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Posted 04th October 2024
As the corporate world continues to pursue wholesale digital transformation initiatives and AI it can be hard for organisations to know where (or even how) to begin their own journeys towards modern tech-enabled efficiency.
For many, daily operations still run on siloed legacy tools that require significant and high-risk manual intervention. Despite being at odds with contemporary market demands, upgrading these outdated infrastructures can seem too big and disruptive a task to undertake.
In 2015, Microsoft launched Power Apps to address this perception by allowing organisations to create custom applications with low-code development. Able to be used by both professional developers and those with minimal coding experience (or ‘citizen developers’), Microsoft Power Apps democratises internal application development, speeding up the streamlining of processes and fuelling productivity.
In 2024, the research-based global consultancy Forrester released a report detailing the extent of the cost savings and business benefits enabled by Power Apps. Forrester interviewed representatives of companies with proficiency in Power Apps, aggregating the interviewees’ experiences and combining the results into a single composite organisation with 30,000 employees and $10BN in annual revenue.
Over a three year period, the composite organisation experienced benefits of $46.1M versus costs of $15.1M. Put differently, it secured a Net Present Value (NPV) of $31M to produce an astonishing 206% ROI.
By enabling employees to automate workflows, Power Apps allowed professional developers to reduce application development time by 50% and made it possible for citizen developers to contribute to innovation—all while maintaining robust compliance and governance.
In this blog, we take a look at how these results were achieved.
Although Power Apps was already known to deliver significant financial returns through streamlined workflows, the Forrester report used the composite organisation to shed new light on the extent of these returns.
Primarily by automating workflows, Power Apps saved high-impact users an average of 250 hours per year. In percentage terms, that’s around 12% of their time freed up to pursue other more strategic initiatives. By helping employees move away from time-consuming, manual processes, Microsoft Power Apps’ low-code app development streamlines business tasks across separate departments.
For example, employees can easily automate processes, ending the dependency on multiple disconnected and manually driven systems. Mundane, repetitive, and low-value tasks, such as purchase order management, become automatic. As well as improving speed and accuracy, employees are empowered – without IT oversight – to develop other custom solutions suited to their specific needs.
With these efficiency gains spread across multiple roles and teams, both small and large process improvements collectively elevate overall organisational productivity.
Owed to Power Apps’ low-code capabilities, the composite organisation created by Forrester achieved a 50% reduction in application development time. Over the course of three years, these time savings efficiencies amounted to $14.7M.
Developers in the composite organisation stood in contrast to many of those working in contemporary enterprises who are still reliant on traditional high-code development processes that are as time-consuming as they are complex.
Instead, Power Apps enabled the composite organisation’s employees to use pre-built templates, drag-and-drop functionality, and reusable components. In doing so, development time was drastically cut down, contributing to the massive cost savings.
Compliance and governance – two essential components of any successful enterprise – were found to be significantly enhanced, with the composite organisation leveraging Power Apps to address critical concerns like shadow IT, data validation, and access control.
Centralising application development within the IT-approved Power Apps environment allowed the organisation to dramatically reduce the risks associated with unauthorised, unmanaged applications that are known to create vulnerabilities in data security and operational efficiency.
Power Apps provided the composite organisation with a platform across which both professional and citizen developers could build and deploy applications under strict governance policies.
With Microsoft Power Apps’ built-in compliance features, including audit trails and security frameworks, the organisation also ensured that all applications adhered to regulatory requirements and internal policies, boosting security and transparency across departments.
To unleash the maximum potential of Power Apps, organisations need to train as many staff as possible in its usage. The composite organisation created by Forrester expanded its development capabilities by training 200 professional developers and 1,800 citizen developers in Power Apps to democratise the app-building process. With so many non-technical staff able to create custom applications within a controlled environment, a culture of innovation bloomed.
Democratising application development helps organisations to enhance efficiency across multiple teams, with employees at all levels able to contribute to process improvements. And, since all application development takes place within an IT-controlled environment, compliance with data security, governance, and best practices is ensured.
The expansion of citizen development also frees up professional developers to focus on more complex, mission-critical tasks, leaving citizen developers to create straightforward, department-specific apps. With a more balanced approach to application development, innovation occurs at a faster pace, improving employee engagement and ownership of the tools they use daily.
The Forrester study is crucial because the composite organisation it created explicitly demonstrates the financial and operational benefits that can be achieved by adopting Power Apps.
Over three years, it realised the following:
Remember, this composite organisation was not created by Microsoft. Forrester is an entirely separate entity with zero incentive to promote Microsoft services.
For organisations looking to leverage the formidable capacity of modern technology, Microsoft Power Apps offers unmatched scalability and efficiency. It empowers professional and citizen developers alike to create custom applications that drive productivity and innovation within secure and controlled environments.
To learn how you could benefit from Microsoft Power Apps, speak to BCN and our experienced Power Platform team today.
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