solomon, I'm not seeing a lot of that anymore. Of course, AX has moved into finance and supply chain management. So that's a big thing. But it looks like it has stabilized around those two offerings finance and supply chain management on the one side and business central on the other side. And you're hearing some discussions when is what the right solution do we need to put in some limitations like above that number of users it's always finance and supply chain management below that number of users it's always business central but fortunately it's dying down that kind of discussion at least I'm hearing less of that. And it's really let's look at the customer find out what they need and then make a decision based on that because there are small customers who are happy with F and SCM and there are big customers who are happy with business central and it looks like they're finding a way to keep that separated and partners are finding their niche and it seems to work for everyone. So what kinds of questions are you hearing? What are the major discussions that are happening out in the customer base now? So it's interesting to look at see what kinds of questions are coming in what kind of projects that partners are being asked to go and do that gives you a kind of a pulse on the changes that are happening and again the movement of the market. So what's kind of happening in the market? I mean the big change of course is the cloud especially on business central as you said manufacturing that's at least for my company a big focus we're basically doing a lot of different industries but that's one of the core industries and there you have a lot of traditional companies maybe with leaders who are like 50, 60 coming from a different age of IT and that is not a fault at all but they're somewhat reluctant to move into a more modern world, into a cloud world and also regionally speaking as we're working across Europe and also in Latin and Asia there's clearly a tendency to move quicker. For example in Sweden we see a lot more cloud adoption in France we see a lot more cloud adoption and the German speaking countries are somewhat slower to move on but still that's of course the big topic understanding why SaaS is a good idea understanding why that's a benefit for the customer moving to a subscription based model moving into a full SaaS environment that's really the big topics and then since lately of course digitization is a big thing we actually have that as our company mission and vision for like four or five years so we've been kind of on a forefront of that one but it really has picked up pace in the last couple of years and the whole SaaS story also picked up pace because we've seen some more security incidents you know around ransomware and that kind of thing and more and more people come to the realization do I really think I can do a better job than Microsoft securing my data? Do I really think I can responsibly say okay I have those two people they are amazingly talented and they are gonna keep my data center up and running and secure and that has also created a push where we see a lot of interest in moving to the cloud. But yeah it's, I know that you know Microsoft of course even back when bomber was still in the company was just you know cloud everything cloud pushing organizations towards that and I think they were really surprised at the pushback that happened and the resilience of the well on on-prem not so much because I think those numbers are changing it is accelerating as people you know build up that trust when they start to realize hey I can turn more of this over to Microsoft to these cloud providers and it is as good or better than my two security guys can do on their own. But that the hybrid story has really been something that is has been a lot bigger than Microsoft anticipated. Do you see that are more organizations they're comfortable with that within within your primary market is there a major difference between what you're seeing from a hybrid standpoint in Germany or do you still see a lot of on-prem? Yeah we actually the biggest part of the customer base is still on-prem but if you look at new customers that are coming in they are definitely asking what is your cloud story and even the majority is asking I only want a cloud offering and as I said in other countries in Europe we see basically 100% of the new customers going to the cloud in Germany it's a bit slower but also it's picking up speed and as you say hybrid is an interesting topic because we still have areas that are not perfectly connected to the internet so that can become an issue especially if you wanna run your shop floor or I don't know your production area or something like that through the cloud and you have a bad integration and then your production is stopped for half an hour because your connection has a problem that is of course something that you wanna provide or prevent at any cost so that is an interesting story also the whole IoT story where you can see okay might make sense to have something still on-prem very close to my sensors very close to where I have my data and then maybe the financial data can be synced into the cloud and I still have one environment but basically the data is synced here and then I can use Power BI and we're also doing something called Intelligent ERP so we have an AI component that is taking financial data making predictions about the future and then putting it back into the ERP system so things like that that there's always a hybrid part of that and it still allows the customer to have a feel good environment that the core data is still on-prem and it's secure in their data center whether that's factually true or it's just emotionally true but it's still an argument. Well I know with a lot of the supply chain solutions that were out there kind of in general even as they were embracing the cloud it was still a dedicated cloud environment they didn't trust anything outside of that network but they had some layers and some controls over and which made it really difficult for the very large Tier 1, Tier 2 suppliers that had multiple OEM relationships and having to plug into each one of those environments is just more work, more cost for them but yeah I mean obviously I always say that I do envision the future that everything will be moving towards the cloud I'm just and then I throw in my caveat which is I don't know if it'll be within my lifetime and that's why you had Microsoft even being very careful with their wording about supporting technologies on-prem and hybrid as well and removing like trying to fight hard against the perceptions that there was some end of life date on these products and Microsoft just like look we're in the business to make money our customers are asking for their demand they're not moving off this we'll continue providing it as long as financially it makes sense and it's too big you know what's the hard part is that Microsoft doesn't like to talk about those that are still on-prem or in hybrid because their focus and what their sellers are measured on are all the cloud components and then it makes it difficult to really understand that there needs to be I know I need to go and do some research again around the size, the scope of what still remains even Satya in his latest the announcements and stuff around Microsoft Viva and all that talked about we're in the second waves of digital transformation it's still these remnant on-prem and as I still believe I don't know anymore I mean the SharePoint space there's still you know I'd say over 50% that are still hybrid environments I don't have a number but all three years ago three and a half years ago it was over 70% and we have the data on that one so in three years I think it's accelerated but it's still clearly over 50% I don't know how that translates that's SharePoint world how that translates into the other areas but I just I think it's a lot bigger than Microsoft is talking about there and they're focused on the future but for partners for us and especially RDS and MVPs that are still answering customers questions and trying to devise the right solutions for them which may not be a pure cloud solution anyway yeah there's there was a gardener study it was like I think two or three years ago but they predicted that even in 2025 even two-thirds of the ERP space would still be on-prem so if you look at growth rates that's absolutely cloud cloud cloud there's no way the ERP business is growing on-prem but still there's two-thirds that are still on-prem and that's also what I'm talking about when people ask me I mean do you think the on-prem business will be stopped do you think they will stop support supporting the on-prem versions and I always say they're not gonna cut off the two-thirds of the market just for the fun of it I mean will they run promotions no will they make it cheaper no will they talk about it in fancy events no certainly not but I absolutely don't see them cutting it off because it's just a huge part of the market they can't yeah it's the reality is net new customers that are new starting up everybody's you know they're all born in the cloud they're moving towards that direction it wouldn't make sense for them to do anything otherwise but for the the folks especially like me you know the middle-aged people that have been working in this space for a long time there is going to be plenty of opportunity for the old technology or the old ways of doing things as well as the cloud certainly for the rest of my career yeah yeah it's it's not gonna go anywhere that quickly but yeah yeah I'm personally I'm really I really like to be on the edge of things trying new stuff and basically everything around that is happening in the cloud so I'm personally really drawn to the cloud but absolutely if you look at the daily business about the challenges that are there there's a long time and that we still need to at least support but also to a degree move forward cloud customers even if you're mostly forward forward working into the cloud but it's not going to go away soon if yeah if you're looking for you know customer opportunities you need to be able to work in both both sides of things and do the right thing that's the right solution for your your customers and there's only so much that you can push cloud in an organization that just is just like look we we still not you know paid off our investments that we made in this last version and it works it provides what we need and and and so they've got a longer plan to to move off that so yeah it there's there's tons of opportunity out there yeah so plenty to do definitely definitely that's for sure well Tobias really really appreciate your your time today so people want to find out more about you what's what are the best ways for them to find you and to reach out and connect with you yeah I do blog on Tobiasfenster.io that's my my homepage and where I block it try to put up something new every month something like that and then I'm also quite active on Twitter and not so much on LinkedIn but basically the usual the usual things I didn't go into the video game and like having an own channel or things like you're doing yeah I like watching it a lot yours and others but I I I've not started something like that so it's more the so to speak traditional things that that weren't there five years ago but now it feels like the traditional stuff well yeah when you have the benefit like I just you know started up with my so my new company with with App Point they have a fantastic marketing team it does a lot of so I'm gonna be doing it a lot less through my channel now that I have a team that does so much of that kind of stuff for me but but yeah no I know what to mean it there's a lot of work involved I guess I cannot well really appreciate the time to to connect and hopefully next year we'll get to hang out connect in person at the MVP and RD summits that would be great thanks for having me right talk to you soon talk to you bye