Gill Walker lives and breathes the importance of education in customer relationship management success

Since the early 1990s, Gill Walker has been living and breathing customer relationship management. And since 2002 she has dedicated herself to Microsoft CRM, as it was then known. Gill's hard work and dedication was recognized this year with the Microsoft MVP award, which she sees as a "thank you" for her work supporting the community.

Since 2004, Gill has headed Opsis, a Sydney-based Dynamics 365 boutique business consultancy focused on business success with CRM.

With the job title of Principal CRM Success Catalyst, Gill oversees operations, strategic planning, and execution at Opsis, which services clients in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, and across Australia. Gill is also the creator of SuccessRM, an education-led implementation program that she developed which boosts the probability of CRM success.

MSDW reached out to Gill Walker to learn more about her work with Microsoft technologies, her community involvement, and her outlook on what CRM customers should expect from their investments.

MSDW: What is your history in the Dynamics space?

GW: I have been working with Microsoft [CRM-related products] since 2002. I cut my teeth on Microsoft CRM v1.0beta. I have been the Principal CRM Success Catalyst at Opsis since 2004. Opsis is a boutique CRM consultancy focused on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. We provide consulting, training, support, advice, and CRM strategy, including establishing a centre of excellence.

How and when did you get involved with the community?

GW: I have been actively involved in the D365 community for about four years. Prior to stepping up to the lead of the Sydney BizApps group, I was a member of the leadership team, bringing my event management and speaking skills to the group, and I frequently spoke at events.

What are your recent presentation themes?

GW: Most of my presentations are people-focused, rather than technical. For the May Sydney BizApps meeting I spoke on 'We are moving to the cloud / Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online. Why do we need……?' In February, I spoke on 'How a Centre of Excellence will deliver success to your D365 project' and last October I spoke on 'Scoping your CRM for Success'. Last year, I spoke at the Scottish Summit on 'Seven Sins of D365 Training', and on 'Transforming your Tech Talks to hit your target audience' at Sydney Ignite in 2020.

How has training your clients changed and how have you adapted? 

GW: COVID has radically changed how many previously office-based people work. This has had both positive and negative effects. Prior to COVID, training was already seen as an activity that could be cut if the project ran out of time or budget.

Technical training has also had issues with a lack of appreciation of the skills of training. Effective training in any skills requires more than the relevant skill knowledge. I explain this as training anything requires three bodies of skill:

• knowledge of level one of the topic,
• knowledge of level two of the topic, and
• knowledge of communicating to people with a range of learning styles.

Level one is the topic material to be taught, level two is knowledge outside of the material being taught that enables the trainer to answer more challenging, curly questions.

Successful learning in technical skills requires far more than hearing or watching the material once. Understanding requires material that addresses the why, the what, and the how. I liken this to the difference between navigating using a GPS compared to a list of written instructions. The GPS is still useful when you are forced to change. Fully understanding practical skills requires hands-on experience in doing the skill and some problem solving.

So an effective training course requires a trainer:

• Who knows the topic in significantly more depth than the material to be covered.
• Who can present that material in a variety of ways to allow for the different learning styles.
• Who can tell when a training participant is struggling.

Training has become far more virtual, and while this does boost flexibility and saves money, it can also reduce quality. Virtual training means that groups can be larger than previously because location is now not relevant. This reduces the time available to each person from the trainer, which means that struggling people are less likely to be noticed.

A problem that has existed since before COVID but has been made far worse by the virtual training afforded by COVID is using trainers who do not have top-notch language and are therefore lacking in the key communication skills.

An additional problem with virtual training is that many courses are run using virtual meeting software tools. These allow the training participants to effectively be absent from the training, i.e., without their cameras and microphones active, and do not allow the trainer to discretely view a screen. In an in-person training session, a good trainer can bring people back into the session far more readily than in a virtual session.

What trends in key business processes or ISV technology are you seeing?

GW: Artificial intelligence is the obvious one. I am excited to get my hands on Copilot once it is available outside the U.S.

What do you see as the biggest challenges for Dynamics customers and partners in the next few years?

GW: The speed of evolution of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the technology more generally. Generation Z will soon form a large proportion of the workforce. Compared to Gen X and Baby Boomers, members of Gen Z prefer to figure things out for themselves. This can be problematic for software use where business processes should be followed and implementations where those processes need to be created.

Just-in-time learning is favoured by Gen Z as it suits their unstructured approach. Just-in-time learning feels good but often does not give good overall learning outcomes because it focuses on the 'how' and omits the 'why'. In turn this means that people end up with different opinions about the processes and the reasons behind them. This can lead to inaccurate data and hence poor reporting.