Making a difference with Oracle Academy
The spotlight is on Dan Privott, Belmont University, United States.
Belmont University is the largest Christian University in Tennessee, with a goal of developing diverse leaders of purpose, character, wisdom and transformational mindset, eager and equipped to make the world a better place. Its campus in Nashville has won awards for beauty of design and is home to over 9,000 students, enrolled in nearly 200 undergraduate, graduate, professional and certificate programs ranging from biophysics and music entertainment to Christian leadership and public advocacy.
The Jack C. Massey College of Business is the only private college or university in Tennessee accredited by AACSB International (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) for both business administration and accounting.
The business college runs 13 undergraduate programs, of which Business Systems and Analytics (BSA) leads to a bachelor of Business Administration. The BSA major, teaching how people and organizations can use technology and data analytics to effectively and efficiently solve business problems, allows students to choose from one of three tracks: business systems, business analytics or cybersecurity. Accounting Information Systems (AIS), part of business systems, introduces accounting students to the role of enterprise applications in support of accounting and managerial decision-making.
Dan Privott, Professor of Practice, Business Systems & Analytics, manages and delivers the AIS class, using Oracle NetSuite from Oracle Academy to illustrate the financials element of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems used within organizations. He teaches the class to Belmont BSA students and also teaches undergraduate business students, on a part-time basis, at Cumberland University, 25 miles east of Nashville in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Privott holds a bachelor’s degree in Business from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and an MBA in Accounting and Finance from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He began his career as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) working in Big Four accounting firms, before moving into technology consulting specializing in Oracle and NetSuite implementation, upgrade, and enhancement projects.
Oracle Academy: Can you tell us why you decided to switch from working as a CPA to teaching?
Dan Privott: Well, the initial major transition was when I was tired of overtime and travel, working for one of the large accounting firms, and a friend proposed joining him on an Oracle ERP implementation. I knew nothing about Oracle or ERP software, but my friend was after my accounting expertise, assuring the client that we knew debits and credits, and had me learn the software in flight. ‘It’s going to be a nice match,’ he said. And it worked! Little did I know that was to be the start of a 25-year career in consulting and teaching.
That experience led to 10 years of similar work for a couple of companies, and then in 2007 I spun myself off as an independent consultant. But the economy was in recession, and after a year of struggle I joined Centric Consulting out of Ohio, working in their Oracle business unit, doing implementations, upgrades, consulting, training, and support. Centric later shifted gears by setting up a NetSuite practice and is today a leading consultant for Oracle and NetSuite in the small and medium business market. I still do some consulting for Centric, but in 2019 I was asked by Belmont University to teach a summer accounting information systems class, which I enjoyed doing, and joined the university full time. I found that I loved teaching way more than consulting. There are strong parallels.
Oracle Academy: And was it you who proposed that Belmont become an Oracle Academy member?
Dan Privott: That’s correct. The previous AIS instructor was using a different system, which needed frequent support and was time consuming. But luckily, I discovered that Oracle Academy made available a full instance of NetSuite Cloud for use in the classroom, at no cost; that was the clincher. I petitioned the business school to become an Oracle Academy member and I’m now using the full NetSuite resources, and cannot do without it! NetSuite is easy to teach and easy to learn. Feedback from the students is very strong. Navigation is simple, it’s intuitive, and since it’s cloud-based, the software looks just like the web pages students are familiar with. Of course I have to remind them not to click! You have to hover to get the menus to transform, which is a bit of a change.
Oracle Academy: Do you use all of the NetSuite teaching resources provided by Oracle Academy?
Dan Privott: I use the delivered materials to walk through the elementary Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash cycles. These are well-structured flows that are realistic in terms of what clients run into when trying to create a purchase order or a vendor bill. But, because these exercises are somewhat on the “happy path,” I also show them how to handle slightly deeper challenges such as receiving more items than in the PO or returning an item to a supplier. These and some other one-off type transactions are things I show them based on my 20 years working with ERP.
One thing I really appreciate about the NetSuite courses from Oracle Academy, in terms of teaching, is the Instructor Walkthroughs. I use these as labs in class when doing the procure-to-pay cycle. I go through the Walkthrough, and we do the exercises, with me projecting onto a screen and the students following the mouse clicks on their PCs. Based on that, I assign student exercises for homework with an almost identical set of transactions, but which differ subtly from the class. That’s to say if in class we create a PO for customer X who’s buying three units, in the homework they find customer X with five units. It’s not so significantly different that they are lost. They have a model, and they are doing practice with it for homework, but it’s not a replica. The exercises compel them to work things out on their own. It’s a part of the Oracle Academy learning methodology that I like.
Oracle Academy: Are all your classes aimed specifically at accounting students?
Dan Privott: The AIS class is for accountants. But I also teach an IT Consulting class which falls into Special Topics for anyone in the BSA major, an elective if you will. The idea is to bring into the classroom an experience similar to what they would be doing in a consulting job. They get to do a full NetSuite implementation over one semester. We follow the typical consulting pattern, with students broken into teams with responsibilities and roles: some on inventory, doing inventory and items; some on the sales cycle, responsible for customers, invoicing and receipts; some others on the procurement side, doing purchasing and dealing with suppliers, and another group working on the general ledger and accounting.
I show students how to conduct data requirement and discovery sessions, with me playing various C-level roles, being helpful or difficult, as in a real-life scenario. After discovery, still on the usual consulting path, we simulate testing, configuration, walkthroughs with a series of transactions, and finally, mimicking user acceptance testing, where they can really see what works and what might not. It’s fun and exciting—a true war room environment!
Oracle Academy: And are you regularly using NetSuite?
Dan Privott: Yes, it’s what they’ll be using later on in real life. They also get to know the nitty gritty of data conversion before go-live. This is where they upload and import into the NetSuite instance all the client data: customers and contacts, sales orders, chart of accounts and hundreds of other elements, generally as CSV files. That’s when they are confronted with the iterative error messages everyone has to go through in NetSuite, resolving each one at a time until completion and capped with a simulated go-live.
This course is a one-of-a-kind IT Consulting course. I kicked it off last year and will be fine tuning it as we go forward. I’ve had really positive student feedback, and I thank Oracle Academy for making available the NetSuite instance that we can all play in, a true bolster for my teaching and a singular learning experience for the students.
Oracle Academy: Talking of data conversation, do you get involved in teaching data management?
Dan Privott: I do. In addition to Belmont, I teach an AIS class part time at Cumberland University, not far from Nashville in Lebanon. I took the course from Belmont and implemented the same thing at Cumberland with a totally different set of students, which is enjoyable. But whereas at Belmont the AIS accounting students take a Database Modeling, Design and Analysis class as a degree requirement, Cumberland has no such class.
So, to fill the gap and introduce the topics of SQL and databases, I found through Oracle Academy a wonderful teaching resource named Solve it with SQL. This workshop is delivered in a comic book format and gets people to play the role of a superhero and solve crimes while also learning how to query databases. The students love it and also become NetSuite savvy during the AIS class.
At Belmont, I don’t need to use Solve It because they get the above-mentioned data modeling course as part of their curriculum. But I’m looking forward to using Solve it with SQL more at Cumberland, which incidentally I also steered into becoming an Oracle Academy member institution.
Oracle Academy: What career paths lie in wait for your graduates?
Dan Privott: What I tell students at both schools, both when we start and when we wrap it up on the last class day, is that they now have hands-on experience with a substantial and popular ERP system that will get them noticed. I tell them to make sure that any prospective employers know about their NetSuite skills because that will set them apart. The fact that they will have spent a considerable amount of time creating transactions, doing reconciliations, and running reports equips them with valuable skills for accounting and consulting positions. It will be a real differentiator.
Oracle Academy: We hear that you have presented your NetSuite experience at AIS Educators Association Conference sessions.
Dan Privott: Although I was initially a bit intimidated speaking in front of all these PhD’s—remember, I’m a consultant turned educator—there has been lots of interest. I present, much as here, what I do in the classroom, and then give them a short lesson in how NetSuite creates POs, vendor bills, handles the accounting, and I show how easy it is to see the flow of the transactions, and the impact on the general ledger.
The momentum we got from this year’s conference was fantastic. There’s a user group in the making and the NetSuite track generated lots of interest in Oracle Academy, as well as in Belmont University itself. And of course, Oracle announcing the move of its HQ to Nashville to capitalize on its healthcare business has created even more interest.
Oracle Academy: That’s really positive! Any parting words on your overall Oracle Academy experience?
Dan Privott: Apart from the value we get from the NetSuite instance for teaching, I have had an extremely positive time working with Oracle Academy. It has a committed support group whose response time is first rate—which is almost surprising since we are not paying anything! They are so responsive to questions and problems, it’s amazing. I’m very appreciative of efforts to keep me informed and aware of new opportunities. It’s just great, words fail me…
Oracle Academy: Excellent. And lastly, what are your interests outside of Belmont?
Dan Privott: One of the joys in my life is coaching softball. I do that at the local recreational park. For many years, I coached each of our three daughters, from 4-5 years old to graduation. They have now left home but thankfully still live close to us. It’s terrific to have the children and grandchildren close to home. There’s one grandchild and another on the way. When we became empty nesters I took one season off, thinking my days of coaching were done, but I missed it too much. Now I coach the older girls, 13-19 years old, a good age group because I don’t have to teach them the basics of the sport—how to throw, catch and so on—but get to work with them on more advanced skills. I love the game, I love the competition, the camaraderie, the contact with other parents, with friends. A true pleasure.
Thank you, Dan Privott, for your passion for Oracle Academy and for preparing your students to make a positive impact.