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The Catch Up Podcast

The Catch Up Podcast

著者： Catch Resource Management
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The Catch Up Podcast brings you candid conversations with industry leaders, consultants, and change-makers from the Microsoft Dynamics and tech ecosystem. Hosted by Phillip Blackmore, Sales Director at Catch Resource Management, each episode dives into the real stories behind business transformation, career pivots, and scaling success. Expect thoughtful interviews, practical insights, and honest reflections. Brought to you by Catch Resource Management, a leading UK recruitment specialist for Microsoft Dynamics and ERP talent, this podcast is your inside track to the people shaping the future of enterprise technology.Catch Resource Management マネジメント マネジメント・リーダーシップ 経済学
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  • Elizabeth Foy on Building Teams and Delivering D365 at Scale

    Elizabeth Foy on Building Teams and Delivering D365 at Scale
    2026/06/08
    What really happens behind the scenes of a multi-million-pound ERP programme, and why do so many still fail?In this episode of the Catch Up Podcast, host Phillip Blackmore sits down with Elizabeth Foy, Head of Customer Transformation at 5Y Technology, to explore her journey from KPMG auditor to leader of large-scale D365 and SAP implementations. Elizabeth shares candid insights on the chaos that lurks beneath polished programme reports, the critical importance of change management, and why surrounding yourself with people who will challenge you is non-negotiable.With research from Gartner indicating that more than 70% of ERP initiatives fail to fully meet their original business goals, Elizabeth's first-hand experience offers a practical counterweight to the optimistic demos and happy-path scenarios that so often mislead boards. From the dangers of watermelon reporting to knowing your pain points before you even invite an SI into the room, this conversation is essential listening for anyone embarking on, or already knee-deep in, a complex transformation programme.(00:00) - Welcome to the Catch Up Podcast (01:52) - From Milk Rounds to KPMG: A Career without a Plan (10:56) - Standing between SAP and the Business (17:44) - Advice for Those Starting a Career in Transformation (18:59) - Building Teams from Diverse Backgrounds (27:06) - Embracing Challenge and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome (29:27) - Why Change Management Makes or Breaks a Programme (36:45) - Finding Your Champions and Spreading Good Vibes (39:50) - What Makes a Great Programme Manager (45:09) - Surrounding Yourself with the Right People (47:49) - Essential Homework before Starting a D365 JourneyElizabeth Foy: Elizabeth Foy is Head of Customer Transformation at 5Y Technology, where she leads the delivery of complex finance transformation and D365 implementation programmes. A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (FCA) and ICAEW Business and Finance Professional, she holds a First Class Honours degree in Business Studies. Elizabeth's career began at KPMG, where she built a foundation in process mapping and audit before moving into industry roles spanning retail, logistics, software and manufacturing. She has led end-to-end ERP implementations across SAP and Microsoft Dynamics 365, combining deep finance expertise with hands-on experience in FP&A, business intelligence, and organisational change. She is a regular contributor on LinkedIn, writing about the intersection of finance, data trust and AI adoption. Episode Insights:Change management is the single biggest determinant of programme success or failure, yet organisations routinely leave it until the final stages before UAT, by which time rumour and resistance have already taken hold.Process mapping, often seen as mundane early-career work, is one of the most valuable skills a transformation professional can develop, because it builds the cross-functional understanding needed to bridge IT and business.Watermelon reporting, where status dashboards show green at board level while the programme is red underneath, is a recurring pattern that stems from a culture where teams are afraid to deliver bad news.Organisations that skip the upfront work of defining current pain points, target outcomes and clear guardrails almost inevitably see scope creep, budget overruns and misaligned expectations.Building a diverse programme team of blending auditors, super users, early-career professionals and senior practitioners creates the breadth of perspective needed to catch blind spots and sustain momentum.Action Points:Know where you are before you decide where you're going: Before engaging an SI or starting product demos, map your current pain points, data landscape and process bottlenecks at a high level. You do not need exhaustive process documentation, but you do need an honest picture of what is tripping the business up today so you can test every design decision against it.Define your guardrails and communicate them early: Establish a clear project charter that states what the programme is and is not. Surface those guardrails regularly so that when someone requests a costly customisation, you can assess it against agreed boundaries rather than making ad hoc decisions that inflate scope and budget.Bring change management in from day one: Do not wait until training is due to start communicating. Craft a clear message about why the programme exists and what it will enable, then identify credible champions at each site who can carry that message into teams. If you leave a communication void, rumour and fear will fill it for you.Seek out the challengers, not just the cheerleaders: Recruit team members and super users who will push back and ask difficult questions. Yes-people feel comfortable but hide risk. The person who says "yes, but what about this?" is often the one who saves the programme from a costly surprise at go live.Build traceability from strategy to go live: ...
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    56 分
  • James Brentley on Why Relationships Still Win in the Age of AI

    James Brentley on Why Relationships Still Win in the Age of AI
    2026/04/30
    What does it really take to build a Microsoft Dynamics consultancy that grows year on year, treats people like the product and stays sane through the AI bubble?In this episode of The Catch Up Podcast, host Phillip Blackmore is joined by James Brentley, founder of AgileCadence, for a candid conversation that traces his journey from teenage Flash developer at Sheffield Hallam, through early Axapta days at eBecs, projects at Tribal Group, Stemcor and the landmark Dentsu Aegis programme, to launching his own firm in 2012.They explore why James walked away from London to build a remote-first consultancy long before that was normal, how a near-burnout reshaped his definition of success, and why values like transparent, authentic and generous now sit at the core of every commercial decision. Against a backdrop where BCG forecasts 50 to 55 per cent of US jobs will be reshaped by AI over the next two to three years, James offers a refreshingly human take on AI: not as a faster typewriter, but as a way to release cognitive load and deepen client relationships.(00:00) - Welcome to The Catch Up Podcast (01:41) - Sheffield Hallam, Web Design and a 2:1 (05:02) - First Steps at eBecs and the World of Axapta (08:15) - The AOT, E-Alerts and Snake (10:15) - Burnout, the Outdoors and a Return to Tech (14:19) - Tribal Group, AX 2012 and the Isle of Man (21:44) - London, Stemcor and Going Independent (23:23) - DevOps for Dynamics and Dentsu Aegis at Scale (27:16) - Personal Loss and the Pivot to Remote Working (29:53) - Founding AgileCadence: Values over Money (37:26) - The AI Bubble, Cognitive Load and People-First Tech (48:35) - Choosing the Right System and Looking AheadJames Brentley: James Brentley is the founder and owner of AgileCadence, a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Business Applications headquartered in Perth, Scotland, specialising in Microsoft Dynamics 365, licensing, Azure and managed services. After early roles at eBecs, Tribal Group, Stemcor and Dentsu Aegis, he founded the firm in 2012 (originally trading as T3 Synergy) and has grown it into a team serving around 40 SMB and mid-market customers across the UK, with reported year-on-year growth in the region of 25 per cent and around 80 per cent of revenue coming from repeat business. AgileCadence opened a permanent Aberdeen office in 2025 and was recognised at the UK's Best Workplaces Awards 2026. Episode Insights:Walking away from a stable career to build something of your own does not require a perfect plan. eBecs gave James a working blueprint that showed grit, determination and a clear culture could build a serious tech business in a regional UK town.Burnout is part of the journey for many tech professionals, but the answer is rarely to leave the industry for good. James left for the outdoor sector, learnt the grass really is greener but the money is not, and returned to build a more sustainable career.A clear, lived set of values, transparent, authentic, generous, fun, empathetic and exceptional, has become AgileCadence's commercial filter for choosing customers and projects, not just an internal poster on the wall.AI risks becoming an AI-to-AI loop of emails and documents that strips out genuine value. The opportunity is to use it to release cognitive load and deepen human relationships, not replace them.Microsoft's own narrative is shifting from Copilot as a faster typewriter toward Copilot Cowork and agentic capabilities, which makes how leaders frame AI to their teams more important than which licences they buy.Action Points:Pick a system you can secure, then commit: James's advice for any leader thinking about D365 Finance and Operations or another ERP is to choose a platform you can genuinely secure and stand behind, rather than chasing the greenest grass. Treat security as central, not bolt-on, and resist hopping between platforms in search of a perfect fit that does not exist. The competitive edge is in how well you implement and run it, not which logo you pick.Use AI to release cognitive load, not to slash headcount: Map the routine, low-value work that drains your best people every day and apply AI there first. Reinvest the time saved into customer relationships, deeper discovery and quality of delivery, so your team becomes ten times better at what they already do. As Microsoft moves from Copilot to Copilot Cowork, build that mindset into how you measure productivity.Make your values a commercial filter: Write down the three to six values you actually live by, then apply them to your sales pipeline and hiring as rigorously as you apply them to operations. If a deal would push you to break those values, walk away. Over time, the customers who share them deliver the repeat business that compounds growth and protects culture.Always be on the right side of the bar: Use the framing James borrows from his Sheffield student days as a sense check on career and business choices. Ask whether each decision puts you closer to building durable value, ...
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    53 分
  • From Chartered Accountant to Enterprise Architect: Rohit Bansal on Building a Dynamics Career

    From Chartered Accountant to Enterprise Architect: Rohit Bansal on Building a Dynamics Career
    2026/03/26
    What does it take to deliver Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations at true enterprise scale, without losing users, control, or the upgrade path?In this episode of The Catch Up Podcast, host Phillip Blackmore speaks with Rohit Bansal about a non-linear career journey from ACCA-qualified finance professional to enterprise architect working on some of the largest global programmes in the Dynamics ecosystem.Rohit shares hard-won lessons from an early AX 2009 implementation that went badly, and why negative project experiences can become a practical playbook for what not to do next time. They explore the reality of moving from end user to partner, the cultural differences between client and consultancy priorities, and why the strongest programmes keep key responsibilities in-house, particularly process definition, testing, and training.They also dig into how the product has evolved from AX into D365, why heavy customisation now creates recurring pain through frequent updates, and how the ISV ecosystem helps organisations stay closer to out-of-the-box. Finally, Rohit explains how his current programme measures success after go-live, using adoption dashboards and bug trends to spot where rollout teams need to adjust.(00:00) - Welcome to The Catch Up Podcast (02:16) - From Finance Controller to AX 2009 Project Lead (04:33) - The Bad Partner Lesson and Moving Into Consulting (07:07) - Why Methodology Matters and How Partners Differ (08:29) - End User Versus Partner: The Culture Shock (10:53) - Why Consulting Accelerates Learning Across Clients (12:25) - Users Make Projects Succeed or Fail (14:23) - Why Contracting Made Sense for Enterprise Programmes (17:12) - How D365 Became an Enterprise Rollout Platform (21:35) - What Clients Misunderstand About Handing Over Delivery (24:07) - ISVs, Customisation and the Forced Update Reality (34:20) - Measuring Success: Adoption Metrics and Bug Trajectories (36:25) - AI Agents, Upskilling and the Future SA Role (38:44) - What Makes a Great Solution Architect (41:19) - Pre-Project Strategies: Process, Data, Testing and TrainingRohit Bansal: Rohit Bansal is an enterprise architect in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem with a background in finance and accountancy. In this episode, Rohit describes moving from an ACCA-qualified finance career into Microsoft Dynamics after serving as an internal project lead on an AX 2009 implementation, then progressing through partner work and contracting into large, multi-country D365 Finance and Operations programmes. Episode Insights:Users determine whether an ERP programme succeeds. Project plans matter, but adoption on the floor makes or breaks the outcome.Large programmes work best with a blended model. Clients should retain process definition, training, and testing to avoid conflicts of interest.The shift from AX to D365 changed the fit. D365 F&O suits large enterprise rollouts but often prices out smaller organisations.Heavy customisation is harder to justify now. Frequent service updates increase regression testing and code merge effort.A global template with controlled localisation supports a sustainable support model and upgrade path.Action Points:Retain ownership of process definition: Define your global processes before the programme starts, ideally before partner selection. Use these processes to drive solution design, not the other way round. Expect local teams to describe different ways of working, and use the global model to converge.Separate assurance from delivery: Keep testing and training in-house where possible, even when implementation work sits with a partner. Avoid asking a partner to test their own build without independent scrutiny. Use a blended approach that leverages partner skill while retaining unbiased validation.Control customisation to protect the upgrade path: Assume you will take frequent platform updates and plan for continuous regression testing. Prefer proven ISVs over bespoke build when an established solution exists. Reserve custom code for true competitive advantage, not convenience.Design an adoption dashboard before go-live: Decide what adoption looks like per function, such as AP, AR, supply chain, and production. Track month-on-month operational volume and compare sites to spot where training or process clarity is failing. Share progress visually with users to reinforce value and momentum.Treat rollout architecture as global-first: Build a global template with limited, controlled localisation. Challenge any request that makes the core model work for only a subset of the enterprise. Protect live sites by assessing how local changes affect current and future deployments.The Catch Up Podcast brings you candid conversations with industry leaders, consultants, and change-makers from the Microsoft Dynamics and tech ecosystem. Hosted by Phillip Blackmore, Sales Director at Catch Resource Management, each episode dives into the real stories behind business transformation, career pivots, and scaling success. ...
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    46 分
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