Christopher Carter of Approyo breaks down cloud migration, AI governance, and the data security risks hiding inside the tools your team uses every day.
GROWTH PILLAR: AI & Automation
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / IT leaders / Founders scaling their operations
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: A clear picture of when to upgrade business software, how to govern AI tool use across a team, and what predictive monitoring actually means for a business owner who wants to stop worrying and get back to growing.
Most business owners don't find out they have a data security problem until it's already expensive. Christopher Carter has spent 15 years helping companies fix that, before the breach, before the botched migration, before the system that was supposed to help starts slowing everything down.
Christopher is the founder and CEO of Approyo — a global tech company that guides businesses through SAP cloud migration and managed services. He also built Mugatu AI — a SaaS security platform that monitors every AI tool employees are using and stops sensitive data from leaving the building before it becomes a problem. With clients across more than 55 industries and a four-time Amazon bestselling book series on SAP, Christopher knows where the gaps are and exactly how to close them.
In this episode we cover:
Christopher is a Newsmax TV contributor, a minority owner of Carrick Rangers FC in Northern Ireland, and the kind of person who will talk SAP, soccer, or bourbon — just find him on LinkedIn.
Connect with Christopher:
— PARTNERS ON THIS EPISODE —
Property Wizard Podcast — Real estate and wealth building made practical with Fred Crouch. Worth a listen if building wealth is on your radar.
Sterling Grace Technologies — Cybersecurity, IT, and business continuity for Canadian SMBs. If your systems need a checkup, these are the people to call.
Canada Growth Network — A business community with a full CRM and automation suite built in. Real tools. Real people. $47 CAD a month.
NEXT STEPS
Bernie (00:18)
question of the audience: What if the software meant to run your business is actually the thing that's slowing you down? That's not a small problem. That's your money, your team's time, and your next stage of growth sitting in a queue. My guest today has spent 15 years helping companies from scrappy, scaling businesses to global operations.
Turning their business systems into real competitive advantages. So let's get into it.
Christopher Carter is the founder and CEO of Approyo a global tech company that takes some of the most complex business software in the world and makes it work simply, reliably, and without the stress. since 2011, Christopher and his team have worked with companies across more than 55 industries, helping them migrate to the cloud.
Cutting us unnecessary costs and get their SAP system running the way they should. His clients just don't survive the transition. They come out stronger. He's a four-time Amazon best selling author of the book Mastering SAP series, a Newsmax TV contributor, and the founder of Mugatu AI.
That is a platform that helps businesses see, manage, and control every AI tool their employees are using. If there's one thing that sets Christopher apart, it's this. He doesn't just move your tech to the cloud. He helps you turn it into an advantage you can really actually feel.
And one more thing, he's a minority owner of a football club in Northern Ireland. So yes, the man plays the long game. Hey Chris, I we can find you at approyo.com/ and on LinkedIn too. So pleasure to have you here, sir. Chris,
Chris (01:52)
you it's an honor bernie i appreciate it and you know yes find me on linkedin please i love it
Bernie (01:58)
Chris, do you have a favorite quote or saying?
Chris (02:00)
yes, this too shall pass. I tell that to entrepreneurs when I speak or when I meet them or I go to community events or whatever. Just remember this too shall pass. No matter how high you get, no matter if you're the CEO of the year, or if you're the CIO of the year, if you want a major billion dollar contract or just even a million dollar contract. But then there's going to be those days where all of a sudden you're going to get kicked and that too shall pass. And
Now all of a sudden you lost a contract, you lost an employee, whatever has happened. But always remember there's good and there's bad. Yin yin. So this too shall pass is one of my favorite statements.
Bernie (02:36)
So how did you find this career path? I mean, it's not like, you know, back in the day in high school, I was sitting back thinking, you know, that's the ticket. That's where I want to go. How did you find this gold mine?
Chris (02:47)
so I started in I went to school at Georgia Tech. And my sophomore year, my roommate decided he did not want his internship at Coca-Cola anymore. Because what it was was dealing with old punch cards and an old mainframe system in the bowels of Coca-Cola. And so what I did is I went to the internship coordinator and I was actually working through activities. And I said, if he leaves that internship, I will take it immediately and I will fit it, fill in immediately.
He literally walked in about an hour and a half after me, said that he was done. He didn't want to be in the bowels, blah, blah. And they said, okay, understand. We'll work on getting you something else. I got a call back in our dorm room. Said he'd quit. Do you want it? I said, yes, get me started. And so I started an SAP literally as a 19-year-old and away we went.
Bernie (03:33)
Wow. Talk about on the job experience. Put now punch cards. I don't know. I I I seem to recall those. yeah.
Chris (03:40)
Yes,
green screens, old big bare metal and machines the size of my house running in basements. It's amazing how they had to tear those things out there after they got their upgrades.
Bernie (03:50)
Was there a moment, a client, a failure or a problem you couldn't ignore that told you that Approal needed to to exist? Yeah, what is what was the genesis moment for that?
Chris (04:00)
that's a great question. Wow. My genesis moment was actually the vice president of sales and for SAP for their oil and gas division came with a bottle of scotch, sat in my backyard with me, and it's how I created the company. we SAP was moving away from this legacy system and building their own database. So instead of Oracle or SQL or anything, and companies didn't know what to do, how to do it.
The activities and and I had moved away from SAP for about two years. I was doing some sales activities for a company, and he brought that over and we started talking about growing and how there was by the time two o'clock came the morning came and that bottle of scotch was almost gone. I had meetings set up in Germany. I had meetings set up in California, I had activities set up. I 24 hours later, I was on a plane to Germany to
understand the software, understand the database, what they were doing, why they're doing it. And literally I spent four days there, got on a plane, came home, grabbed my other to-go bag, got on another plane, went to California, and went through the whole process. And then within three months, we were an SAP startup focus program partner. And it just kept moving forward very quickly because I knew companies needed to understand how to do this.
how they would need to use this particular database, how they would get rid of their old Oracle SQL, and then put it all together in a cloud-based environment. When I'm I'm trying to help my ecosystem and it brought me back to life, it brought me back to where home was. And so it was exciting for me. That was my go-to moment.
Bernie (05:32)
You know, it's interesting to have a conversation, two in the morning, then all the light bulbs are on, the wheels are up and you're in the air, so to speak, quite literally in two different directions within within a week. How did you form the company? Like is that something where you call some up and say, lawyer, make it so and get the paperwork rolling, or is this something you just on the fly or
Chris (05:56)
I
didn't even have a concept of a company. All I was trying to figure out was the applications and what to do. And by the time I finished up in California and I started to come home, that same vice president and I, we started having conversations. And he goes, Well, I can't do anything with you until you're approved by SAP. And I said, Well, then I guess I'm starting a company. So I went out and I figured out what I was gonna name the company and literally just called up my attorney, Paul Marjorie, and said, Hey Paul, I'm starting another company.
Can you get me an LLC and get everything set up? And his first question is about well, what are you calling it? And I'm like, I don't know, ball. but within 48 hours, we had it because my it's actually named after a famous baseball player, Bronson Alroyo. And I was thinking about applications and being part of the app ecosystem, and we were at the Milwaukee Brewers playing the Cincinnati Reds.
And on the field was Bronson Arroyo warming up, pitching. he was supposed to go to Georgia Tech. And to this day I give him shit for that. But we were talking, and I thought I heard my daughter say, there's approval. And I'm like, What that's all that's Bronson Royal. She goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Bronson App Royal. And I kept hearing App Royal. And so I went back and I kept playing with it, and I kept I turned the
you know the logo into two different colors, and here I've got my business cards. So if you look at the original business card, how I did app, there it is, app Royal, and I changed that out and I was like, Yes. And it was all up here in my head, of course. But so that's how it started. Thank you for lawyers.
Bernie (07:28)
Ha.
Chris (07:29)
Good lawyers.
Bernie (07:30)
So SAP. What is SAP for the audience who does not understand the function and I I I know it's I've I've seen the name before and I know it's you know Enterprise Solution, but what is it what is it enterprise you into?
Chris (07:45)
Yeah, so it's it's an application that you feed finance, your marketing, your sales, your travel management, your warehouse management, your logistics, SDMM. You put all of it together in one nice, neat, clean package. And no matter if you're a $10 million company or if you're a multi-billion dollar company, you use it to have one system of truth, one database, a HANA database, as we call it, and that information.
resides in one database. So everybody in your company has the same information. So you're no longer having siloed databases for each part of your divisions. And the cool thing with it is they've brought it down to the levels where I've got customers that are five million dollars in revenue and I've got companies that are multi-billion dollars in revenue. And it just depends on how they use it, when they use it, how what they're doing with it. And it really makes sense because you're not spending money on
fifteen to twenty five different systems. You're only spending it on one system and it's all your record of truth.
Bernie (08:46)
You know, when someone says migration, you know, other than the birds in the sky, it's it's complicated because what fit in one box may not fit in the in the next box. How how do you sort that out? How do you you know, if you have like a couple hundred terabytes of data or even bigger, right? How do you swing swing the from the previous to the new?
Chris (09:08)
Yes, it's migrations and upgrades are difficult processes. every new software upgrade has its challenges to it. and you know, you you work through those challenges. What is what are you going to be using this system for? Is it the new database? Is it new the fact that it's the new cloud version? what goes away? What stays in? You know, the older SAP systems had a thing called Z-code, which was when somebody would modify the code.
And it would be put into the system. Well, now you're no longer allowed to have Z codes. So we have to go in and we have to evaluate all those Z codes that you have. And then we have to decide what's new in the new system, what's old, what can you keep, what what transitions. It's it's kind of like matching up in your system. Okay, this goes to this one and this one goes to this one, and you have to track and trace all that. And it's it's time consuming. And thank God there are tools for that as well.
But you still have to have a set of eyes on that as well.
Bernie (10:04)
So if a company is, you know, because there's obviously a certain size of company, because you have to be able to afford the the platform as well as the the hardware that drives it. When is it what's the threshold look like? and and how do you how do you do a migration from I I don't have now I do need to have and how do I take you know that migration which is not structured? Yeah, right.
How do you how do you how do you drift it in?
Chris (10:31)
Two great questions there. And I'm going to start with the form one because you can actually be a QuickBooks customer and then all of a sudden be an SAP customer. they've brought it down to a level, like I made a reference earlier. I've got a customer that's five million dollars in revenue and they're on the SAP grow system. And as they continue to grow, they can open up more modules, they can do more usage, get more licenses. they it's all cloud-based now. So everything goes to the cloud and it's utilized in that regard.
Very structured, and that's the thing I like, is it makes it very structured for organizations and the individuals in those companies to do the things that need to be done from an industry-specific activity. And then if your organization has SAP or it's a bigger organization, you're no longer going to need the infrastructure side because it's now all cloud-based. So now you have to change your mindset from bare metal.
taking the cost of this bare metal over seven years, and now you're on a cloud base and your instantaneous payments and instantaneous activity and how you're going to secure that differently in activities. So there's different avenues that you have to deal with, no matter if you're new or if you're existing, and then how you're going to run and so be supported within that. And that's another great thing about us, is we take care of these customers from selling them their licenses.
implementing, supporting the infrastructure slash cloud to all the way to the long term. And it really makes life easy for organizations. So I I try to make people sleep easy at night.
Bernie (12:01)
Well like that. So
AI. That that that's kind of I'm getting plugged in a lot lately. And I I was having a conversation with someone earlier this week. And I I I so this this has this has three parts to it. How does AI fit into SAP? Because SAP didn't always have AI. you know, so that that's getting plugged in. And what's the shelf life?
of of the software because we also in my previous conversation going software is disposable which made me cringe be going okay what do I do with the data I've collected wherever it's sitting where where's my hard truth sitting and what happens if there's a migration where you just mentioned something like Z code was once a reality and it's not so Joe now what happens when there's a transition? So I this is a three parter. I I apologize.
Chris (12:50)
I hope I can remember all that. So AI did not exist in SAP for many, many years. Now they have a tool called Joule. And Joule is embedded into the SAP. It's kind of a glorified copilot at this point in time. so if people don't like copilot, sorry. But at the end of the day, it it does so much more for them. It can do automations, it can do detailed analysis, reporting, and so on, and it works on that database.
Plus you can bring in data from the outside if you have other databases. As far as trying to remember which question this was. As far as all the Z codes and the activities and everything wrapped around, if you've got those Z codes and you've got data wrapped around those, the system will bring them in and use them as part of a data lake or data repository. So you can bring in that data if it's seven years or six years or whatever the case may be to be able to understand it.
And the AI tools will still be able to grab that data if you so need it for whatever repository, whatever activity wrapped around that. and then what was number two?
Bernie (13:52)
Well, I I mentioned AI, displayable software. Yeah.
Chris (13:56)
Dus volgens mij.
Bernie (13:57)
And the third one is you know, the data itself, like we're you know if things changed, you know, and especially if it's in the cloud, right? Like how do you have a hard copy? You print it all out at one point in time once a year.
Chris (14:11)
Yeah, that's not gonna happen. But the the thing with having changes and modifications within the SAP system itself is when they do these upgrades, first of all, they're smaller upgrades typically, and we have a stair-stepping process where we're evaluating just like Microsoft or others, it's version 1.2, 1.45. they do all these versionings that continues to update with fixes and bugs and data activities.
The system never touches your data. It pulls your data and evaluates it and uses as part of the data repositories. So when somebody gets an update to the system, it's updating a part of the system, not necessarily all the system. If you're doing a full-blown migration, sure, you've got to do that. But you've also updated along the way. You've gone from ECC6 to ECC6 version enhancement pack eight. So you're doing all these enhancement packs along the way.
And that's critical. When companies don't do those, they get further and farther left behind from the structure and from the activity that's in there. So that's a key piece to make sure that that always continues to move forward.
Bernie (15:19)
Well, so you also have another platform called Mugatu AI. What's the story behind that? Like I is SAP's running, it's got AI plugged into it. And obviously you might have, you know, if if I say the word and I call call it up, it'll it'll wake up and hear my voice and want to give me an answer to something I'm not asking about. Is is that integrating that element of other AI pieces or like what's what's the story?
Chris (15:44)
So, Mugatu AI is a security protocol that we built from scratch with predictive analytics and homomorphic encryption to not only for SAP but for enterprises. What I wanted to do is I wanted to protect sensitive data from going from my laptop here in my home office up into the ecosphere and bouncing around to different servers and server farms to get finally to your desk as an email. And so
What we did is we created Mugatu Shield and an Overwatch. And that tool is basically an Overwatch. And if you were to send me a document that had sensitive data on it, literally within milliseconds, the system would notify you to say, Hey Bernie, do you really want to send that Excel document with those social security numbers on it over the email? And it would give you a security score as well as it would tell you there are other
secure options that you can use inside your corporate. You could do a SharePoint, you could do Dropbox, you could do a link, whatever the case may be, instead of sending that sensitive data email-wise. And the reason I wanted to do that is you I literally had a which is now a new partner or new prospect. no, they're a new customer now that literally said that somebody inside their organization had sent
A 22 tabbed Excel document. Mind you, 22 tabbed Excel document is just gross the way it is. But then to have that sent via email and then uploaded into Chat GPT and OpenAI. And I literally said to them, You've got to be kidding me. First of all, it's bad to have the document. Two, it's not secure. Three.
It is so dangerous that where you're sending that data and how you're sending that data and what you're doing with that data is just absolutely disgusting. And seeing and hearing all that, I was like, there's got to be a way to secure that. If I could stop it at the desktop, at the end user, laptop, desktop, Macs, whatever the case may be, and give you a score and says, you know, your score is a two out of a hundred. You do not want to be sending this information off.
Do not want to be uploading it to any of your action, your AI-based tools. Just you need to do it in a different format. That would be huge savings and huge capabilities for everybody. And so I built the tool. And as a matter fact, I'm playing with it. We've got about 14,000 people that are using the tool right now in evaluation activities. And my goal is to secure.
Our AI initiatives in the future, no matter what tool they're using, because it all starts right here. I'm in my front of my Mac, so my starts right here in front of my me, the human, because we're the fallible, we're the failure point. Most times it's us. We are the people that are sending. let's just send it up to Chat GPT and see what they think. Let's just send it up to Copilot and see what it thinks. And they forget that that's critical business data, no matter what, or even personal data.
You're sitting at home and you're just a human being and my wife does it all the time. She doesn't give a care. there's my social security number. There's my address. There's my phone number. I'm like, Han, really? You just gave them all of that just so what's your password? I bet you I know your password too. And yeah.
Bernie (18:55)
Does this does your software or your platform have the ability to go because it's it's one thing to be sending stuff out and and you're the source, but if someone is trying to fish you, right, and they're and and they're knocking on your door. we've had a a situation here where in a large institution and in also in a municipality, someone got pinged saying,
Here's an exception. We need to send money to X. And the the that was not a legitimate thing and it it took a while to get found out. it got spoofed. It almost looked like it came internal chatter, you know, just yeah, this is an exception cir circumstance. Would it also cover something like that and provide that protection?
Chris (19:38)
Yes, because of our homomorphic encryption, it it saves you from going out from inside to out and outside from coming in to to give you scores and to evaluate what those action items are. And unfortunately, people are gonna spoof and they're gonna do some stuff. But if people are smart and they hit a hit on the email, you know, the system, we hope the system will actually notify them on that. That's why we did it bi directional, not just one way.
'Cause there are bad actors trying to get in.
Bernie (20:06)
No.
Chris (20:06)
Just so happens that most of the time it's the dumb actors sending it out, but it's the bad actors coming into your environment.
Bernie (20:13)
Yeah, there's not all of them are Nigerian prince stories, right?
Chris (20:16)
Yes. I'm still waiting for my billions from that Nigerian guy. I was gonna marry his sister.
Bernie (20:21)
there you go. I I that's a rabbit hole, but I'll I'll leave that one alone.
Chris (20:26)
Yes.
Bernie (20:26)
Predictive monitoring and twenty four seven managed service. What does that mean to a business when that is the support or the service you're getting?
Chris (20:34)
so I'm gonna take off my glasses for a fact because I think this is the most important part. It puts you allows you to sleep easy at night. It it lets you know that no matter what is going on in your company, what is trying to attack you, what is trying to be sent, you are safe and you can sleep well. You can sleep like a baby at night. since both my daughters slept very well at night at early ages, I'm happy with that. and and I also hope it it it helps.
an individual organization or CIO or CISO inside those organizations know that their human their humans are also safe within their organization. They don't have to worry. those things are there to protect them and keep them safe at night. And that's that's truly what I believe that means.
Bernie (21:18)
What's the issue that you find with businesses that are like s started out small, they're germinating, they're now starting to scale and grow. But they're not they're not they're almost getting there to you know, they're getting the robust. what are the biggest mistakes you see them making? as as because it's you know, it's not tomorrow I'm gonna go buy myself a laptop. It's I gotta buy a whole bunch of things that go with the laptop and a and a family of laptops. Like where where the
What are the issues that they find themselves in?
Chris (21:47)
Yeah, first one would be policies and procedures. they're not necessarily able to understand what they need to do, how quickly they need to do it. you know, I've got laptops, I've got iPads, I've got phones, I've got desktops, I've got systems all over the place, I've got connections, VPNs. There's no policies and procedures on how to use, when to use, how they're doing it when you travel. That's first piece. Second of all, most business owners and most entrepreneurs don't
hire the right people quickly enough. I tell people I really wish I would have hired my COO and my CIO a lot faster rather than me doing it because that takes action items off of my plate and puts it on theirs. And then it frees me up to do the things that I'm really good at. And it did the same thing for them. So hire faster and put policies and procedures into place as a business to be able to support what you need, when you need it, how you need it.
Bernie (22:38)
You find that when especially when a company is growing and just you kind of touched on it, you know, you hired a CIO and a CEO. Do you start out fractional and then go from fractional and up?
Chris (22:48)
You can. You absolutely can. I started out with a fractional CFO. She was fantastic. And I still actually ping her every once in a while when our CFO is on vacation or activities and see if she can step in for a week or a couple weeks. And when mine was out on pregnancy leave, she stepped in as well. See fractionals are fantastic. they the great thing with that is get a fractional chief of staff or a fractional CFO or somebody within those realms or
Somebody that knows finance, HR, and activities that can lead those departments in a fractional model as one. Now all of a sudden you've got one human that's doing all of those roles. And that's a that's a great piece for anybody because finance and HR are very sticky, especially along with legal and those things. You've got to make sure you got that locked down. and and I love fractional individuals.
Bernie (23:36)
You mentioned something about HR which made me think of payroll. And so the for compliance sake, is it is it better to go with an enterprise system 'cause it's tried and proven versus say there's smaller software packages that you've already mentioned one. that can probably handle payroll. is does that help you get your ISO certification because it's
It's kind of the the big boy in the room and you know, w that's done their got the t shirts and got them fixed.
Chris (24:06)
It it depends on the size of the organization. It depends on the industry. You know, we started out using Gusto, and it worked just fine for us. We also decided that when all of our foreign entities, we have India staff members, Brazil staff members, we have staff members in the UK. COVID was tough on me, but it was also great because it allowed me to open up and hire just the best person possible, no matter where they were located.
And so we started doing that activity as well. The great thing with that is there's tools like deals out there, and there's other tools that literally they take care of all the HR, they take care of all the legal work, they take care of all the finance. You just have to hire the best person that you find for your your need. And they will, yeah, they take a fee out of it, but so does gusto, so does ADP, so does everybody else. Those action items will take care of those, and you'll be able to.
Hire the best possible and not have to worry about it. So it comes down to where do you have people? how big are you? What type of industry? Cause all of them are certified. They've got ISO certifications and CMC, CMMC activities and ITAR compliances wrapped into those. Just make sure you find the right one that works for you in the best possible way.
Bernie (25:18)
Does it all to do to health care or is it just strictly industrial?
Chris (25:22)
No, it's healthcare as well. As a matter of fact, SAP is a massive healthcare organization. management of they just bought a what was they just bought an a healthware company about six months ago, eight months ago, and have integrated that into the solution. It's a great solution. And so our tool actually sits on top of that because you have all that HIPAA compliances. And if that stuff starts leaving, man, once you start getting into HIPAA compliances, then you really
That's even worse than ITAR compliance and it's almost as bad as CMMC, but CMC is for the Department of Defense. So I we've got a few firms that we work with on that, but
Bernie (25:58)
So if a company comes along and they say, you know what, we're we're scaling, what are what are the what are the triggers they should be looking for? or the flags that say, you know what, we're there, we're there. Or we should be maybe we should be talking to somebody. Do they talk to a consultant? Do they talk to you? Do they talk straightly right to the horse's mouth, so to speak, SAP? Or I I
Where you know, especially if you've never bought a car, like which car should I pick? Well, over here is, you know, something that's not so good, right? It's a garden tractor and you're looking for a a truck, you know. How how how do you how do you know what to pick?
Chris (26:32)
Well, you can talk to SAP directly if you so want, but what SAP is going to do is they're going to send you to me or one of my the other partners in the SAP ecosystem. Because we are a territory-led partner organization or SAP is. And so they send us to they send leads or companies that have questions to us. And then we answer those demos, blah, blah, blah, and help them to understand what they're going to need and when they're going need it. so coming to us is great and we'll help you. And if it's not an SAP need,
We're still gonna help you. We're still gonna help you with what knowledge you need to know and understand. And maybe you're an Oracle, should be an Oracle, or maybe you should be in QuickBooks or Cloud. But we'll give you some advice and help you on that. So, to that regard, yes. And as far as the red flags and the flags that you see out there, when a company starts to grow, you'll start to feel the pain. I always equate it to a glass of water. You've got that little bit of a dome out of water because when you fill it up.
You're actually filled it up a little bit over the top. And as soon as it starts to dribble down the side, ooh, that might be too late. What you want to do is you want to get when you're in about, I would say seven eighths of that glass is full. When you start feeling pain, when you as the owner and the founder, somebody that's inside that organization, and you start to feel, God, I'm all of a sudden working every night till seven o'clock. Hey, I I've got to travel to this place, but I can't travel to this, see this customer.
I can't do my QBR because of this, that, and the other. Our shipping and logistics is growing out of, I need new warehousing. I need new, I need to track and traceability. When you start feeling those pieces come to the table, act immediately. Get a fractional or get a sales or get your marketing or get somebody in your distribution center. Don't let it just fester. Don't let it take on a growth inside you.
Don't get the stress. Act upon that.
Bernie (28:17)
We also understand you're an author. so
Is it mysteries or is it all it's all straight
Chris (28:22)
It's straight on pretty much almost almost all technology books, SAP, AI. I do have some other books that are in there that I've tried to dabble in and play in. But since I'm since I'm horrible at stress and losing weight as an executive, those books aren't selling very well, nor do I promote the heck out of them. But you know what? It was something that I'd always wanted to do. I started the books pre COVID and then all of a sudden COVID hit.
And boom, I took those on and then I started moving forward with none of the books are more than 150 pages. What I wanted to do is I wanted to give people just a baseline of activity. I don't care if you're an SAP or if you're an AI, something that you can build your house on and you build your structure. And I'm all for it. It I I joked with somebody the other day. Somebody said, Well, your book really doesn't give me much. And I said, Well, that's the point.
If you wanted to go and learn everything you wanted to learn about SAP, these books are about this thick. They're about 500 and 600 pages each. This one's for basis, this one's for ABOP. This you have about a hundred books that are this big. I'm giving you the basic, I'm building you the basement so you can understand. Do I want to learn that? Do I want to get more information on that? Do I want to go over to this one? Do it so.
150 pages get you information, plus it's got QR codes and other things, workbooks that that people and I try to help people out like that.
Bernie (29:50)
That's nice. are you teaching at your old alma mata or are you are are you connected anywhere in the educational side of the fence?
Chris (29:58)
So I used to, my mother was the continuing director of education for Concordia University. And I used to do some helping out there, but my mother has passed away now. So I've I've stepped away from any of that. I will go and speak at any university that wants to have me speak about technology, about job goes, about AI, SAP, whatever the case may be. And I do about 50 different speaking engagements a year at universities, probably another two dozen at trade shows and activities.
But no real teaching anymore. That that takes a lot of commitment. But I will do the other activities to try and help younger generations or and continuing eds folks to understand and grow as they need to.
Bernie (30:38)
So what's the future look like for SAP? I mean, obviously it's gonna be there. It's not gonna fold. I I get that part. But what's new on the horizon? What what do you either see or know of that you can share going today the box looks like this, tomorrow it's gonna look like a flying saucer and it's gonna move and hustle and bustle?
Chris (30:57)
I love that. well, everything is going to the cloud. So that's number one. you have to be prepared. literally within you're supposed to have it by 2027, but really you probably have until 2030 to really get it into a cloud-based structure and 100% cloud. in the next, I would say the next two years, there's gonna be so much AI wrapped around your SAP ecosystem. The between the automation, the bots.
And the the go forward strategy in that that you're gonna be sap AI. And I really think that because we're the oldest technology by human factor, 47% of all SAP staff members are in their 40s or more. And that's a scary proposition. You're we're not getting a lot of young people coming in. They all want to play in AI and they all, but the university programs are not.
Sending us a lot of SAP kids. And so that's a tough one. We got to figure that one out. And from the last point, I would say is SAP is never going to go away. It still runs 93.7% of all financial transactions on this planet. It's not going away anytime soon. So you either got to learn it, live it, know it, or become a bigger, better, faster, stronger human being using the AI tools that are going to help you with.
learning and being a part of the SAP ecosystem.
Bernie (32:15)
We we talked about two of your companies and then there's a third one, Impala Ventures.
Chris (32:22)
investment
Bernie (32:21)
What's that role?
Chris (32:22)
arm we we look at companies that are out there and seeing what we can invest in from an investment standpoint i invest in a lot of activities myself i became a minority owner in the kerrick rangers this year and i did that on my own rather than through the firm and i'm always looking for investments you know we're invested in night scope which is a ai based security company
And they're out of California. And literally it's robots that are AI and autonomous that secure perimeters and secure schools and events. I am in an AI based lawn mowing service that is out there that the AI tool literally takes this massive grass cutting tool and cuts the grasses of golf courses and airports and such like that. And it's really cool technology, me.
So I've invested in that and boxable people probably know boxable it's these smaller little homes that are about 150 square feet to maybe 3,000 or 300 square feet and transporting. And they're using tools to help with our military, great military personnel and others who are homeless and displaced these days. So I do a lot of different investing activities with different companies because I feel it's important to give back and be.
I know that these are good people doing good things with good products and good solutions for our ecosystem, but my favorite's the Carrick Rangers.
Bernie (33:45)
Well, just out of curiosity, I mean that's left field. It's one thing like, you know, as you're describing, like you're in the tech space, you know, an industrial complex, someone says, I've got product X, I got a company, they're coming to see you, and you're going, Hey, you you get to see under the hood and you know, you'll understand whether to invest.
A soccer club's foosball is is t is a totally different different animal. Like do they come up to you and say, Listen, we need SAP to run our run our shop or what?
Chris (34:13)
No, not at all. Actually, this the former CIO of Nike and Estee Lauder, Michael Smith, bought the club a couple of years ago. and he is an American, of course. he loves soccer, loves sports as well. I used to be the vice president of sales and marketing for the professional team here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, back in the 1990s. And I've loved soccer. Fulham in the UK is my favorite soccer team up until the Rangers. And
Brian McBride played there, and you had Tony Sane there, and you had Carlos and the all the guys. And I've always been in love with soccer. And so all of a sudden, when Michael got that, he opened it up for minority ownerships. And I bought a chunk of the team to become a minority owner. And I just love the fact that I can go to Ireland and watch them play. I can go back and forth between here and the UK and Ireland.
And I'm willing to give anything and everything to help because my knowledge of the sales and marketing, going from several hundred fans to thousands of fans and building up the stadium, building up the area around it and starting a women's team and being able to help be a part of that. That to me is exciting. So that's a building process again of helping to start something from scratch and take it up the ladder of success.
Bernie (35:25)
That sounds like a great legacy to have and to to share, you know. Wow.
Chris (35:29)
Love sharing and I love helping.
Bernie (35:31)
Congratulations. So your books, if someone wants to understand more about SAP, where do they find them?
Chris (35:38)
Amazon.com. Go out there. As a matter of fact, I've got several of them back here. I haven't done this in a while. Let me pull that one out. What does it say? Christopher Carter, mastering sap. And so there's four four of these, plus another one that is a little bit smaller. That's an overview. one about security, one about AI, one about cloud, one about the S4 migrations. And then I've got sap and AI with
LLMs and SLMs. And then I got AI about what is the difference between an LLM and an SLM. And so yeah, I've got seventeen books and it's very
Bernie (36:14)
It is an SLM.
Chris (36:15)
Small language model.
So instead of large language models
Bernie (36:18)
Yeah, yeah, no, I
Chris (36:20)
boiling the ocean, you take that ocean and you bring it down, and now you're you're looking and getting very granular. So the small language model really gets granular and gets into that grain of rice rather than the ocean of rice. It finds that one little piece and how you it's really cool because I started working with some teams out in California. They brought the open source tools from China.
Now, China doesn't get all the great hardware that we get, because of course it's China. But what they did is they optimized how you view data and how you got your data. And it's all open source. So it's all out on GitHub. there's no tracking, there's nothing going back to the communist regime, which is great. But it really shows how you can get away from just buying the biggest and best infrastructure possible. And even with running Intel chips and AMD chips.
how you can take a database that's this big and really get it down to the granularity that you need very quickly. And instead of being done in, let's say, three milliseconds, you're done in eight milliseconds because of the way you're designed. And like you'd really know how it's the blink of an eye. And so it's pretty cool.
Bernie (37:29)
Wow. You know what? Chris, good sir. Thank you so much for being a guest today. I appreciate
Chris (37:34)
yeah.
Bernie (37:35)
it. I I've learned a lot more. I I knew of A SAP prior to this. I know it's it's large and it's for enterprise solutions. And now I know about AI governance elements, the mugatuai.com and also the approyo dot com.
if folks are looking to find you. And you knack 4 business listeners, feel free to reach out to Chris. He's got extensive knowledge. And maybe even if you had a soccer question about Ireland, you know, what the heck? knock on the door, find out.
Chris (38:06)
I tell people all the time, find me on LinkedIn because I like coffee and I like bourbon and I will talk about any of those topics any day of the week.
Bernie (38:15)
well, we'll have to break out a bottle next time we're having a good chat. There you go. to reach us, it's knack4business.com. And so that's knack, like the word knock, but a instead of an O. The number four business.com. And we have a little chat bot in there that you can use to search out previous episodes and other content material. So thank you very much,