International Women’s Day — Inspiring colleagues: Cindy Haast

Hi, I'm Cindy and I am in tech: focused on providing clients with the right tools to cultivate their business.

When people ask me what I do, I always struggle to answer it in short sentence. 'Being in tech' can mean many different things to people.

When I say in am in tech, the majority of people think I sit down and write lots of computer code or that I can fix their printer. 'You are good with computers' tends to be a standard response…But then, what does it mean when I talk about cultivating a business?

If someone had said to me 25 years ago, I would have a career in tech, I would not have believed it. I come from a Sales & Marketing background, working in the industry for over 20 years, dealing with customers and selling them a product or service. To be honest, my move to tech happened by accident.

About 6 years ago I started my own business with the view of providing business consultancy services to organisations, such as traditional Marketing and Business Development support. My partner ran a small Microsoft Managed Service Business and needed help on a Dynamics 365 Finance implementation. So I provided support to the Project Manager, then quickly worked under contract as the Business Analyst for this client.

After this successful first project, I started to look into the software from a Sales & Marketing perspective, to align back with my experience in industry and my business aspirations. In doing so, I attended some short Microsoft courses on Dynamics 365 for Sales and Dynamics 365 for Marketing.

I learned that Dynamics 365 is an off-the-shelf software that can be used for managing customers and marketing communications. I really liked the look and feel for it, and before I knew it my business evolved and I started work as a functional consultant, then later I became Microsoft Certified as a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Solution Architect.

So how can I best describe what I do?

Well, I use Microsoft Dynamics 365 role-based applications to help businesses improve their day-to-day Customer Engagement and Finance & Operations interactions and processes. And, as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) for over 5 years now, I teach other people about how to set up and get the most out of these role-based applications, to empower them to improve efficiencies and performance in the workplace.

To top this off, I also teach about Microsoft Power Platform, where through no code / low code, people can tailor the out-of-the-box Dynamics 365 applications to their business needs and build their own applications, their own automation, run business intelligence report and even create chatbots!

Yes, there is a lot to learn about all these different applications. For example, Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement covers Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service and Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations covers Finance, Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing, Project and HR. I am glad to be able to draw upon my experience from industry, so it is only the tech side I needed to learn – and even that is largely process-orientated.

My advice: pick a topic that interests you and then you can delve into the detail of the technical side of things. Every business works with software and the choice of software often has an impact on how the company operates, and how they find efficiencies and improve performance in the workplace. It is very rewarding to be part of those discussions and to be part of the continuous improvement process.

I am glad to see more women joining the training courses for Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365. Bearing in mind, successful functional consultants are not only deeply involved in tech, but have also strong analytical and problem-solving skills, excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and the ability to work effectively in a team environment. Women potentially have stronger emotional intelligence and communication skills. Therefore, do not doubt yourself and the value you can add to the team! 

You all have life skills and potentially already some work experience before you go into IT, and you can draw upon those skills. Do not feel outnumbered just because you are in room full of men; men experience the same feeling when they are in a room full of women! Focus on adding value to the team by recognising your own strengths. It's not about being male or female, it is not even about the being the smartest person in the room. Being successful in tech is often about bringing the smartest people together and foster a positive workplace where communication and ideas flow openly.

What I enjoy most in my job, is teaching others about all the cool stuff that is possible with a piece of Microsoft software. With technology moving on at a rapid pace, there is always something new to learn and something new to explore—it’s fun to explore all the functionalities together and to keep in touch with the industry for case studies on how and where people are implementing new ways of working.

If this sounds like it is something that might interest you, just follow your aspirations—who knows where they may lead!