The Power Platform Playbook for Digital Transformation E-Book

Victor Dantas

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 557

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Written by Victor Dantas, a five-time Microsoft MVP, and Chris Huntingford, MVP, Microsoft Certified Trainer, and FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect, this book distills the collective wisdom of two global thought leaders at the forefront of technological innovation. The Power Platform Playbook for Digital Transformation is your guide to strategizing, implementing, and scaling digital transformation using Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, and Copilot Studio. It equips you with tools to streamline operations, enhance decision-making, and scale automation without deep coding expertise.
Unlike technical manuals that focus only on implementation, this book takes a holistic approach, combining strategy and execution. You’ll learn how to build enterprise-grade applications, automate repetitive tasks, and integrate Power Platform with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and third-party services. Real-world case studies, best practices, and step-by-step guidance equip you to implement governance, security, and compliance while ensuring long-term success.
Whether you’re a business leader driving transformation, an IT professional managing enterprise automation, or a business analyst optimizing processes, this book provides a clear roadmap to leveraging Power Platform for scalable, AI-enhanced digital innovation.

Leseprobe

The Power Platform Playbook for Digital Transformation

Implement strategy, automation, and AI for scalable digital transformation

Victor Dantas

Chris Huntingford

The Power Platform Playbook for Digital Transformation

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To my family – Edlene, Bea, Laura, and Lily. Edlene, your love and patience keep me going, through every late night and crazy idea. Bea, Laura, and Lily, you fill my days with laughter, curiosity, and the kind of wonder that reminds me why I do what I do. I love you, Dantas crew!

To Chris Huntingford and every contributor who made this book possible:

Chris, your energy and brilliance made this journey unforgettable. To everyone who shared their time, insights, and support – I am eternally grateful.

Thank you!

To the Power Platform community, my fellow MVPs, colleagues, and the incredible mentees of Zero To Hero: This book is as much yours as it is mine. Your passion, curiosity, and drive to push boundaries make this journey worth it. Thank you for the inspiration, the collaboration, and for proving time and time again that technology is most powerful when shared. Keep building. Keep learning. Keep transforming.

- Victor Dantas

To my family – Nicolle, Lexi, Adam, and Lulu: Thank you for being so patient with me and for allowing me to do this. I love you very much! None of the things I do would be possible without you.

A huge shout out to Jason Earnshaw (my sense-maker) and the low-code mob (both past and present) at ANS Group. We came up with so many of these concepts together, we worked late, and then delivered them as a team! It has been an honor working with you.

To my incredible friends Dona, Will, Mark, Andrew, and Ana – thank you for helping me with this and for being hugely impactful in my tech career and life in general. I can’t thank you all enough!

To my friend and absolute legend, Victor Dantas, its been incredible putting this book together with you and I’m so grateful for your insights and friendshhip! Thank you!

- Chris Huntingford

Contributors

About the authors

Victor Dantas

With over 25 years of experience, Victor Dantas is a pioneering force in digital transformation, blending deep technical expertise with a passion for empowering others. A five-time Microsoft MVP, he stands among a global community of experts shaping the future of Microsoft technologies. As the founder of Eyedeas Inc., Victor helps businesses navigate the digital age with Power Platform solutions that drive efficiency, innovation, and real-world impact.

Beyond his work in the tech world, Victor is an international thought leader and speaker, sharing insights on digital transformation with audiences across the globe. His influence extends beyond the stage – he’s a dedicated mentor, guiding professionals and aspiring technologists through initiatives such as Zero to Hero, where he helps individuals unlock their full potential.

At his core, Victor is driven by a simple but powerful mission: to empower people – whether through technology, mentorship, or storytelling. When he’s not shaping the future of digital transformation, he’s a devoted husband and a proud father of three amazing girls, finding inspiration in family, community, and the pursuit of meaningful impact.

Chris Huntingford

Chris is an accomplished expert and proud self-proclaimed geek in the Microsoft ecosystem, with more than 15 years of experience in Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. He is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), Microsoft Certified Trainer, and one of a small group of Microsoft FastTrack Recognized Solution Architects. He is a seasoned global speaker and has made significant contributions to the tech community by regularly sharing his knowledge at major events. Chris has a deep love for technology and enjoys delving into how technology can help people in their day-to-day lives.

Beyond work, he is known for his love of art, guitar, exercise, drumming, flamboyant shirts, global travel, and passion for social gatherings. He believes in the power of community and collaboration to achieve great things.

About the reviewer

Keith Atherton is a Power Platform Solution Architect, Microsoft MVP for Business Applications, Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), published LinkedIn Learning instructor, Power Platform Community Super User, public speaker, Power Platform Community High Five user group founder, On Air in the Cloud podcast host, blogger, and mentor.

Keith has over 25 years international experience of leading and developing software solutions in permanent and contract roles for sectors including finance, legal, manufacturing, construction, game development, retail, healthcare, travel, and charity.

Keith is based in Scotland, enjoys illustration and painting, and can be contacted at https://linktr.ee/keithatherton.

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Table of Contents

Preface

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1

Unleashing Transformation: Power Platform’s Role in Digital Evolution

Driving digital change with Power Platform

An example of innovation

Shift up to digital – the start

Enter digital transformation

Enter low code

Power Platform

Understanding economic forces in digital transformation

But what about my job?

Digital inequality

Who fixes the machines?

The rules

It’s the right time all the time

Leading the low-code market with Microsoft

Maker types

Ease of adoption

Solution sizing

Revolutionizing low-code development with AI copilot

A live example

What does this mean for Power Platform as a whole?

Harnessing strategic growth with Power Platform

Enabling strategic transformation vision

The dreaded ROI

Who can make things?

What are people allowed to do?

Where will people build things?

Dare to do

Summary

2

Gauging Growth: Assessing Digital Maturity for Strategic Advancement

Understanding digital maturity in Power Platform

People, processes, platforms (technology)

The importance of baselining

Readiness categories and sub-categories

Navigating maturity levels in Power Platform adoption

The Microsoft Power Platform adoption maturity model

Microsoft adoption assessment

Driving digital maturity with the CoE

Center of enablement

How to get going

Empowering digital maturity in Power Platform

The difference between enablement and adoption

Driving enablement

Summary

Further reading

Join our community on Discord

3

Unlocking Potential: Enhancing Operations with the Power Platform

Reimagining operations with Power Platform

The interaction layer

The data and management layer

Power Platform has deep roots into Microsoft Products

How has Power Platform revolutionized operations?

Enabling developers: the low-code/no-code edge of Power Platform

The typical role of a developer

How Power Platform can help enable developers

Drive Time to Value at pace

Using the rest of the stack

Connecting citizen developers: aligning business needs and tech solutions

Talk about the different types of makers – Maker archetypes

Barrier to entry

People closest to the problem

Achieving goals

Leveraging Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI for operational gains

Power Apps overview

Power Automate overview

Power BI overview

Copilot Studio

Power Pages

Advancing transformation: elevating operations with Power Platform

Talk about the era of enablement

Allowing people to optimize the way they work

Driving operational excellence by enabling people to do more with their time

Governance is key when managing these operations

Summary

4

Creating Your Center for Enablement

Nurturing Creativity: Creating Avenues for Innovation and Exploration within C4E

Creating a safe space for makers

Creating Champions and Advocates

Driving enthusiasm and encouraging creativity

Enabling individuals to unleash creativity with IT governance

Creating an environment of enablement

Ensuring data and people are safe

Driving people to learn and grow

Encouraging innovation and co-creation for digital transformation

Giving people a platform and a space to engage

Finding ways to inspire creativity and Innovation

Ensuring progression

Summary

5

Executing and Scaling Transformation Initiatives

Getting started with your vision

Setting your purpose

What is your plan?

Setting up the foundations

Rapid prototyping and deployment with Power Platform

Solution sizing

Applying architectural best practices

Prototyping in an Agile manner

Unlocking solutions with Power Platform

Starting with an idea

How to scale your idea

The data up approach – preparing your solution for scale

Gradual expansion and integration with Power Platform

Understanding your solution and its impact

Architectural best practices

Your scale framework – putting in the controls

Driving tangible results and proving value

Tactical versus strategic

The value

Your data is valuable! Respect it!

Your ROI value framework

Summary

Further reading

6

Orchestrating Success: Key Considerations for a Digital Transformation Strategy Using Power Platform

Charting the path for Power Platform adoption

Setting your adoption scope

Empowering success through executive sponsorship and buy-in

Working with stakeholders to drive buy-in

Expanding the team

Navigating IT and leadership challenges during adoption

Defining and managing resistance

Understanding and navigating the challenges

Empowering teams with Power Platform skills

Change management

Forming a training strategy

Driving a culture of learning

Accelerating the adoption journey

Start small

Understanding true adoption

Scaling your strategy

Potential pitfalls

Summary

Join our community on Discord

7

Collaboration and Change in Digital Transformation

Stakeholder analysis and alignment

Stakeholder mapping

Defining success

Strategies for stakeholder buy-in

Showcasing impact

The role of the Power Platform admin team

The roles and responsibilities of the admin team

Preparing your ecosystem for scale and growth

Automation and efficiency

Fusion team collaboration and beyond

Building a fusion team culture

The role of fusion teams

Collaboration and communication

Challenges and solutions

Building a digital culture

Cultural change management

Getting people on board

Summary

8

Power Platform Solutions for Digital Transformation

Stakeholder analysis and alignment – driving successful Power Platform adoption

Exploring the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

Strategic stakeholder analysis

Alignment strategies for each maturity level

The Power Platform dream team

Executive sponsor – visionary leadership

Success owner – nurturing business goals

Champions – catalysts of evangelism

Training lead – knowledge dissemination maestro

Department leads (stakeholders) – advocates of engagement

Communication lead – amplifier of awareness

Power Platform admin team – guardians of technical enablement

Power Platform nurture team – sowers of innovation

Strategies for stakeholder buy-in – showcasing Power Platform’s impact

The Dynamics of stakeholder buy-in

The paradigm shift – the rise of low-code development and its financial impact

Securing citizen developers’ buy-in – showcasing Power Platform’s impact on career projection and growth

Securing IT professionals’ buy-in – Power Platform’s impact on career projection and growth for system administrators

Initial maturity level – setting the foundation

Repeatable maturity level – implementing control and guidance

Defined maturity level – standardizing for success

Capable maturity level – enabling enterprise transformation

Efficient maturity level – orchestrating mission-critical functions

Action plan for forming, nurturing, and empowering Power Platform admin teams

Empowering citizen developers – fusion team collaboration and beyond

The emergence of citizen developers

Job market demand for citizen developers

Required skills in Power Platform

Upskilling for citizen developers

Benefits of citizen development

Fusion development teams – unleashing synergy in Power Platform adoption

The essence of the champions community

Crawl – laying the foundation

Walk – nurturing growth

Run – empowering transformation

Identifying potential champions

Training and mentoring

Empowering champions as evangelists

Leveraging Microsoft MVPs and communities

Summary

Q&A

9

Streamlining Operations: Automating Processes with Solutions Built with Power Platform

Identifying suitable POC candidates

Understanding organizational pain points

Criteria for POC selection

Analyzing processes to find automation opportunities

General business analysis techniques

Specific Power Platform tools

What is ALM?

Creator Kit

Summary

10

Fortifying the Foundation: Integrating Systems, Ensuring Governance, and Security

Establishing a solid security framework (Secure)

Data loss prevention policies

Licenses and access to data sources

CoE Starter Kit

Cultivating a security-centric culture (Evangelize)

Promoting security awareness

Facilitating training and education

Using clear communication

Encouraging security best practices

Establish a feedback loop

Plan phishing simulations

Integrating security culture with CoE

Sharing success stories

Continuous monitoring and proactive risk management (Monitor)

The role of monitoring in the CoE

Key metrics and performance indicators

Tools and technologies for monitoring

Proactive risk management

Governance and compliance

Embracing continuous improvement and innovation (Evolve)

The role of continuous improvement and innovation

CoE Starter Kit dashboards

Innovation Backlog app

Integration and synergy

Implementation best practices

Summary

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11

Establishing Strong Foundations: Governance and Security in Power Platform Solutions

Data loss prevention policies: safeguarding organizational data

Connectors

Pros and cons of Power Platform connectors

Understanding DLP in Power Platform

Major data breaches through a fragile DLP strategy

Tenant isolation: ensuring safe and secure utilization of Power Platform connectors

Understanding tenant isolation

Key components of tenant isolation

Implementing tenant isolation in Power Platform

Specialized security roles

Security roles in Power Platform/Dataverse environments

Data access levels

Out-of-the-box (OOB) security roles

Column-level security

Integrating Microsoft Entra groups with security roles

Summary

12

Navigating Compliance: Meeting Industry Regulations in Power Platform Deployments

Security compliance and regulations

Establishing geographical locations and environments in Power Platform deployments

The Microsoft Trust Center – your resource for compliance and transparency

Securing data transmission and API access in Power Platform deployments

Summary

Join our community on Discord

13

From Metrics to Milestones: Measuring Success in Power Platform Initiatives

Defining a strategic roadmap using the CoE Starter Kit

The role of strategy in Power Platform adoption

Identifying and measuring success

Understanding the role of KPIs in Power Platform adoption

SMART goals and KPI benchmarks

Summary

14

Tracking Success Measures: Monitoring Progress and Achieving Objectives

Defining KPIs and tracking them

The importance of defining KPIs early in the journey

Tracking KPIs to ensure progress

Practical steps for defining and tracking KPIs

Key areas to measure with KPIs

Implementing Power Platform – success measures and adoption

Defining success measures

Quantifying success measures

Monitoring user adoption

Tools to automate success measures

The CoE Starter Kit

Power BI for custom dashboards

Power Automate for process automation

Microsoft Dataverse for data centralization

Power Apps Usage Analytics

Gathering maker feedback to assess rollout success

Surveys and feedback forms

Sample survey for gathering data on maker knowledge and satisfaction

Usage analytics

Using CoE analytics to assess makers’ knowledge and satisfaction

Monitoring active makers and application usage

Tracking application performance and user satisfaction

Measuring the adoption of citizen development

Gathering insights into user training and support needs

Identifying usage patterns and customizing support

Community engagement and collaboration

Real-life examples of Power Platform community engagement and collaboration

Direct maker feedback loops

Summary

15

Embracing AI-Powered Copilots and Agents in Digital Transformation

From automation to generative intelligence with copilots

Integration into Microsoft 365

Copilots within Power Platform

Dataverse model creation

Solution planning with Power Apps Plan Designer

How Plan Designer works

The future of solution planning with AI

What are AI Agents?

Types of AI Agents

Practical uses of AI Agents

Microsoft’s answer to Agents

Copilot Studio – creating AI-powered AI Agents

Creating Agents

Summary

16

Unlock Your Exclusive Benefits

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Welcome to a transformative journey with The Power Platform Playbook for Digital Transformation!

If you’re eager to recognize Power Platform as a strategic ally in your business’s digital transformation, you’re in the right place. Imagine empowering everyone in your organization to quickly solve problems using technology, driving innovation and efficiency across the board. This book is your guide to enabling that exciting transformation in a safe and reliable way.

Today’s organizations are on the lookout for innovative ways to harness technology for growth, and we believe that Microsoft’s Power Platform is the key. Whether you’re an IT professional, a business analyst, a manager, a consultant, or an aspiring developer, this book offers valuable insights tailored just for you.

Before we dive in, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of business processes and technology concepts, particularly around Power Platform components such as Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI. Don’t worry if you’re not already an expert in cloud-based services; our journey together will guide you every step of the way!

What sets this book apart is its holistic approach. Rather than focusing solely on individual components, we’ll explore how Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, Copilot Studio, and Power BI work in harmony. You’ll discover a unified framework for digital transformation that shows you how to streamline processes, automate workflows, and extract meaningful insights.

Our approach here is pragmatic, practical, and action-oriented. We blend theoretical concepts with real-world scenarios, offering you step-by-step guidance along with useful tips, best practices, and hands-on exercises. You’ll find a treasure trove of practical examples and use cases designed to help you effectively leverage Power Platform for your digital initiatives.

We don’t just skim the technical surface. We delve deeply into critical areas essential for successful implementation, including business process analysis, change management, governance, and security. By addressing these important aspects, we’ll equip you with the skills needed to navigate the challenges that come with digital transformation.

By the time you finish this book, you will have a solid understanding of how to harness the Power Platform to drive valuable change in your organization. You’ll walk away with practical tools, strategies, and insights to tackle complex business challenges and propel your organization into a successful digital future.

So, whether you’re looking to enhance your IT skills, streamline processes as a business analyst, or lead digital initiatives as a manager, The Power Platform Playbook for Digital Transformation is here to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to thrive in the digital age.

Let’s embark on this exciting adventure together!

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Unleashing Transformation: Power Platform’s Role in Digital Evolution, discusses Power Platform’s key role in digital transformation and Microsoft’s leadership in the low-code app and automation market. It highlights the co-pilot features developed with OpenAI, which simplify low-code development through AI, enabling easier application creation and process automation. The chapter provides insights for organizations looking to leverage Power Platform for innovation and growth.

Chapter 2, Gauging Growth: Assessing Digital Maturity for Strategic Advancement, discusses how assessing digital maturity is crucial for organizations using Microsoft’s Power Platform. Organizations can be categorized into foundational, developing, advanced, and leading levels based on their proficiency. The Center of Excellence (CoE) evaluates maturity and sets best practices, while the Center for Enablement (C4E) improves user skills through training. Together, these resources help organizations enhance their digital capabilities and drive innovation within the Power Platform ecosystem.

Chapter 3, Unlocking Potential: Enhancing Operations with the Power Platform, looks at how Microsoft's Power Platform provides low-code/no-code tools that empower organizations to transform their operations. It enables both professional and citizen developers to create applications, automate processes, and analyze data quickly. Key tools include Power Apps for custom applications, Power Automate for task automation, and Power BI for data insights; all designed to enhance productivity and agility in a competitive digital landscape.

Chapter 4, Creating Your Center for Enablement, looks at the Center for Enablement (C4E) empowers individuals and teams in their digital transformation with the Power Platform by providing a supportive environment for innovation and exploration. Through training and resources, users enhance their skills in creating applications and automating processes. The C4E also fosters collaboration among diverse teams to tackle challenges, ultimately enabling organizations to drive meaningful change and thrive in the digital landscape.

Chapter 5, Executing and Scaling Transformation Initiatives, discusses how with an intuitive design, business users can easily prototype and deploy applications, while the platform allows for seamless scaling from small initiatives to enterprise-wide solutions. By integrating with Microsoft Azure, organizations can adapt and grow their solutions alongside evolving needs, driving meaningful change and innovation in their digital transformation efforts.

Chapter 6, Orchestrating Success: Key Considerations for a Digital Transformation Strategy Using Power Platform, looks at the three key stages when embarking on a digital transformation with Power Platform involves three key stages: Envision, Onboard, and Scale. In the envision phase, organizations should define clear goals, secure executive sponsorship, and develop an adoption strategy aligned with business objectives. It’s vital to manage resistance, assess readiness, and implement training to empower employees. Addressing these aspects lays a strong foundation for a successful transformation journey.

Chapter 7, Collaboration and Change in Digital Transformation, highlights the importance of stakeholder analysis and change management in adopting Power Platform for digital transformation. It underscores the need for executive and managerial buy-in to empower citizen developers and discusses the roles of various stakeholders and the Microsoft Power Platform admin team. By fostering a culture of collaboration and learning, organizations can effectively leverage citizen developers to drive innovation.

Chapter 8, Power Platform Solutions for Digital Transformation, discusses how embracing the Power Platform is key for digital transformation, requiring an understanding of an organization’s maturity level through the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). Organizations start at the initial level with limited success, then move to “Repeatable” with some controls, followed by “Defined” for standardized practices. At the “Capable” stage, they refine practices for critical applications, and finally, at “Efficient,” they demonstrate the platform’s transformative potential with expert support. Assessing maturity helps prioritize initiatives for early success and stronger leadership engagement.

Chapter 9, Streamlining Operations: Automating Processes with Solutions Built with Power Platform, discusses how in today’s business landscape, automating processes is crucial for efficiency. Power Platform offers tools for task automation, with organizations focusing on repetitive tasks when choosing proof of concept candidates. Understanding Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is important, and Microsoft’s ALM Accelerator helps manage solutions effectively. New users can start with the Creator Kit for practical tutorials. Establishing key performance indicators will help measure success and optimize the benefits of Power Platform in enhancing operations.

Chapter 10, Fortifying the Foundation: Integrating Systems, Ensuring Governance, and Security, looks at the four stages of the CoE journey that organizations use to strengthen their technological foundation through a Center of Excellence (CoE) journey involving four stages: Secure (establishing a security framework), Evangelize (promoting security awareness), Monitor (detecting threats), and Evolve (continuous improvement). This approach ensures robust governance and protection of valuable assets in a dynamic tech landscape.

Chapter 11, Establishing Strong Foundations: Governance and Security in Power Platform Solutions, explains how governance and security in the Power Platform ecosystem are essential. Microsoft addresses these concerns with Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies that protect data, tenant isolation that secures data flow, and specialized security roles such as the Power Platform admin for user control. By prioritizing these measures, organizations can effectively leverage Power Platform while safeguarding their data.

Chapter 12, Navigating Compliance: Meeting Industry Regulations in Power Platform Deployments, discusses how navigating compliance for Power Platform applications is crucial, and Microsoft’s Trust Center offers key resources on security and privacy, with a focus on Power Apps. The platform features global data centers, allowing geo-specific environments and secure data transmission via encryption and TLS protocols. It provides tools for GDPR compliance and the Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager to streamline compliance management across Microsoft cloud services.

Chapter 13, From Metrics to Milestones: Measuring Success in Power Platform Initiatives, discusses how the Microsoft Power Platform transforms organizations with its low-code approach, enhancing productivity. Success relies on identifying relevant KPIs, establishing SMART benchmarks, and maintaining documentation for tracking progress, ultimately enabling transformative change.

Chapter 14, Tracking Success Measures: Monitoring Progress and Achieving Objectives, looks at how, to measure measure progress with the Power Platform, organizations should define KPIs and use surveys to assess user knowledge and satisfaction. Initial surveys identify starting points, while follow-ups after six months evaluate experiences and highlight improvement areas. Quarterly surveys can track user adoption and productivity, guiding informed decisions for optimization.

Chapter 15, Embracing AI-Powered Copilots and Agents in Digital Transformation, discusses how AI-powered copilots are transforming digital processes by enhancing user interactions and automating tasks. They boost productivity and improve organizational efficiency, enabling better collaboration. This accessibility empowers organizations to optimize operations and drive innovation.

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1

Unleashing Transformation: Power Platform’s Role in Digital Evolution

In this chapter, we delve into the profound impact of Microsoft Power Platform in driving digital evolution and its role as a catalyst for transformative change. We explore the economic dynamics surrounding digital transformation and shed light on its far-reaching implications for organizations across industries. Specifically, we examine Microsoft’s significant market share in the low-code app and automation development market, highlighting how Power Platform has emerged as a leading force in empowering businesses to navigate the digital landscape with agility and efficiency.

Moreover, we explore the latest advancements in Power Platform, particularly the copilot features developed in collaboration with OpenAI. These cutting-edge capabilities use the power of AI to revolutionize the low-code development experience, enabling users to create applications and automate processes with remarkable ease and speed.

By delving into economics, Microsoft’s market position, and the innovative copilot features, this chapter provides valuable insights and guidance for organizations seeking to tap into the potential of Power Platform. It equips you with a comprehensive understanding of how Power Platform can be harnessed as a strategic tool to unleash transformation, drive digital innovation, and achieve sustainable growth in the evolving digital landscape. We will cover the following topics:

Driving digital change with Power PlatformUnderstanding economic forces in digital transformationLeading the low-code market with MicrosoftRevolutionizing low-code development with AI CopilotHarnessing strategic growth with Power Platform

Driving digital change with Power Platform

Over a vast number of years, technology has gone through significant changes, which have transformed how society perceives it and its impact on our work and home lives.

Ultimately, innovation is going to happen regardless of what your perspective is on it or what you think. We have seen it in many, many different forms throughout history: cars, bicycles, food, drinks, medical advancements. Humans are naturally curious and want to optimize the way we do things, sometimes regardless of the impact, which could be either good or bad. To understand the digital evolution and transformative change of low code in general, and specifically, Power Platform, we need to explore what “innovation” really means and why it is important.

An example of innovation

One of my favorite analogies to help understand the shift in innovation as we see it today is the simple concept of farming. We all eat food, we all need food… farming is one of our primary sources of food, so it’s extremely important.

Many years ago, and in some places still today, farmers would plant crops and then walk to a water source to collect water in buckets, then walk to where their crops were planted and manually water the crops.

This worked perfectly for a long time. However, further innovation was applied, and a less labor-intensive method for crop watering was applied. Horse-drawn carts were used to carry more loads of water to the fields. Crop plantations got larger because more water could be dispersed.

As progression continued, farmers realized that they could bring the water to the crops in an even more innovative manner by digging channels for the water to simply run through the fields. Instead of people carrying buckets or loading the horse and cart, they planned the flow of water and dug channels.

As time passed, the concept of water diversion became even more sophisticated, with farmers finding even better mechanisms to direct water. The planning took more time and irrigation experts were required to lay pipes, understand pressure, and equally disperse water.

Even larger fields of crops were planted because of this method of crop maintenance, and more people with many different skill sets needed to be employed to maintain and manage these fields.

The more we learn, the more we innovate, the faster we find smarter ways of making our more manual jobs a lot easier. In the future, there will be even more ingenious methods where farmers can maintain and manage their crops to feed the world.

The fact of AI-managed matter is that innovation is happening whether we like it or not. People will always find ways to do things smarter to save time and avoid manual work.

In this scenario, as time progressed, the people doing the work here: carrying buckets of water, leading a horse-drawn cart, watering crops, digging channels in fields, laying pipes, figuring out the pressure, programming computers to manage the flow of water; they all needed to learn. We aren’t born with the understanding of how to carry a bucket or write code, we learn!

As time progressed, we learned how to innovate.

“Hey, maybe instead of carrying one big bucket, I could carry two medium-sized ones, which actually allows me to carry more water without spilling any.” This has been happening for centuries and, of course, in the digital world as well.

Shift up to digital – the start

digital transformation is a young concept that has morphed rapidly over time. If we dial back the clocks to around 1990, when the first web browser was released, and around 1998, when Google was released to the public, there was a fundamental shift in the way people thought about developing easy-to-use solutions.

There was panic because many people thought that the concept of the World Wide Web search would ultimately take their jobs. Imagine what was going on in the minds of people who collated dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Another interesting example is that of when Excel was first released. There is a fantastic video that Microsoft released in 1990 that shows a few people in an elevator. One chap is holding what appears to be a large doorstop-sized laptop and is prepping his spreadsheet for a business presentation as the elevator reaches the top floor of a building. He seamlessly uses basic drag-and-drop functionality to generate a budget that looks “great.”

You can watch the advert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckr2mLXDw3A.

Fine, I understand the advert is slightly tongue-in-cheek; however, imagine what would have been going through accountants’ minds at this point.

The main thing to understand here is that encyclopedias still exist in hard, soft, and digital copies. People use search every day to help them, and Excel is still the world’s most widely used accountancy tool. All we did was find ways to adapt to the technical changes that were happening.

In fact, 1990 to 2000 was a really important time, so much so that there was a lot of insecurity and fearmongering about job loss and technical revolution. The greatest example of this is the “fear of the clock”. What would happen if clocks ticked over from 1999 to 2000? Would all the computers break? What about our data? Ultimately, we were all fine, the computers didn’t break, and we are still progressing perfectly up the innovation ladder.

Enter digital transformation

In around 1990, a person by the name of Mark McDonald, group vice president at Gartner, coined the term digital transformation. This was incredibly timely considering all the changes taking place in the 1990s. As the clocks ticked over, digital transformation started to solidify itself as one of the most widely used buzz phrases of the 20th century. Hundreds of organizations established digital transformation practices, rightly advising others to transform their operations by moving from manual practices to more streamlined digital processes.

This involved many facets, ranging from movement to cloud-based computing to process optimization and away from file and paper-based processes. The movement was and is huge and has become increasingly important as the era of enablement takes hold, and AI becomes more prominent in organizations.

Over a period of around 15 years, between 2000 and 2015, many solutions were created, a huge number of processes were optimized, and an extraordinary number of organizations understood that keeping up with technical and digital innovation was hugely important to their strategy and their growth, so much so, that the demands on IT became even more excessive. Organizations’ IT teams were and still are not able to keep up with the demands made by the organizations themselves. In a nutshell, the challenges faced far outweighed the number of people who could solve them. This is known as The Great Developer Shortage.

Some organizations had and still have years and years of archaic processes to unpick, papers and files to digitize, and attitudes to change. There just aren’t enough people and organizations around to help with this in such a short time. There are cases where nearly 100 years of history need to be unpicked, and this does not and cannot happen overnight. Cloud-based computing was already a huge cliff to climb, but completely digitizing an organization’s landscape is an entirely new problem to solve. The reason for this is it’s not just about technology; it requires the ability to redesign processes, understand people, and map these processes and people to a set of technologies that best addresses the challenge.

Enter low code

In around 2014, many of the leading research and development organizations started to spot the trend of there being a skills gap and a supply and demand challenge based on the number of organizations needing to transform. It is speculated that Forrester coined the term low codearound 2014.

Essentially, the concept exists where vendors such as Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and many others made changes to their platforms that allowed people to build and extend solutions without needing to write code. Previously to this, if you faced a business challenge and wished to solve it using technology, you could do the following:

Buy an off-the-shelf solutionBuild a solution from scratchExtend these solutions through basic configuration and/or custom development

Now there are hundreds of software development and low-code platforms to speak of which allow people to create solutions rapidly. Figure 1.1 shows a brief summary of some of the platforms available.

Figure 1.1: A collection of low-code platforms

Turnkey solutions

Turnkey solutions, such as out-of-the-box customer relationship management solutions, were a great start but didn’t always fit the organization’s requirements. Not every company in the world is the same. These solutions need to be extended and configured to cater to a specific requirement. Not every business requirement has a turnkey solution. The skills required to build and extend became hugely in demand and hard to find.

The vendors started working more and more on their base products, making them far easier to extend than before. The ability to configure or customize solutions without writing code became more commonplace. Tools such as Dynamics CRM and SalesForce allow field, table view, form, and dashboard configuration without the need to write any complex logic. This allowed many businesses the ability to configure base vendor-based solutions for their needs and ONLY extend through custom code where necessary.

Essentially, the more widely the vendor-based product could be configured without complex logic, the better. In fact, these products became so configurable that the term xRM was coined by several organizations that were delivering configured solutions, with the X representative of the X in algebra, where X could be anything. So, instead of Customer Relationship Management, organizations embraced Anything Relationship Management and, effectively, were extending and configuring their various tool sets a lot more than originally anticipated.

Solutions built from scratch

There are many other low-code development platforms to speak of; however, the most notable are as follows:

MendixOutSystems

Both organizations recognized the need for Rapid Application Development (RAD) based on the lack of development skills in the market, so both focused on providing tools to developers so that software solutions could be created and placed into production at a rapid pace.

Gartner releases a report each year talking about the trends and strategies companies who provide low-code platforms are employing. This report contains a growth indicator called the Gartner Magic Quadrant, which splits the platform providers into four categories: Niche Players, Challengers, Visionaries and Leaders. The Leaders quadrant being the top right and representative of the leading vendors. Both providers are found in the top-right quadrant of the Gartner reports, and both are extremely popular within organizations. It is very common to find a mixture of about three low-code platforms within an organization, and even more common that Mendix or Outsystems will be one of them.

Power Platform

Microsoft Power Platform is a set of low-code tools that enables makers of varying technical skill levels to create useful solutions that answer business challenges of varying complexity. Power Platform is Microsoft’s ever-growing answer to RAD.

Power Platform was not created from the ground up. It was born from the Microsoft cloud and is a combination of various technologies that have been democratized in a manner that makes rapid application development available to anyone willing to learn.

Makers can manipulate, automate, analyze, and visualize data through multiple tools in the platform. As Microsoft evolves, so does Power Platform. There is a constant drive for innovation at Microsoft, and the more innovation takes place, the better the tools in Power Platform become. This makes it much easier to achieve results and reach the desired outcome with fewer clicks. The more instantly gratified we are, the better. Figure 1.2 shows a summary of Power Platform components and how they relate to one another.

Figure 1.2: Summary overview of the Microsoft Power Platform

Often, when looking at the Microsoft Cloud stack, we can identify where various Power Platform products originated from and then have been expanded and grown to work with many of the other areas and products. Figure 1.3 shows how Power Platform components actually have come from existing areas in the Microsoft stack.

Figure 1.3: A summary overview of the Microsoft Cloud and how Power Platform fits in

As an example, Power BI originated from Microsoft Excel and from a product called Power Pivot. Excel had the ability to generate visualizations on top of data for several years. In order to drive a centralization of data into the cloud, this functionality was democratized into a cloud based visualization tool – Power BI.

Dataverse is a democratized data storage and governance facility and acts as the base for many of the Dynamics 365 products. Previously, this layer was known as xRM within the customer and partner community.

Ultimately, Power Platform works within Microsoft’s integrated cloud and product stack, which is one of the main reasons it has such high adoption rates.

The world around us is changing rapidly, and this is evident in the technology trends we have seen in the past and the trends we are currently seeing. We need to learn to change with these trends and to learn. We now understand that there is a huge opportunity for all of us to learn and change the way we do things and start using low code as a mechanism to work faster. We have all been using low-code tools a lot longer than we probably realize. In the past, having the ability to use Microsoft tools such as Office, Azure, and Dynamics 365 has equipped many people with the tools to build useful solutions with Microsoft Power Platform. In the next section, we will take a look at the economic dynamics of digital transformation and how they have influenced various aspects of society.

Understanding economic forces in digital transformation

There are hundreds of economic dynamics of digital transformation and with the introduction of low-code platforms and AI, the drive towards transforming digitally even more quickly has become a real focus across all organizations. Organizations that established a digital transformation strategy early on and actually allocated budgets to changing the way they work are forging ahead of many others and establishing a more dominant position in the market. Organizations that have not seen digital transformation as a priority may suffer from a productivity and growth perspective.

The output is relatively simple; organizations that are digitally equipped will serve their customers faster and more accurately with less need for process and manual work. The classic example is that instead of manually building a document, have your CRM system do it for you and auto-share it with your customer. That may eliminate 30 minutes of work from a specific individual each time. If we took it to the metric of money, how much money do we save by doing X? It is possible to work this out.

But what about my job?

The hyper progression of technology and its place in society can be quite tough to consume because the person building the documents may be at risk as they will be outperformed by the person who understands the CRM system that is making the documents.

This is going to be similar for people using AI. AI will not take someone’s job; the person who understands AI might take someone’s job.

Companies at the forefront of innovation will have more time to transform their ways of working and train their teams to use the tools, be more productive, and quite simply outperform other organizations.

As mentioned in the analogy of the person watering the crops, there will need to be a lot of learning that takes place and, most importantly, space for learning. Organizations will need to assign learning time to people and ensure that there are metrics in place that cater to this. Reskilling and upskilling are important.

Digital inequality

The fact of the matter is that the more the organizations who are in front spend time in front, the worse off it will be for people in other organizations. They will ultimately earn less money, spend more time doing things they don’t want to do, and will feel the effect of digital inequality.

This happens when there is no clear visibility of the future and disengagement at a leadership level from a technology and business perspective. It will lead to things such as Silent Quitting and The Great Resignation, where people ultimately shift gear to move roles to places where they will be more effective and ultimately get paid more.

This mass shift is not good for organizations that are less innovative as they will struggle to hire and provide their services.

Who fixes the machines?

In any scenario where there is innovation, there is not always job loss, but often there is job creation. In a world of innovation, new skills need to be acquired. The analogy of a toothpaste factory comes to mind.

Person X works at the toothpaste factory screwing on toothpaste caps. A machine is implemented to screw on toothpaste caps at double the speed of the humans. The machine breaks. Who fixes the machine?

Well, of course, the human who was screwing on the toothpaste caps understands how the caps need to be screwed on and what the machine needs to do; they just need to learn how the machine works.

The concept is common across society and is a primary focus on the economic dynamics of digital transformation. Growth in transformation requirements across organizations will require new skills, transferable skills, and upskilling.

In the world of low code, we see the likes of bus drivers, windscreen repairers, safety administrators, and pro developers learning how to use Power Platform to upskill and help their businesses by building business solutions to solve problems that previously were managed manually and were not optimized.

The rules

This is a fundamental shift in thinking because there is absolute surety that as the digital landscape changes, so do the rules and laws around the security of data and how we govern this data. Data is the digital footprint of ourselves and our company and processes. If data is disrespected, it can be used for nefarious purposes.

Organizations will need to take a new approach to how security and governance are perceived and, again, think of how to drive their current workforce into a more well-structured compliance machine. This will become far more relevant as AI starts moving into organizations and acts as a loud hailer for terrible data and security. Compliance managers will need to become digital compliance managers. Health and safety managers will now have a significant digital tone to their roles. When laws are made, they will require some level of digital literacy.

Look at the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a law that took effect in around 2018 that legislated how data needs to be treated when any organization is dealing with data from an organization within the European Union.

There was a lot of preparation done by organizations and many organizations employed a Chief Data Officer and a data team to ensure that the rules were respected. This led to an entirely new set of transformative offerings and processes that organizations needed to implement.

It’s the right time all the time

It’s important to understand that, often, innovation and transformation happen to us rather than for us. We are shifting tones now into an era of enablement, where we are far more in control of how we innovate and transform! It is very important to understand that waiting is not an option in this scenario! The waves between changes in the digital world are getting smaller and smaller and more rapidly, so if you are thinking about the right time to do anything, it’s now, so just do it and get on board.

Those that prioritize digital transformation allocate budgets, and establish a strategy will have a competitive advantage. digital transformation allows organizations to serve their customers faster and more accurately, with less manual work. However, those who do not prioritize will suffer from a productivity and growth perspective. The importance of upskilling and reskilling employees to keep up with the digital changes needs to become an area of investment for all companies. Organizations must take a new approach to security and governance and prioritize compliance and digital literacy. We cannot ignore innovation and growth, and this must become a significant area of focus within businesses that want to grow and succeed. In the next section, we will take a look at how Microsoft helps us drive transformation and innovation forward in an inclusive manner.

Leading the low-code market with Microsoft

What has become incredibly clear is that Microsoft has become one of the primary leaders within the low-code space. Typically, they can be seen in the Gartner top-right quadrant with the following:

MendixOutsystemsServiceNowSalesforceAppian

The six leading vendors typically shuffle around a fair amount, depending on their ability to execute the creation and implementation of solutions and their completeness of vision.

There are a few things that make Microsoft a clear leader, but one of the main things that makes Microsoft a front-runner is how Power Platform has been positioned alongside the rest of its products. When many of the Microsoft Cloud products are purchased, such as M365, Dynamics 365, and Azure Services, Power Platform comes as part of the package as a seeded license.

When Dynamics 365 is purchased, it is effectively a collection of complex Power Apps (Model-Driven App), which includes Power Automate Cloud Flows as the workflow and process automation engine.

When an organization purchases Office 365 E5, there are levels of Power Apps and Power Automate that are included with the license, so makers could make Power Apps and Power Automate Flows part of their day-to-day business productivity processes.

There are 1.2 billion users of Microsoft Office around the globe, and that implies there are 1.2 billion Power Apps and Automate users of varying levels. Power Platform products are extremely popular with the Microsoft Office community because they add to the business and personal productivity landscape of products.

Ultimately, in a lot of scenarios, when talking to an organization about Power Platform, the toolset already exists in varying ways and, because of its deep integration within the Microsoft Cloud stack, there is no need to do additional reviews or security analysis as it has already been taken through the relevant process as part of the existing Microsoft products.

This approach does not exist for most of the other low-code vendors because the choice to use the product needs to be a conscious decision, rather than a natural evolution of what’s already in place.

Maker types

Since the inception of RAD across the world, many organizations have adopted varying sets of low-code tools. Some organizations simply keep low-code tools within their IT departments and deliver as a central unit, and others open these tools up to their wider business communities and allow them to build as needed. Power Platform products are extremely broad from a maker (developer) adoption perspective. There is a lot of tools and content for people to adopt, and what is evident is that makers of varying skill levels and from various walks of life have used tools within Power Platform to resolve varying challenges.

In the low-code community, there are typically two types of developers:

Citizen developers: People outside of the IT department making solutionsProfessional developers: People within the IT department making solutions

There are varying levels of agreement regarding the terminology here; however, not all makers (developers) can be treated the same way. Typically, citizen developers require more training and guidance than professional developers when creating a solution.

To drive utilization of the Power Platform, it’s important to understand that not everyone early on in their career as a maker is going to be proficient and, therefore, the tools need to feel familiar and easy to use. However, this is a double-edged sword; the tools also need to allow for highly complex scenarios and extremely experienced professional developers. This is a very tough tightrope to walk as there is a propensity to lean too much on one side and, therefore, lose one very important element of the maker community.

Ease of adoption

In any organization, when exploring new technologies and ultimately adopting them, the adoption process can be relatively complicated. It is important to understand that driving adoption is mostly reliant on people, rather than technology. The manner in which a wider set of people are communicated with and the manner in which knowledge is shared is incredibly important.

Getting started

The tools in Power Platform allow developers of all types to create useful solutions, and the barrier to entry for people who know how to use regular Microsoft Office tools such as Excel and PowerPoint is not high. As an example, the Power Apps Canvas App maker experience is very similar to that of PowerPoint and Excel.

Figure 1.4: Power App Canvas App maker experience

This barrier to entry is similar across the toolset, where makers can easily access the set of tools they require (providing they have the relevant licensing and security access) and start creating useful solutions.

Figure 1.5: Power Automate Cloud Flow maker experience

The Power Automate Cloud Flow designer is incredibly simple to follow and drives a high level of adoption for all maker types.

For those already equipped

For those makers who are already in the know and already understand how areas within the Power Platform function, there are layers they may dig into to start interacting with the platform at a deeper level. Tools such as Visual Studio Code and Power Platform Tools, shown in Figure 1.6, can be used to drive professional development within Power Platform.

Figure 1.6: Visual Studio Code with Power Platform Tools

Tools such as Power Platform Tools for Visual Studio Code may be added and used to dive a lot deeper into the solutions and extend and build more complex layers of functionality, should this be required. As makers progress through their learning, the wider toolset becomes more and more important from an adoption perspective.

Solution sizing

There can be a perception that Power Platform is only for solving simple problems by creating simple solutions. The ultimate response to this is that it is untrue. There are many organizations out there that run extremely important and critical parts of their businesses on Power Platform.

Figure 1.7: Overview of the types of solutions that are regularly created with Power Platform technologies

The fact of the matter is the solution size and type will completely depend on the type of problem the maker is trying to solve. Solutions that are of high criticality often require very stringent rules around data, security, and uptime and, therefore, will be built on very reliable structures such as Dataverse and will therefore come at a different cost to solutions that are not as critical and can be built on top of less governed structures.

Low code does not mean low complexity! The solutions that can and are built using the tools in Power Platform are often intensely complicated and highly integrated.

As an example, the Dynamics 365 Sales, Service, and Marketing suite of products is built on top of Dataverse and is a set of extremely well-thought-out, robust model-driven applications using multiple custom components and plugins. Model-driven apps are digital building blocks of Power Platform.

In review, Power Platform allows makers of varying skill types to build solutions of varying complexity in a secure and robust manner, within a framework that is highly flexible and, often, already approved within an organization. The fact that Power Platform is one of the most widely adopted technologies within the low-code space can be credited to these points.

We’ve taken a look at Microsoft’s dominance in the low-code app and automation development market. Microsoft is one of the leaders in the low-code space and is positioned alongside other leading vendors, such as Mendix, Outsystems, and Salesforce. Power Platform has been positioned alongside its other products, making it a clear leader in the market. Power Platform products are extremely popular with the Microsoft Office community as they add to the business and personal productivity landscape of products. Power Platform allows developers of all types to create useful solutions, and the barrier to entry for people who know how to use regular Microsoft Office tools such as Excel and PowerPoint is not high. It is also highly flexible and often already approved within an organization, making it one of the most widely adopted technologies within the low-code space. In the next section, we will see how Microsoft has super-charged these products with generative AI in the form of AI copilot features.

Revolutionizing low-code development with AI copilot

Over the last few years, it has been necessary to increase the drive for the adoption of low-code platforms due to an increased demand for business productivity solutions. In the last couple of years, Large Language Models (LLMs) have appeared on the scene, especially through companies such as OpenAI and within products such as ChatGPT. LLMs are a subset of AI that perform natural language processing. Essentially, they harness natural language to perform tasks.

Microsoft announced a partnership with OpenAI and has been embedding the LLM functionality into various products, such as Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and, importantly for this area of focus, Power Platform products. These are called copilots. Specific products from Microsoft will have this embedded copilot functionality to enable the creation and extension of solutions using natural language.

This is significant for Power Platform for several reasons; the main one is that it lowers the barrier of entry to creating even lower solutions. People who can simply write in their natural language can now ask the copilot to create an app, automation, or bot in seconds.

A live example

Let’s look at an organization that needs to create a basic vehicle inspection application that is responsive and allows users to undertake swift vehicle inspections that will be used in a report at a later point. To get started, simply ask the Power Apps copilot in natural language to create the app for you.

Figure 1.8: Power Apps copilot user interface

The Power Apps copilot interprets the natural language to generate a data table in Dataverse.

Figure 1.9: Power Apps copilot user interface with data

The data is then reviewed, and a responsive Canvas App can be created directly from this data.

Figure 1.10: Power Apps Canvas App maker experience with copilot

This simple three-step process would normally have taken a maker of mid-level experience around half a day.

What does this mean for Power Platform as a whole?

There are multiple benefits of using the embedded copilot functionality within the Power Platform tools. The level of productivity this drives when creating certain sizes of solutions is amazing. The ability to build and extend solutions using natural language can and will drive a monumental shift in how makers create and manage the things that they make.

As people use the immersive natural language experience in copilot, and as feedback is shared with Microsoft, these tools will only get better and faster. We have seen this pattern already with the current product stack within Power Platform. The products have grown significantly in the last few years, and now that they are supercharged with AI, there is an expectancy that their technical foundations and functionality will skyrocket.