Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

It’s no secret that the world faces a developer shortage. As we become increasingly technology dependant and businesses undergo their digital transformations, the demand for employees with IT qualifications has risen. An Indeed survey has found that 86% of organisations are currently struggling to find the necessary technical talent to build their applications. This talent deficiency has put the business world in quite a pickle.

To adapt to the changing demands of the modern consumer and optimise their internal workflows, we have seen more and more businesses developing their own applications to fit the needs of their organisation and customers. According to Gartner, there is a 5x higher demand for business applications than current IT teams can deliver.

So how are businesses doing this amidst the skill shortage?

The best creations are usually borne to overcome hurdles, and the low code/no code platform emerged from this problem. Understanding the need for non-IT personnel to contribute to the app development process, the low code development platform was created to provide an environment where those with limited to no coding ability can develop application software.

Microsoft Power Apps is one such no code/low code platform catered to help businesses upgrade from their paper processes and step into the digitally enlightened world. With this platform, application development, whether on mobile or the web, has been made much faster and easier.

If you can create a PowerPoint presentation, you’re halfway to creating your own applications. On the Power Apps platform, you can choose from either their pre-configured templates with their model-driven apps and portals or start from scratch with their canvas apps. The process is simple yet highly customisable to fit the requirements of your organisation.

Now comes the part for you to add data sources to your application. What sets Power Apps apart from other low code platforms is the use of its connectors. The platform already has over 275 pre-built data connectors to help you utilise your data from various data sources, whether on-premises or in the cloud and combine them into a single application. Can’t find a connector to fit your data connection needs? Not to worry, the beauty of Power Apps is that it allows you to create custom connectors.

With all that data, you must want to leverage it in some way or form but there is no way that you can utilise AI without knowing how to code, right? Wrong. Power Apps provides a wizard-based interface for you to build and train your model from their current available list of four AI models, namely prediction, form processor, object detector and text classification. In some ways, Power Apps has “democratised” AI.

App development doesn’t end with the deployment of the application; there is always the issue of application life management that comes into play, whether it be managing security or administration. Power Apps has various security, governance, and management features that the creator can control. If administrative duties are too much of a hassle, you can choose to automate your management responsibilities.

The creation of apps by other business personnel is not merely a matter of addressing the lack of IT employees. It is also about the added business value. Front-line business users tend to better know the requirements that an app must fulfil for their use. By shifting the creation of apps onto them, businesses gain applications that work better to solve their business problems. As proof, a Forrester Q1 Digital Process Automation Survey revealed that 69% of organisations that have embraced the low-code platform had done so due to its ability to accelerate digital innovation and transformation.

An industry example of an organisation that has successfully embraced Microsoft Power Apps is Pos Aviation, Malaysia’s licensed ground handler. Pos Aviation was experiencing rapid growth and needed to find a solution to keep up with the demands of coordinating a network of multiple teams across nine international airports. Microsoft Power Apps allowed them to transform how they operated by cutting down the time to report short shipments to airlines from 3 hours to 10 minutes through an app extended from Microsoft Teams. With the help of Power BI, they were also able to speed up their performance report analysis, an integral part of Pos Aviation’s operations. Overall, with these changes, Pos Aviation seeks to elevate the travelling experience.

Did you know that the same Forrester survey found that 37% of businesses still use paper to manage their critical business processes? If your organisation falls into that category, what are you waiting for? Empower your business with app development today. Follow this link to learn more about Microsoft Power Apps: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/.

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